MARCHintosh 2026 Projects

[🌈NiziMac]

Hahaha! I didnt even notice it was crossing out what was the big apple! hilarious.
my first one had the exact same stickers as yours... two options..

I think I am FINALLY done with this project (yeah right) and I just made a short video and posted a new thread here with links to the video and some new photos: https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/micro-mac-plus-macclock-hackintosh-with-all-the-balls-and-whistles.5170/#post-45567

I will eventually make a build video and maybe do a GitHub. I made a lot of changes over the last day to the startup scrips so it is very polished now. I also added an AtTiny that connects to the piece speaker and plays a tune when you plop a disk in. Initially i did this because you needed some "signs of life" because the screen was black for so long. I had it also play a little 2 tone "im busy" jingle every couple seconds until the screen came up with the mouse cursor. But after i added bluetooth, that board plays a chime when it connects so there really was no more need for any sounds. I left the disk drop sound in there though.

yes I can you you the STL'S etc.

Sorry for the late reply! I’ve been busy and haven’t had time to watch the video yet. I’ll watch it and get back to you, so please hang tight!”

 

[🌈NiziMac]

Hahaha! I didnt even notice it was crossing out what was the big apple! hilarious.
my first one had the exact same stickers as yours... two options..

I think I am FINALLY done with this project (yeah right) and I just made a short video and posted a new thread here with links to the video and some new photos: https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/micro-mac-plus-macclock-hackintosh-with-all-the-balls-and-whistles.5170/#post-45567

I will eventually make a build video and maybe do a GitHub. I made a lot of changes over the last day to the startup scrips so it is very polished now. I also added an AtTiny that connects to the piece speaker and plays a tune when you plop a disk in. Initially i did this because you needed some "signs of life" because the screen was black for so long. I had it also play a little 2 tone "im busy" jingle every couple seconds until the screen came up with the mouse cursor. But after i added bluetooth, that board plays a chime when it connects so there really was no more need for any sounds. I left the disk drop sound in there though.

yes I can you you the STL'S etc.

Haha that video was awesome. I love all the little details you added.

By the way — what was that robot voice?? Are you actually making the MacClock talk? It totally sounded like Speak & Spell or Kraftwerk style speech synth. I love that stuff.

And when it said something like “…Dave” and then “stupid” during shutdown — that was such a cool touch. That’s a HAL9000 reference right?

Honestly this feels like way more than just an emulator. You really went all in on the details and it shows — there’s a lot of love in this build.

Also thanks for offering the STL files, that’s incredibly generous. I’d love to see them. Did you design the internal mounts yourself?

If you're cool with it, can you DM them to me?

 

[Sideburn]

Haha that video was awesome. I love all the little details you added.

By the way — what was that robot voice?? Are you actually making the MacClock talk? It totally sounded like Speak & Spell or Kraftwerk style speech synth. I love that stuff.

And when it said something like “…Dave” and then “stupid” during shutdown — that was such a cool touch. That’s a HAL9000 reference right?

Honestly this feels like way more than just an emulator. You really went all in on the details and it shows — there’s a lot of love in this build.

Also thanks for offering the STL files, that’s incredibly generous. I’d love to see them. Did you design the internal mounts yourself?

If you're cool with it, can you DM them to me?

That’s the Talking Moose. Uses MacinTalk. You can get it on Macintosh garden or Macintosh repository. It’s a control panel. I had it on my Mac’s back in the 80s. Another good one is the Oscar’s the grouch one that pops out of the trash can when you empty the trash.

yes I designed everything they are very simple little parts. That hard part was all the measuring to get everything aligned right.

theres really two ways to go about aligning the LCD. One is to actually get the screen area aligned to the opening physically. This would involve cutting the plastic up and centering the lcd.

i didnt do it that way. On mine i drop it in and shift it as far as i can and then in software i move the mac screen offset over and scale it until its centered with the margins.

did you see the late night last minute mod I did to the floppy disk sound? Hilarious.
I swear the code so instead of the musical tones it now sounds like a motor (or as close as I could get it to with pwm haha).

 

[Trash80toG4]

Back from the beach and dropped the grlf off at the airport. Took a day off to crash and went a bit nuts with the grinder and wet tile saw today.

Looking a bit better, but what crazy metal removal required. Remember, this friggin' tanks' rear armor plate is 14 Gauge/1.5mm thick!

Hogged out the slot section with the grinder. had to lower the assembly alongside the rip fence of the wet tile saw to begin the cut as there wasn't enough width for the diamond blade. It's set at a fixed height on a tile saw. Not as "bad" as lowering the entire plate across the punched in slot cover sockets, but still fun!

Got the top of the cutout done with full length support across the rip fence and then completed the bottom slot.







Pic from update #1 for comparison:

 

[europlus]

Hahaha! I didnt even notice it was crossing out what was the big apple! hilarious.

Oh, I can now sleep easy at night knowing the answer to the mystery of the big six colour cross

Gonna print my own, too

 

[Sideburn]

I’m STILL messing with this thing. I came up with a way to programmatically mute the bluetooth module and “hide” chimes it makes when connecting / disconnecting and I added more floppy disk sounds. It’s almost just like a real mac now!

