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Build a Macintosh From Scratch
Posted by
pudge
on Sun Sep 15, 2002 03:36 PM
from the more-diy dept.
from the more-diy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MacOpz has posted a great step-by-step tutorial on building your own G4-based Macintosh from scratch. This article includes where to get parts, what modifications must be performed, and tons of photographs. A must-read for anyone that wants a Mac but doesn't want to pay Apple prices."
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wow, interesing (Score:1)
Price... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh and of course you also have to purchase MacOS.
Re:Price... (Score:4, Informative)
Man oh man.
In the old days
OK, children, gather round for today's bowl of clue.
First of all, if you're gonna talk Apple mods, then start at applefritter [applefritter.com]. They've built Macs into everything from 1930's radios to LEGO people to ziplock bags.
Next, (I can't believe that I'm doing this twice in one day!), let's get the vendors and refs out of the way:
Mac of All Trades [macofalltrades.com] Getcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.
MacResq [macreq.com] The best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.
Powermax [www.powermax.com] Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.
Shreve [shrevesystems.com] Expensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.
Small Dog [smalldog.com] Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.
Guide to Mac CPUs [apple.com]This is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.
Focus of Mac Hardware [miningco.com] good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.
Missoula Mac User Group [missoulamac.com], Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.
ResExcellence [resexcellence.com] In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.
Think Secret [thinksecret.com] The only rumor site I like that I forgot to mention yesterday.
/.,
Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on. Probably also a Zip, for which I will pity you as that model of Zip just LOVED to come down with the Click o' Death. Even if you flat throw out all the electronics you're still way ahead of starting from a place like Tom's.
Next, processor speed. When will those yahoos figure it out? Before you get obsessed with latest and greatest ask yourself, "what exactly will I be DOING with this machine?" If you're running stuff like BBEdit (ah, my one true love!) or Photoshop for still work then any 400MHz box with fast drives and plenty of RAM will be, for all intents and purposes, instantanteous. Buying anything faster just means that you're acting like the small-donged dimwits who buy $20K stereos to get fidelity five times better then they can hear.
Drives. I'm always amazed at how terrified Windoze-damaged (let alone *nix) folks are at the thought of external drives. Get over it, already. On a Mac all that driver clash claptrap is a distant and not very credible folktale. Get a basic little 6 Gig internal and invest your money in external Firewire devices. You think this LAN party stuff is cool? On a Mac pretty much any well configured boot drive will boot any similar recent Mac. Stop carrying your entire box with you; stick to drives. Even better, get two or three smaller ones instead of one big one and, short of FBI seizures and vast fires, you become crash proof. Mac dies? Plug your drive (you did remember to back up your core data, right?) into another Mac and you're up and running again in minutes.
The future. If you're such an almighty techie that you just *need* to build a new cooler world every year or so, then remember, Mach kernel plus gigabit ethernet equals mongo shared resources. Even if you're too lazy to set up a formal Beowolf system, it's pretty damned easy to just keep adding machines and splitting the jobs between them. Instead of buying a whole new box, maybe you should just buy a second one and start spreading load to it.
OSes. Yup. No question, Jaguar is pretty spiffy. But almost every vendor site above (as well as eBay and co.) will sell you older legit disks and serial num.s for about fifty bucks. If you buy from a place like Small Dog you'll even be clearing out some of that famed Apple back inventory.
That's it. You want more? Then go to my site [reedandwright.com] already (though best to wait a few weeks for my next redesign). Want more then that? Then pay me and I'll think about it.
Promising to not ever again use up time posting tutorials on
Rustin
If only apple would support this. (Score:1)
The Last Thing Apple Wants To Do (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Last Thing Apple Wants To Do (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you are correct that Apple is a hardware company, but that is not the reason for them not using x86.
Woz himself said that he chose a Motorola clone chip for the Apple ][ because it was the cheapest CPU available at the time. Later, the Motorolla 68k was chosen for the original Macintosh for reasons of cost, performance (at the time), power efficiency, and familiarity (among Apple engineers). The PPC was developped jointly by Apple, IBM, and Motorola and it was easy to build in a compatability layer to the MacOS for running stuff from the old 680x0 chips. The G3 was branched off the very efficient PPC 603 line, and the G4 is essentially a G3 with Motorola's AltiVec system added to enhance vector performance.
