At the end he write the setup cost him $20, but the display alone sells for $50 (from the amazon link he provided). I'm assuming he had a bunch of the components already, but that's not really a fair cost comparison.
If this can generate VGA signal, it can also generate driving signals to control the original CRT too. Monochrome CRTs especially don't have fixed pixel counts, you can feed 4K240 signals if you want. It takes an analog circuit designer to pull off though.
Something I wonder about is whether the next few years will see a (small) fashion trend towards 'dumb PCs' similar to how there's a small group of people that prefer simple/feature/dumb phones. There's a number of factors within the PC space now that could see a PC with limited capabilities or primarily offline find its niche. Along with that, having a distinct form to set it apart from regular computing devices would be interesting, and Apple has a lot of them especially from the G3/G4 era.
>The old Macs really were the perfect form factor for a compact desktop computer
For certain types of work, they are excellent. I used an SE/30 as a dedicated writing and light programming machine for several years. It presents a friendly face, and the intimacy of the small screen is nice.
The small screen discourages distraction, though the small resolution was a bit of a chore while programming (lots of scrolling).
I'd like to see a toaster Mac-style box, perhaps with a slightly bigger screen, say 12", and with a decent resolution.
I wonder why he didn't use a RP2350, it costs practically same as the older RP2040. That way it could have 450 kB or so system RAM, enough to play around with some old productivity software.
16 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 51.3 ms ] threadEdit, this isn't the one I read but looks like the idea is older than I thought as someone was doing it in 2015:
https://www.randomorbit.co.uk/?p=904
https://spritesmods.com/?art=minimacplus&page=7
I dont want to belittle the authors work, but I would call this "building custom hardware for a pico-Mac project."
The old Macs really were the perfect form factor for a compact desktop computer—you saw them in every bedroom in every 1990s sitcom.
Are there any good options these days that are smaller than a 24" all-in-one?
For certain types of work, they are excellent. I used an SE/30 as a dedicated writing and light programming machine for several years. It presents a friendly face, and the intimacy of the small screen is nice.
The small screen discourages distraction, though the small resolution was a bit of a chore while programming (lots of scrolling).
I'd like to see a toaster Mac-style box, perhaps with a slightly bigger screen, say 12", and with a decent resolution.
https://blog.1bitrainbow.com/pico-mac-nano/