I recently wrote about my experience with building a tiny Mac using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and a 3D printed case.
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/building-a-tiny-mac-from-a-raspberry-pi-zero-2.4429/
Building a Tiny Mac from a Raspberry Pi Zero 2
Hi everyone! James Wages @JDW reached out to me about sharing my experience with building a tiny mac, powered by a Raspberry Pi 2W and running Mini vMac from the Gryphel Project. It was a fun build, and I worked through a few kinks that I wanted to share with you should you decide to tackle...
Recently I obtained a recreated TechStep to test my working vintage Macs. I found a few surprises and mysteries!
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/playing-with-a-recreated-techstep.4038/
Playing with a Recreated TechStep
Recently I obtained a recreated TechStep for testing the variety of compatible vintage Macs in my collection. All of the Macs are functional, and I was curious about what the TechStep would say about each. Here is a summary of my experiences and results, in case anyone else finds the...
So, how am I supposed to take my first swig to the line in the G?
Over the weekend I successfully completed a repair and restoration of a Quadra 630, one of the final 68k machines released by Apple before the complete switchover to PPC. You like 68040s, Spindler plastics, and crusty caps? Here you go!
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/quadra-630-restoration.3526/
Quadra 630 Restoration
Two years ago I received for free a Quadra 630 from a family friend. Back in the day, I had a Centris 650 bought new in 1992 which I replaced with a PowerBook 5300cs purchased later in 1996. Hence, I completely missed this model and its cousins, and was completely unfamiliar with it. The...
For #MARCHintosh 2024 I overclocked a Centris 650 to 40 MHz. Step 1 was a logic board resistor mod to change the board to a Quadra 650. Step 2 was installing a 40 MHz 68040 and a Spicy O’Clock from @KayKoba
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/marchintosh-2024-overclocking-a-centris-650.3387/
Marchintosh 2024: Overclocking a Centris 650
For Marchintosh 2024 I’m tackling a project that has been on my list for a while: overclocking a Centris 650. The Centris 650 was the first Macintosh I purchased for home use back in the day, and at the time I was blown away by its performance relative to the Macintosh SE/30s I was using at the...
Cracking the Code: Gentoo Linux on an iBook G4 Success Story
I’ve been tinkering off and on for nearly a year with Gentoo Linux on a 800 MHz iBook G4 from 2003. As you may be aware, pickings are slim for active Linux distros that support PPC. Besides the excellent Lubuntu 16.04 Remix by @wicknix, and Adelie Linux, the only other option that I found is...
More Gentoo Linux progress on the iBook G4: got X up and running. The Gentoo handbook is good except for one item - I needed to add my user account to the video group. Without it, X wouldn’t start. Handbook never mentions this key fact, at least as far as I saw.
I *finally* got Gentoo Linux to compile and install successfully on an iBook G4 using a Gentoo distribution kernel. The Gentoo bin version compiled but kernel panicked on boot, and the distribution vanilla kernel wouldn’t compile. However, I’m stuck to where I can’t install a desktop environment due to blocked packages that I can resolve, which tells me I picked the wrong stage 3 tarball. So it is back to the drawing board, sigh.
Progress! For whatever reason, genkernel got stuck in a loop that after I quit and restarted the process, it completed successfully after 1 day and 14 hours of compilation. Yet another unexplained frustration that is Gentoo Linux.