If Jobs had a time machine, he very well might want to go back and tell himself to insist on a CPU that handles x86 instructions. There have been a few shining moments when the PPC platform was the fastest chip for home use around, but most of the time that has not been the case.
On the other hand, IBM went the x86 route (and an outsourced OS), and the results were disasterous for their PC division. Once Compaq reverse-engineered their ROM's, the game was over. Everybdoy was buying "IBM Compatable" computers, and no matter how good OS/2 became, there was nothing IBM could do to change the trend.
So, I agree that making the move now would be a bad idea. If Apple were to move to x86, things would be fine as long as they didn't become more than 10% or so of the market. The moment they became a bigger player than that, somebody would consider it worth their while to clone them the way Compaq cloned IBM, and Apple would change from being Dell's strongest rival to just being a very tiny Microsoft, except without an Office suite for income, almost overnight. In other words, it could kill Apple.
Re:If only apple would support this. (Score:4, Informative)
Then just buy OSX and use XPostFacto [macsales.com], which allows you to run OSX on unsupported macs. Now you have a Mac that allows you to fiddle with OSX for under $150.
Because we all know (Score:2)
Really.. I swear..
This is from a thread on Arstechnica... (Score:5, Informative)
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=t
Commercial application of this? (Score:1)
How To Make An Apple (Score:4, Funny)
Plant apple seed in ground.
Add water and fertilizer at regular intervals.
Remove weeds at regular intervals.
Eventually, you'll have an Apple.
EULA violation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:EULA violation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:EULA violation (Score:4, Insightful)
They certainly are not in Norway. If you buy a copy of MacOS X you can do whatever you want with it as long as you do not distribute it. This is also how it should be. After buying a product it just opposes all common sense of right and wrong to not be able to use the product as you see fit. Wether that is destroying it publically, running it on your elite G4-based toaster or just putting it in the refrigerator.
Why? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
I hate to have to be the one to break this news to you, but if you're buying a fiat, parts are all you're getting.
Fun to read, but impractical (Score:5, Insightful)
Add the time to build eating into billable hours, and it would come out as an expensive proposition.
There are lots of reasons to build a machine yourself- better control over the parts, getting a custom config that you can't easily buy, and saving money. I wager that most people's reason to buy a Mac- it works, out of the box, to make us money- is not really compatible with those ideals.
I do agree with one sentiment addressed in the story, and that's avoiding the outlandish prices Apple charges for standard parts such as RAM and hard disks. Most savvy Mac users buy base configs and then load up the RAM and HD's via cheaper, third party suppliers.
NOT from scratch. (Score:2, Troll)
Neat!! (Score:1)
Wow! This is great! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a great deal to me. At least I won't have to spend time on the phone with tech support, since there won't be any.
Did this over summer (Score:1)
Reminds me of that old saying... (Score:2, Funny)
Glad to see someone is extending this brilliant principle to the Mac world.
What about the case? (Score:3, Funny)
Why not a clone? (Score:5, Informative)
Another reason not doing it is because of the look (Score:2, Insightful)
case mod not 'building a g4' (Score:5, Insightful)
this is a glorified case-mod project for a specific end use, not 'building a g4 from scratch'.
cheaper education systems (Score:4, Interesting)
Not wanting to pay Apple prices (Score:4, Insightful)
Ouch, given that an Athlon XP 2000+ can be had for under $100, it sounds like you're still paying Apple prices.
Intel chip on logic board? (Score:3, Insightful)
"from scratch" - get real (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if he'd started from some non-Apple PPC motherboard, that would be more impressive.
who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if they had used some generic PowerPC motherboard and got it to boot OS X, that would be news. This isn't.
Drilling board - BAD IDEA (Score:2)
And uh - not to troll, but where does the "cool" part come in? From what I see, he eBayed for parts, spent more than you would've direct from Apple, and loaded it in an ATX case. Uh, yay?
