Unintentional is the name of the game here, this project entirely by coincidence happens to be in March so why not talk about it?
What is it? A Macintosh Portable to VGA Adapter, using the RP2040 and Pico Scanvideo library.
I will be working on a PCB for this design soon (presently it’s on a breadboard) and hope to have it available for sale by April. That is, if my spare time permits.
Picture time:
Other than the normal-priced BlueSCSI desktop design which is incoming, what else is there to look forward to as we approach the end of the year?
Far too many things for my spare time to be very happy.
First, a product for the Mac Portable which should resolve once and for all the problems that are caused by its Lead Acid battery and the maintenance that requires: The Mac Portable Battery Eliminator.
It hooks up to the Modem slot, requires a small (included) jumper cable to connect to the motherboard instead of the original battery harness, and uses Supercapacitors to take the place of the battery. Plug your power adapter into this card through the Modem port’s cutout, wait 2 minutes for the capacitors to charge, and that’s it. Never bother to charge a lead acid battery again. Also includes solder points for a 9v battery clip if you demand PRAM retention, but supercaps have high discharge so don’t expect great battery life.
Second, an update to the Mac Portable 7 Meg RAM card which includes the switching option by default (I don’t have to solder things to the CPLD any more, hooray). This will entirely replace the base model 7 megabyte card after those are sold out, and will sell in parallel until then.
Third, an entirely new product line. Are you tired of having to find original keyboards and mice for vintage Apple, Sun, and other systems? Say hello to the HIDHopper series. This line of affordable interface adapters is planned to start with USB to ADB, and will expand from there to a variety of vintage systems with impossible to find (or overly expensive) input devices.
PCBs are being manufactured now, hoping assembly can complete this week for arrival next week. Timeframe is unclear on that.
Update 18 May 2023: Modules are Shipped, waiting for them to arrive for testing and then listing.
Update June 2023: The hybrid modules are now available!
You may have seen my post on TinkerDifferent, and the rumors are true. I am working on a 7 megabyte Mac Portable RAM card using all-new components (nothing New Old Stock).
It has been tested on my M5120 Portable, and I sent one to Techknight for review on his M5126 Backlit Portable. Assuming the tests pass, I’ll do a small run of probably 5 or 10 cards as pre-production verification, and then the cards will go into normal production.
The best part? These cards will not cost $190, $150, or even $100. They’ll be somewhere in the $55 to $65 range.
This will mean that you can get almost everything your Portable could need straight from my site:
* Replacement Hybrid Modules (which will be back in stock in a few weeks)
* New Screen Cable (for the Backlit model)
* BlueSCSI Hard Drive (Plus Portable-specific Adapter)
* RAM Card (Link to be added once they’re available)
I’ve been contacted by a few people lamenting the Mac Portable BlueSCSI I was selling previously – it’s no longer listed in the shop.
Good news! An adapter is on the way from the PCB manufacturer now. This will allow a standard 50 pin Desktop BlueSCSI to be connected to your Mac Portable, for great retro computing (and battery savings).
UPDATE: The adapter has been released and is in the shop now.
The long-awaited date has finally arrived. After testing this module on two of my Portables, testing by some community members, writing documentation, building a crazy looking tester system, I think it’s ready for release.
The Macintosh Portable Hybrid Module Recreation is now an open listing.
For those of you with things like the Mac TV, LC 550, and similar edge-connector-style machines, there is an update. I have designed a style of bracket for the F4Lite THT V1.1 BlueSCSI that ought to be compatible, but I need a few testers to verify first. If interested, please contact me using the email on the About page.
On the Mac Portable Hybrid project, things are in motion to start making replacements in larger quantities. I am waiting for a dedicated tester board to be manufactured and delivered which will allow me to test every board before shipping.
Also on the Hybrid Recreation front, I am going to be creating some documentation on things to check before ordering. A ‘system pre-check’ if you will. The hybrid does depend on your Portable’s motherboard being in good shape, and these checks will try to assert that your system is not damaged.
It’s been too long since posting here, sorry about that. Many updates are posted to the Tinker Different forum.
BlueSCSI: The F4 XCVR and F4Lite XCVR products are now available. These are intended for use with systems such as Sun, SGI, and others which are natively SCSI2 and often do not work with the original BlueSCSI or my F4 BlueSCSI fork.
I will also work on a mounting bracket which enables XCVR model use with systems such as the Macintosh TV and others that use an edge connector with sliding bracket. The measurements have to be very precise and I don’t have one of these machines, so it’ll be a back and forth with someone that does.
Macintosh Portable Hybrid Recreation: This project is about 80% done. A new revision PCB is on the way which should fix a few issues, and it’s basically time to test this in a real Portable to see what happens. The last challenge is a signal called the “A/D line”. This reports battery level information to the Power Manager chip, and is an incredibly sensitive circuit. If it continues to fight and cause problems, I may replace the A/D circuit with a simpler and less fiddly design. This simpler design won’t be as accurate, but it will allow the Portable to function on both battery and while plugged in.
Backlit Macintosh Portable Display Flex Cables: A new round of these cables has arrived, which needs to be quickly tested and then I’ll put up a listing on this site. Note that I don’t have any of the connectors, and those would need to be moved over from your original cable. I will offer a connector transplant service, which involves sending in the original cable and a small charge for actually performing the operation.
Newton eMate Display Cables: Continuing my trend of recreating flex cables, a design for the eMate has been produced and is in testing. I came across a large set of eMates and will be refurbishing them for sale.
Newton eMate DRAM Upgrade: After the unfortunate failure of my eMate DRAM + Flash project, I pivoted and redesigned for DRAM only. These have a much higher success rate, and will be listed on this site at some point.
Original LC Series Replacement Power Supply: These are power supplies for the LC, LC II, and LC III. This project has stalled for a variety of reasons, from cost to opinions on whether there should be an external power brick or not. I have two designs, one which puts everything internally and another which uses an external power brick. The internal design would cost more, and the design using an external power brick would cost a little bit less. Unsure on the direction to go for the future of the project.
You may recall from awhile back that I have been working on a new screen flex-cable for the backlit macintosh portable. These cable are cracking, delaminating, and reaching the end of their usable lifespan.
Fortunately, my latest cable design works just fine – has been tested in two backlit portables so far. The design needs some basic tweaking to make assembly easier for future orders, and it needs to be wrapped in packing tape to increase durability. But other than that, they work!
The design changes will be made whenever I have time to get back to it.
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/recreating-backlit-macintosh-portable-display-flex-cables.567/
Now, the product stock update. I’ve had very little time the last few weeks to work on kits and assembled products. But this upcoming week I will be building as many kits and assembled as possible, and will be working on the main F4_BlueSCSI GitHub repo to improve documentation and make hardware designs more available. So bear with me as I work through the process.
I’m becoming more aware of interest in my Newton / eMate products / projects too, so that’s on the roadmap to get moving again. Trying to do all of this as a solo operation means things will regularly get dropped because I lack the time to do it all.
Currently I have too many several projects in progress.
