Macintosh Mini - (yet another) Maclock conversion project

[wells]

Hi yall,

I was hoping to share during MARCHintosh but sharing now that I finally got things over the finish line.

Similar to others (notably Sideburn and Colin, and others I'm sure), I built my own mini Macintosh using one of those Maclock clocks from AliExpress. I decided to go the route of designing my own custom PCB that replaces the clock completely, and brings brightness control, buttons, sound, and power (both USB-C and battery).

I'm a novice with circuit design, so the implementation is basic and there's certainly a lot of room for improvement. Regardless, I wanted to share my project with you all to hopefully inspire you or help you build your own. I'm not selling the boards or any premade assembled Maclocks, but you can order your own boards from PCBway for a very reasonable price.

I posted a written guide on my GitHub, as well as a full assembly walkthrough video:

On the software side, I wanted to run a more modern Linux kernel and SheepShaver rather than the Mini vMac guides I've seen posted online running on Bullseye. With some doing, I finally got it to run.

If you want to follow the same steps I did, I have my Macintosh Mini SheepShaver install guide, and it includes an automation script that compiles SheepShaver, sets it up to run at boot, and sets up the button/brightness controls, and even a user-selectable boot chime—all in one shot. (Disclaimer: yes, I did use AI to turn my written guide into the automation script. If that's not your jam, the written guide is just as complete... it just takes longer!)


Let me know what you think, and thanks for checking it out.




PS: if there's enough interest, I'd be willing to organize a group buy for the PCBs and passive components on the board.

 

[davewongillies]

Nice! I think I'm going to have to build one of these just so I can run HappyPlusClock on it

 

[RetroViator]

The video showed up in my feed this morning. You did a great job, both with the project and the video. I was impressed with the thoroughness of the documentation. Very professional. I'd be interested in a group buy, if that takes off.

 

[wottle]

Fantastic work. I actually just went through this. I suspect I may have gotten a fake Pi Zero 2 W from Amazon, because I had quite the adventure trying to get it to work. First, I was not able to get the 64-bit version of Pi OS Lite to boot on the machine. I fell back to the 32-bit Lite image. I could get it to install, but I would get file system corruption every time I ran your scripts. I was able to fix the corruption manually on my Mac, but the compiler for Sheepshaver wouldn't work. I tried many different variations, but the best I could get was Sheepshaver to launch, load the ROM, and then crash once MacOS 8 tried to load. Ultimately, and more inline with the compact Mac, I ended up doing my own basilisk II install with a manual compile, and replicating your setup with the auto-launch, buttons, etc.

Really wish they would be able to make enough Pi zero 2 Ws to satisfy demand. A couple of notes for your documentation:

1. You say it in the installer as a warning if you don't have the 64-bit install, but I'd put it in the guide so people know if likely won't work with the 32-bit install.
2. I wasn't paying too much attention, but when I pulled the cable out to the USB charging board, I accidentally pulled the connectors off the wrong end, so when I plugged my connector in, the green and yellow were not connected to the 5v and ground pins. Not a problem, I was able to swap, but it initially gave me a panic when I had it plugged in and put the disk in and got no signs of life.
3. Some instructions for the speaker setup would be nice. I feel like I saw you mention it somewhere but I went back to the video and couldn't find it there or in your written instructions.
4. I see you setup the USB connector on the back. How did you set that up. Dremel out an opening and superglue the cable in place?

Will post photos once I get the speaker in and create an opening for the USB port. Thanks again for doing this. If anyone needs the PCB, the audio board, and caps, I have extras.