Macintosh Classic II in a box

[davewongillies]

About 10 years ago or more (I think) I bought a Macintosh Classic II off Ebay and it was mostly in storage (and not really working when I tried powering it on) until about 2 years ago when I pulled the logic board out with the intention of recapping the board (the case is in storage in another country). This weekend after finally all the bits I needed I embarked on recapping since it was starting to smell fishy. Recapping went pretty well except for ripping off the pad of one capacitor. There does appear to be some corrosion on the board but everything seems to be working barring audio output from the headphone jack (I'm not really sure if that's due to corrosion or something else. It just doesn't show up at all in Mac OS).

After the recap job I assembled everything to make myself a Macintosh Classic II in a box (for want of a better, catchier name). The components I used were:

• RGBtoHDMI with TTL board from Meesse on Sellmyretro
• ATX4VC from dekuNukem on Tindie
• BMOW ADB-USB Wombat
• External 25-pin BlueSCSI v2 from Androda
• Hammond RM2095M Case

Big thanks to @Mu0n's thread "My little guide on RGBTOHDMI installed on Classic, Plus, etc", it was incredibly useful on getting the RGBtoHDMI side of things going with this little unit. I can't remember where I read it but I ended up only needing the 5V rail from the ATX4VC to power the whole thing (I'm assuming the 12V/-12V rails are usually for the CRT monitor?). Also soldered a switch to the ATX4VC and have it as a power on button on the back of the unit.

For video out I've got it outputting to an old iPad 2 with a LCD encoder I got from Aliexpress. The 1024x768 resolution of the iPad 2 screen makes for an almost perfect 2x integer scale from the Macintosh Classic II's 512x384, so output looks super crisp.

Now that its mostly finished up I've got a couple of small tasks to wrap it all up:

• The external sound output doesn't seem to work, need to figure out what's going on there
• Add an internal speaker (have one on order from MacEffects)
• Add a power LED to the front of the case
• Upgrade the RAM to the system's 10MB maximum
• 3D print a backplate that hasn't been hacked by my flush cutters
• Get some sort of logo and maybe Macintosh Classic II lettering on the front

 

[Trash80toG4]

Very cool! If you have any more LCs to work on it might be nice to move this completed one to the likes of the custom, clear LCIII case BMOW did some time back. Discussion's somewhere at the MLA, most likely with dead pic links.


Could be fun to look up? IIRC files for his PONOCO laser cut box are available?

 

[davewongillies]

Very cool! If you have any more LCs to work on it might be nice to move this completed one to the likes of the custom, clear LCIII case BMOW did some time back. Discussion's somewhere at the MLA, most likely with dead pic links.


Could be fun to look up? IIRC files for his PONOCO laser cut box are available?

Thanks for the tip that does sound interesting. I managed to find a blog post from BMOW about the case.

I'll add it to my ideas board along with this 3D model for a HD20 from PotatoFi that I was thinking of adapting.

 

[Trash80toG4]

Glad you like the notion, there are all kinds of new goodies available for an updated version.

I've got a cardboard prototype I made for him in the design process, suggesting integrated feets™ Really more like leg extension additions to faceplate/backplane components to turn it into a tower. I'll try to post a pic if you're interested?

If you or anyone else might have four or more LC boards to re-case I'll dig up the ancient BrickOven™ concept from the early days of the MLA. There were finagle only knows how many LCs headed for the scrap heap down under in the backwhen. I came up with a modular, cluster tower of the Logic Boards, which could have been shipped to the US at a reasonable cost then. May be worth a re-visit now that the PCB cost for the I/O adapter boards would be minimal. Base unit had shared PSU, HDD, FDD and peripherals set up on A-B-C-D . . . KVM+ base unit. More and more cases have begun crumbling into the dustbin of history.

edit/back on topic: Your setup is so much like the Hackintosh/CatMac projects for Compact boards back in the day. Very cool indeed!

 

[-SE40-]

Quite a few options to choose from….

laptoplike:
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/a-classic-ii-lc-iii-laptop-book.1476/

or convert it back to a classic 2 again using the SE40 frame and some modifications :

https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/a-takky-mac.1363/

the commercial available transparant SE30 case should fit….or create one yourself