In the photos you can see the 2222 transistor connected to a pin on the BT audio amp chip and blue wire goes back to the ATTiny. Another blue wire goes from gpio pin on the pi to the ATTiny. The ATTiny can then trigger the transistor and pull the pin low on the amp and mute the sound during startup and shutdown. No more Bluetooth alert chimes

 

[europlus]

Apple Internet Router Administrator’s Guide—Addendum (Second Edition) – RFI

Hello everyone, it’s time to turn my attention to updating the Addendum to the AIR manual I released last year (along with the scanned and OCRed original manual).

This is a GlobalTalk-specific “request for input” on modifications and additions people might like to see, pretty well in line with the sections already present. Please DM me here with suggestions.

I’ll then work on what I can include and release near the end of the month.

Alongside this work, I’ll be releasing some updates to my emulation-based setup files (disk images can be used on real hardware).

These will remain 7.1-focussed (there are 7.6 images elsewhere).

Currently all these files are on Google Drive, but in parallel to the release of the next edition of the Addendum and setup files, they will all move to my (Unofficial) GlobalTalk Wiki (feel free to sign up for a sub-wiki there if you run a GlobalTalk node/network/zone – it works via http in Classical, too).

There’s been lots of exciting changes and announcements since last year (including my Wiki!), so I’m really looking forward to documenting the continued development of GlobalTalk, which doesn’t stop on 31 March each year.

Hope you’re all having fun on the network!

Sean

 

[eric]

This is a pretty interesting use of an LLM on a G4 (and maybe even Mac Plus?!)

I Put Modern LLMs on a 2002 Macintosh - No Internet Required

Old Apple Stuff | Blog | MacinAI Local: Building a Model-Agnostic LLM Inference Engine for Mac OS 9

How I built a complete AI platform (custom C89 inference engine, BPE tokenizer, AltiVec SIMD optimization, and a Python export pipeline) that runs GPT-2, TinyLlama, Qwen, and any HuggingFace model on a 2002 PowerBook G4.

oldapplestuff.com

On a hypothetical Mac Plus: AltiVec OFF, FPU OFF (SANE), 2MB arena, single-layer paging, 64-token KV cache, Tiny model only.

 

[jeffburg]

I posted in the Software Development section, but I thought I would cross-post here, this is my little #MARCHintosh project:

Altivec Intelligence is a containerized cross-compile environment that is built for retro tech-enthusiasts that want to build software for their retro Mac and iOS device. It builds Mac apps that run on all Macs with 10.4 Tiger and up including PowerPC, Intel, and Apple Silicon Macs. The iPhone toolchain can build apps that run on iPhone 3GS with iOS 4.3 and later.
Why include AI? Building apps that target these old platforms requires using old Objective-C that does not have the syntactic sugar provided by Objective-C 2.0 or Swift. So the AI will help with that by ensuring you are only using old APIs, helping you solve warnings, and typing out the very verbose Objective-C with no Properties, Automatic Reference Counting, or Block Syntax.
In the end, I think everyone that is a fan of retro Macs has an app idea or two that would make their old Mac more useful to them. But because of lack of time or lack of desire to program old-school Objective-C, they have never gotten around to building it. I hope that Altivec Intelligence will empower this niche community to make our favorite retro-tech more useful in the modern world.

 

[Trash80toG4]

Finally got the backplane ports section of the 9500 donor case (shattered plasticitus syndrome) fit snugly into the slot I cut into the Netra's armor plate in the update above.

Took a bit of doing. Shim on 1x4 scrap and liberal application of hot glue to jig and panel squared up the slightly off top edge. Then I was able to use that edge to rip the bottom edge to square up/correct fit for slot. Cutting would have been easier on the bandsaw, but I think I got a cleaner edge with the wet tile saw, crappy rip fence notwithstanding.

Mark I eyeball measurements of fitment are lookin' very good. Height is right on for audio jacks, but I'll need to shim the other side's and center standoffs to bring the SCSI port into alignment. Once all is hunky dory for the 4U 6500 effort I get to play the same games putting new standoffs for the PEx board.

Technical observations:

Loving the lack of onboard video on the 9500 with that knockout to cover the port for it. Makes it just perfect for this Batch A EVTA PEx/PowerMac6700 ProtoBoard which lacks the onboard video subsystem. Wondering if they'd intended to use that godforsaken crumblecase for the 9600 given that knockout.

Gotta fab a "knockout" for the AAIU port opening though. They dropped AAUI from 9500/9600 and going straight up 10bT only at long last!

Idiots at the Infinite Loopiness should have dropped the long obsolete DA-15 video connector and gone straight up HD-15 VGA, but noooooo!

PEx FINALLY moved from Fast/Narrow secondary internal only SCSI bus to UltraSCSI, both inside and out! Connector's different and may need a tad more clearance for the cable retaining "earclip" on that side next to the AAUI hole. Looking forward to seeing what a pair of my 2.5" Savio UltraSCSI server drives will sound like through the filter behind the grated drop-door front of the case.

Don't recall ever reading about that SCSI upgrade anywhere online, just noticed it. Beige G3 moved to Fast/Wide SCSI via PCI Card, so UltraSCSI would be dependent upon card installed?

Two ATA Bus connectors is a nice touch.





edit: I'll try to get a higher resolution/clearer pic of the board to swap into this post.

 

[BobDaAggie]

So this is my first #Marchintosh since I get into vintage Macs.
I made my first ever YouTube video of me trying to clean the rust of an SE/30 case and it doesn’t fully go according to plan