09
Mar 15

[option-shift-K] Watch

Watch


20
Mar 12

Meet the G4 Apple //c

Meet the G4 Apple //c

[Welcome, RetroMacCast listeners!]

This is my latest Frankintosh project – housing a G4 Mac Mini in the case of an Apple //c. From all outward appearances, a stock Apple IIc or //c with a little wear and tear. Inside, it sports a 1.4GHz G4 with a gigabyte of RAM. A far cry from its original 1MHz 65C02 and 128K of RAM.

Everything you see is still fully functional. The original keyboard is rewired and run through an Arduino (Teensy) so it can be used as a USB keyboard for the Mini. I’ve also maintained many of the original ports, and repurposed a couple for updated peripherals. For instance, the mouse/joystick port has been wired up to a USB port on the Mini. To plug into this, an M0100 mouse has been fitted with the guts of an optical USB mouse, wired to the original 9-pin connector.

To attach to the original Apple monochrome display, I built a VGA adapter that outputs monochrome NTSC via RCA. Instructions and pinouts for the adapter were found here. To adjust the sync and refresh rate, I use SwitchResX.

You can see a complete gallery below (via Flickr)

[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157628540220857″]


29
Nov 10

USB Floppy redux – now with howto video!

[update] welcome, Makezine readers!


12
Nov 10

USB Floppy hack

Action Shot

see the rest here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charles_mangin/sets/72157625250155063/


29
Jun 10

Benjamin likes to bounce.


23
May 10

In which we discover that a “squirrel proof” feeder is not, in fact, “raccoon proof”

this morning, we awoke to discover that our squirrel proof bird feeder was lying on the porch, on its side, empty.

this feeder: http://squirrelproofbirdfeeder.com/products/e100.html – which has, so far, survived the combined efforts of several highly trained suburban assault squirrels. with some difficulty, they are able to extract one seed at a time, with their tongues. eventually, they give up and leave the sunflower seeds to the birds.

when we saw the state of the feeder, we were somewhat perplexed. there had been no strong winds. none of the hardware had failed. and there had been seeds in it as of last night.

then i took a look at the CritterCam footage from the incident.

raccoons vs feeder 1

raccoons vs feeder 2

after examining the footage, we’ve decided this is what happened:

shortly after image 1 was taken, the raccoons were able to lift the feeder off its hook and it dropped onto the porch (see image 2). the drop ejected some of the sunflower seeds.

the raccoons then proceeded for several minutes, according to the subsequent images, to roll the feeder around the porch between them, freeing the remaining seeds.


27
Jan 10

Apple’s new iCrotchshot

Apple has done it again. Not only have they come up with a really nice looking glass rectangle that does pretty much what all the other big glass rectangles out there do, only… you know… better

…they’ve also created a whole new way to get strangers to stare at your crotch.


29
Sep 09

why my birdseed bill is so high

raccoon

captured with my new motion-detecting “critter cam”


01
Apr 09

Conficker probably not a threat to Apple II users

from A2Central.com:

Conficker probably not a threat to Apple II users. this from their call to Symantec:

“you are probably safe though I really don’t know what an Apple II is.”


23
Feb 09

hey! i’m on Engadget!

my Disk II Mac mod made it to Engadget. sweet.

[update] and gizmodo!