Discord Summary — Week of March 20–27, 2026
Summary
#the-lab-software
nulleric shared
MacinAI Local, a project running a 1.1 billion parameter LLM locally on a PowerBook G4 under Mac OS 9 — no internet required. The developer claims it could theoretically run on a Mac Plus with just 2MB of RAM. BicLighterEnthusiast and Tanner discussed the challenges of fitting quantized models into very small memory footprints, with BicLighterEnthusiast noting that existing small-param models break when quantized and you'd need to train custom 2–4M parameter models with QAT. Tanner mentioned having a 6M parameter model trained for generating Bach fugues.
Kai Robinson got Ollama running with Vulkan on an AMD Radeon Vega 8 GPU under Ubuntu 25, achieving 15–20 tokens/sec with llama3.2, and wrote up a
guide on TinkerDifferent which was indexed by Google within an hour.
Stinkerton18 shared Apple's new RDMA over Thunderbolt 5 technical note, enabling low-latency Beowulf-style Mac clusters. nulleric followed up with Jeff Geerling's blog post demonstrating 1.5TB of pooled VRAM across Mac Studios using this feature. saybur and Kai Robinson discussed ROCm vs. Vulkan performance for LLM inference on AMD GPUs.
#the-lab-hardware
FoxSCSI — Open Source Apple II SCSI Card: DosFox's open-source Apple II SCSI card project hit a major milestone — a prototype was built and recognized by an Apple II with only minor bodge wires needed. The
GitHub repo is now public (two-layer, through-hole design using the NCR 5380). seatsafetyswitch and Andy expressed interest in building one; sourcing the NCR 5380 chip was identified as the main challenge.
Vintage PC GPU Advice: New member loganius asked about flashing a Mac Radeon 9000 Pro for use in a Pentium III system. Stinkerton18 and Xodium provided extensive guidance, ultimately recommending a GeForce FX 5200 as the best budget AGP card for a Katmai PIII DOS/Win98 gaming rig — good Mode 7 support, no extra power needed, passive cooling, and still cheap on eBay. They also discussed Coppermine CPU upgrades via Slotket adapters.
PicoZ80: Stinkerton18 shared a Hackaday article about the PicoZ80, a drop-in RP2040-based replacement for the now-discontinued Zilog Z80 CPU.
Floppy Emulator Design: Tashtari announced a new simplified floppy emulator design in the idea phase, using a PIC16F1789 microcontroller paired with a Renesas GreenPAK for logic. The design aimsto support both Mac and Apple II/III without requiring firmware reflashing to switch modes — addressing a common complaint about the Floppy Emu. Discussion touched on the Floppy Emu's CPLD going EOL and GreenPAK chips' FPGA-like reconfigurability.
PowerBook G3 Power Connector: MSDOS622 asked about the unusual 3-band power plug on PowerBook G3s. Mark Benson confirmed it's literally a 3.5mm headphone jack connector, first introduced with the PowerBook Duo, with the outer ring for EMF suppression. Para called it "an unholy abomination."
Schuko vs NEMA Plugs: A tangent about European Schuko outlets vs. American NEMA plugs led to a lively discussion about electrical safety, with bakkus reporting frequent shocks after moving back to the US, and Androda pointing out that most US outlets are installed upside-down (ground pin should be on top).
#vintage-apple
Mac Restorations: Farsonic documented an extensive SE restoration — cracking open an Astec PSU (with original Rifa caps), retrobright sessions on the case, deep-cleaning a filthy Alps keyboard (PBT keycaps don't yellow, only ABS does, per Cassette-Chan), and building up an SE Reloaded board with components salvaged from a battery/cap-bombed donor. The GLU chip extraction was particularly harrowing due to concrete-like solder and ground planes.
techknight rescued a barn-find Mac Plus from VCF Midwest — dusty, yellowed but with a pristine Apple logo. After recap, it exhibited glitchy video from a forgotten capacitor, but was brought back to working order.
SE/30 Troubleshooting: Loafin recapped an SE/30 but lost all video output. Bolle diagnosed it as likely sitting in reset due to low voltage — the PSU measured 5.3V with no load but needs at least 4.8V under load on the logic board. The recommendation: build a short PSU extension cable to test with load and adjust the voltage pot.
Blackout SE/30 Build: jonschwenn showed progress on a "blackout" SE/30 build using a Reloaded board (donor swap done by Caymac), clear MacEffects case, and zigzagjoe's internal color LCD retrofit kit.
LC475 Overclocking: killvore got all four of his LC475s upgraded with full-fat 68040s, heatsinks, and overclocked to 33MHz. Running System 7.1, they're "so snappy." Discussion expanded into a hypothetical "6100 Reloaded in LC form factor" brainstorm, with killvore providing measurements showing the LC case has about 2/3 the board area of a PM6100. Kai Robinson mentioned having 100 brand new PPC601 CPUs. Bolle shared progress on a 6100 Reloaded schematic.
PowerBook G3 Variants: Extended discussion about Wallstreet vs. Lombard vs. Pismo differences — old world vs new world ROM, port changes, chipset differences, and identification tips. Sharpie shared advice on power adapters, recommending the small black M4402 brick as the most reliable option, warning against the grey brick (needs recap) and puck chargers (fail at the connector). MSDOS622 lamented the high cost of vintage Apple power adapters.
"Crusty" the SE: The infamous "Crusty" SE (deliberately buried and dunked in a creek) sparked debate. DosFox fell out with someone over it; opinions ranged from "proof SEs are incredibly durable" to "willful destruction." Oelmuvun noted the machine was already battery-bombed before the stunts.
killvore asked about imaging EMU-formatted SCSI Zip disks on vintage Macs. Suggestions included using dd under Linux/OS X on a beige G3, or a gloriously janky BlueSCSI initiator mode chain.
68kMLA Down: 68kMLA has been unreachable for several days. Kai Robinson confirmed it's a hosting issue. Xodium noted that people have repeatedly offered to help and been refused.
#self-promotion
Ron's Computer Videos had a busy MARCHintosh: a survey video on the "ugliest Mac ever" (verdict: Molars are ugly, original Mac is cool), an Apple User Group VHS from July 1991, coverage of Maniac Mansion's obscure Mac port, an interview with Apple engineer Jimmy Mensch, and the CATMAC — a 3D-printed vintage Mac that never existed. Xodium posted a Macintosh IIsi power supply teardown video (PSA: get the PSU out, not just the battery). seatsafetyswitch published part 5 of a DIY ColecoVision clone series. mmu_man streamed OpenSCAD modeling of a Mac Portable battery plate.
#vintage-programming
1Bit Fever Dreams hit a major milestone on a classic Mac music application — real-time note shading working with mouse, regular keyboard, and MIDI keyboard input, implemented as a custom CDEF control resource. Source code release planned soon.
#the-lab-networking
twvd posted a MacTCP Ping mystery — only one echo shows as successful despite multiple replies visible on the wire. No resolution yet.
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