--pi
I'd rather see (Score:1)
G4/400 home-built is a rip-off (Score:1)
This makes it more expensive to build your own, crappier version of a system that isn't that expensive to begin with. Unless you are a whiny Linux apologist.
Whew, watch this get modded to 0 in the blink of an eye!
ATX power supply? (Score:1)
anyone seen any instructions for this?
And why hasn't anyone linked to my (Score:4, Funny)
NOT a build.... (Score:1)
What next? A Mac logic board in a Mac case? (Score:5, Funny)
How long before someone takes a G4 Mac, removes the logic board from it, puts it back, and put up detailed step-by-step photos on a Web site showing what he or she has accomplished?
The return of Hackintosh (Score:1)
No Kidding? Department (Score:2)
Here's what I would love Apple to do: (Score:1)
- it could use a standard ATX power supply
- USB fits in the USB spot, Firewire goes in the serial spot and sound fits sound or include a custom back plate
- have a AMR style modem and Network card
- sell at a fairly low cost with a bit of a premium, like say $300-$400 with CPU
This is something I would definately doPrice and Value ? (Score:1)
Unless you are in school and po or your time is just not worth a lot of money (or you have more time than money), this project is not cost effecient. Cool for sure though.
Check out this posting from Craigslist for a system for $1000
Powermac G4 450 AGP
450 mhz PowerPC
16 MB Video Card
768 MB Ram
super fast Internal CD RW 24x Write 12x Rewirte
100 MB ZIP Drive
30 GB Hard Drive
2 Fire wire
It is in mint conditon .
17" Flat tube(not flat panel) sony Trinitron is included
OS X.2 jaguar and OS 9.2.2- installed
Other software installed :
Photoshop 7,illustator 10,Freehand 10,Dreamweaver MX
Flash Mx
Video Editing software
Call or email me if you have any questions 415-xxx-3332
$1000 Firm
How To Build A Buck From Scratch (Score:4, Funny)
Overclocking? (Score:2)
Furthermore, water cooling projects for the overclockers become more of a reality.
Aren't PowerPC chips basically un-overclockable? From what I understand, something about the chip design makes it either impossible to overclock it, or makes the speed gained from overclocking it negligble.
This is not a Hackintosh! (Score:2)
Not only is it only about upgrading old Mac motherboards, but even the linked page says it's about building your own G4 from scratch. The only part of this that's not a simple "upgrade your old Mac to run OS X" is that it mentions using regular ATX cases. I can't see why you would want to do that unless you were doing a cool case mod.
Pardon me for yawning, but been there done that about to replace a Linux box with one. And the only reason I did it is I already had an old Power Computing Mac that was already sufficiently upgraded. I'm now debating whether it's worth upgrading my $60 thrift store Power Wave.
Is not! (Score:1)
No-one builds computers from scratch any more, they just assemble off the shelf parts with idiot-proof keyed connectors.
These lamoid "new generation" hackers don't know what "from scratch" means. They should try wire-wrapping or resist ething your own board some time. I'll bet they couldn't build a simple countdown timer with LED output from scratch if their life depended on it. Computer from scratch; humf.
its till apple (Score:2)
homebrew Apple II in 1980-ish (Score:2, Interesting)
little spiral bound manual. It thoughtfully
included a full schematic (with part numbers),
and the full Boot and Bios Rom listings! I think
it was the Rom code that tipped me over the edge
into the project of building my own.
I wire wrapped the circuits, and hand programmed
byte by byte the 5 Roms (2705s, if I recall). One
for Bios, and 4 for Apple Basic. Memory chips
were the most expensive components at the time.
And it worked! Noisy circuitry, I almost had to
position my hands like I was playing a therimin
to get it to have a clean display.
Super of Apple to do 'open source' before it was cool!
Cease and desist. (Score:2, Troll)
Cupertino, CA
15 September 2002
Dear Slashdot Editors:
Your article on building Macintoshes is a threat to the valuable intellectual property rights of our client, Apple Computer. You are hereby ordered to cease and desist publication of this article, or face legal action.
All your Mac are belong to us.
Sincerely,
I. Will Cheatham, Esq.
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, P.A.
