The Macintosh Minus - pi-powered mini Mac Plus clone with 5" CRT display

[vorg]

Yeah. A Macintosh projector! Is it bright? What will the lumens rating be? Can the screen size go REALLLLYYYYYY BIIIIGGG to about 100 inches on the wall?

Imagine a small projector crammed in a SE/30, and you arrive at a party. You pull the SE/30 from the Mac bag with gawkers looking. Then you turn it on and flip the projector switch. Suddenly, the gawker's mouths drop further wider and down as they see the late 1980's Macintosh pop up on the wall.

The lumen rating is 75; which is probably why they sold poorly. But its 75 lumens from a laser; so the apparent brightness is way greater. Not incredible, but on par with most pico projectors. At 5 inches, it's usably bright in the day. In full darkness, I project to about 120 inches on my wall, but at 720p, that's usually not worth it. Pixel size gets huge.

Apple Mouse for scale haha

Here it is at about 80 inches on a projector screen. I love the scanlines.

 

[retr01]

At 5 inches, it's usably bright in the day. In full darkness, I project to about 120 inches on my wall, but at 720p, that's usually not worth it. Pixel size gets huge.

Yep, the bigger, the pixels get noticeable. But, hey, it's retro, right?

 

[vorg]

Yep, the bigger, the pixels get noticeable. But, hey, it's retro, right?

You bet. Took me a while to find them, but I added some pics of it at 80 inches; showing off the scanlines

It's pretty crap for text; but 2x scaling the Mac OS would look alright. It's perfect for video. We've projected onto rocks while doing an overnight backpack once filled with a lot of beer.

 

[retr01]

Ha. There is one other thing, 1-bit videos. Imagine watching movies and shows in 1-bit with the compact Mac's built-in projector that has video via TTL. I did some checking and did not find much about the conversion process. This thing is tangential. I just thought watching 1-bit videos with the B/W projector would be cool.

Hey @Mu0n! 1-bit videos with @vorg's projector built into the Mac?

Source: 1 Bit Video on Sharp Memory LCD

 

[vorg]

Small update; I was a bit discouraged after the new pi arrived because I couldn't seem to get a composite signal into the TV without noise from what I assume is the TV tuner. Other sources have a strong enough signal that there is no noise, so long as I have a dummy plug in the RCA jack to turn off the tuner video. But the pi didn't. I thought I may need to get an amp from the pi zero to the tv, but turns out the official documentation on the new pi was wrong and what I thought was TV out was ground, and what I thought was ground is a mystery pin. Fixed that and now the signal is nice and sharp!

BUT, for some reason I can only get it to display the startup screens through composite. Not sure why yet. VNC works and I have Tetris installed on the Mini vMac emulator, so I want to show some Mac Minus gaming, but can't yet. Not as fun on an LCD.

 

[vorg]

Case v2 done printing:

 

[retr01]

Nice silver screwdriver!

Cool! Sand, sand, and sand, then paint it? Apple's six colors?

 

[vorg]

I think I have to try to match the Platinum of Apple computers, no?

first coat of primer done:

lots of filling ahead

 

[vorg]

Failed print on the keyboard, but it works for some test fitting.

 

[retr01]

A work of art, @vorg! Where's the paintbrush and color plate? Your beige Mac Minus is exciting. I am looking forward to the outcome. You can do it, @vorg!

Can you take the keyboard out of its black case and put it in a replacement 3D-printed case?

What are the brass thingies on the right side?

 

[vorg]

There's a paintbrush in one of those photos! But only because I was thinking of using the end of it as a cast mold sprue for another project

The brass things are some kind of coolant channels from an old gas laser's cooler my friend and I took apart about 15 years ago. I kept them because I thought they would be useful for their weight and uniform size. 15 years of usefulness for anything from holding down wrapping paper to bending PVC pipes with.

 

[vorg]

Inspiration found while looking at Vectrex stuff:

 

[retr01]

Hey @vorg! Did you crash the car in the game? What is the name of that game on the Vectrex - ahem, Vecintosh Plus!

Oh! How did you do the joystick and mouse combo? Is it a one-button mouse? This creation of Vecapple probably should become another thread.

Edit: I know you found this on Twitter. Do you have a Vectrex?

 

[vorg]

Hey @vorg! Did you crash the car in the game? What is the name of that game on the Vectrex - ahem, Vecintosh Plus!

Oh! How did you do the joystick and mouse combo? Is it a one-button mouse? This creation of Vecapple probably should become another thread.

Edit: I know you found this on Twitter. Do you have a Vectrex?

Not mine!

I'm quite interested in the Vectrex, but they are out of my price range. I've seen videos of people converting NTSC TVs to vector displays (seems like vector is theoretically simpler) and I was curious how large the Vectrex is compared to a Mac. They both have 9 inch displays but I wanted to see a comparison.

Google Images > "Vectrex and Macintosh Plus" and this was one of the very few images that appeared. I'm assuming it's photoshop, but it's really a great idea, especially with how they did the controllers.

Anyway, the Vectrex is as big as a Mac; just rotated 90 degrees; and since I seem to have blown the video input on my original "Mac Minus" tv, turning it into a vector monitor and making a mini vector Vectrex could be a cool next project.

I've been a bit busy trying to find a new job lately; but the stars aligned and that is over and done with, so I'm hoping I can get more work done on the Mac Minus. I remade the keyboard design and am just waiting on new print nozzles. I haven't started the mouse design yet; mainly because it just doesn't seem worth it until I can start printing some test fits. But the keyboard prints I did get have given me confidence on that end. You can see in the image of it above that I just need to adjust the bezel 5mm; and what you can't see is that an internal cavity needed a 3mm expansion. I also expanded it 1mm in the perpendicular direction just in case.

EDIT: Retro, I think the game is "Hyperchase".

 

[retr01]

Yep. Hyperchase is the game.

 

[vorg]

The ridiculous USB-C port in the original keyboard port is gonna work:

 

[vorg]

Finally got my printer working with a new nozzle. First time using a .6mm but I have to say, I can't tell any reduction in surface quality and I love the time savings. Bottom part of the mouse only took 90 minutes. Top should be done in another 90. Hopefully I can get the buttons working properly after that, but I may need to order that online from an sls printer.

The mouse will probably be the largest by ratio to the original:

 

[vorg]

Been a minute everyone, sorry for that. I got a new job and moved. I also had to spend major time repairing my 3d printer once I moved it here as well. It's back in action and I am eager to keep working on the Mac Minus. I started remodeling the Minus from the beginning, mainly so it can more easily accommodate a variety of 5 inch TV analog boards.

The new case gains some more original screw holes; and the new frame has been modified to attach to these points. What we lose is proportional accuracy. The V2 was as scaled as I could make it. Many nights with calibers and luck with the TV board. The new case sacrifices this for "looking proportional" while actually fitting the most common cheap TVs.

Here is a size comparison for the new version: