Making a miniature Macintosh Plus #MARCHintosh #ESP32 #Mac
Jeroen Domburg was nostalgic for the original Macintosh computer by Apple:
While obviously I don’t really need a Mac Plus anymore for my day-to-day life, I did like the idea of having one available for when I felt nostalgic. Maybe I could get a tiny bit of the Macintosh experience back by building a small one myself. Seeing I already have some experience with making smaller versions of old hardware, why not try to apply that process to the venerable Mac Plus as well?
Jeroen decided to use an ESP32 processor, but to get a small screen at a decent resolution, only a complicated MIPI display was available. That took engineering to make it work with the ESP32. A 3D printed case was made with a working mouse. With judicious use of components, the result is a 1/6th scale replica.
The software is an emulator Jeroen developed with some display wizardry for the small size.
The project is open-source, and the PCB artwork as well as the case design and the firmware are up on GitHub.
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