I can build a DEC MVax II from scratch (Score:2)
Honestly if you build something out of used/junk parts it's because you need a cheap limited purpose server to do some mindless task quietly in the corner. Not that this is bad thing. I have a house full of Frankenclones for routers, firewalls, mail servers and so on.
Nice heatsink,,, (Score:1)
Reece,
DANGER!!! When installing CPU thermal compiund... (Score:2)
While it's improbable, it is possible that spreading thermal paste on anything other than the CPU core could cause the system to short circuit. The author at macopz got the adhesive all over the freaking CPU, which could lead to problems down the road. Please read Arctic Silver's instructions [arcticsilver.com] if you've never applied thermal paste before. This guy DOES NOT know what he's doing, at least when it comes to installing processors.
Build PCs for quality, so this gets you...? (Score:2)
One of the reasons to buy a Mac though is the build quality and cohesive selection of parts. (More true of the laptops than the desktops, but still).
I have no desire to build my own mac because I'm happy enough with how they've already built them!
And like others have said if you're just after a cheap system to play with buying used will probably be about as cheap as scrounging components, plus it will probably look a lot better...
Crap! (Score:1)
To do so, you'd have to find a generic "no-name" ppc74xx-compatible motherboard.. I think Motorola made some test boards for 8xxx series (with RapidIO) and the Amiga boom last year promised some new PPC motherboards too. Too bad none are shipping consumer products alike the x86 mobos.
Anyway, the "article" was quite misleading.
A "Case Mod" != "Build a Macintosh From Scratch"
If by scratch, (Score:2, Funny)
... about the EUL (Score:1)
Re:No offense... (Score:1)
it's not our fault that the only provider of hardware to run the OS charges really high prices
Re:No offense... (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool, but its not my box of springs (Score:1)
1)Buy your stuff
2)Take your stuff out of the box
3)Plug in connectors where they fit
4)Turn on your new computer!
Re:Pretty cool, but its not my box of springs (Score:2, Informative)
TomsHardware.com [tomshardware.com] recently ran an article (with pictures) on how to build a PC yourself. It's really quite simple though. I have an abnormal fear of tools yet I've been building my own computers for 10 years. If you can install your own video card, you can build a computer.
Re:No offense... (Score:1)
Re:I want to build a SPARC, but can't buy parts (Score:2)
However if you do still feel like building a StrongARM based machine from scratch (very difficult, I hope you're into board fabbing and have the gear to solder lots of exotic surface mount components), you might want to check out the LART [tudelft.nl].
If starting from something premade is OK with you, there's an excellent developer community for Linux on iPAQs at handhelds.org [handhelds.org]. The iPAQ has a huge expansion bus that you could probably use to do neat things with. Of course some hardware hacking would still be required. You can probably get one with a broken batt and/or screen off eBay pretty cheap.
Another option for a premade unit is the Lucent/Phillips IS2630 screenphone (Shannon). There's a project to run Linux on them called TuxScreen [tuxscreen.net]. Unfortunately they don't have any more of them for sale, but you might be able to find someone who bought more than one or who is done with theirs that's willing to sell you one. This is a pretty sweet phone, and there's lots of docs on modding it, but it's sure not a PC.
Re:You cannot run Mac-OS on it, though! (Score:2)
Re:I want to build a SPARC, but can't buy parts (Score:1)
As far as your request for an ATX based StrongARM board, there seem to be plenty of options out there [google.com], all you have to do is choose a vendor your comfortable with, it looks like.
Re:No offense... (Score:2)
That this is at all possible is due to the open architecture designed into the original PC by the IBM team in Boca Raton.
Re:This is 15 Years Too Late (Score:1)
Oh, wait, it didn't.
Re:Pretty cool, but its not my box of springs (Score:2)
Re:Build your own 'Cat Mac' (Score:1)
I checked this book out from our local library a while back. It details how to build a 'catalog Mac' of the 68k variety. You still need some genuine Apple parts, though.
You might try Alibris [alibris.com] - the author is Bob Brant.
They have a few copies for sale-- most of them overpriced, IMHO, since they deal with such outdated hardware. You might get inspired by it, but I doubt you'd actually want to build the machines he covers in the book.