These days of 4K monitors (opens in new tab) and SSDs (opens in new tab) Peering into your desktop through a 9-inch mono screen might feel a little… old-fashioned, even if Steve Jobs encouraged it.Maker and all-around retro computer enthusiast Dave Luna (opens in new tab)taking the shell of the iconic Macintosh Classic II (a tiny beige all-in-one from 1991, also sold as the Performa 200) and replacing the inside with a Raspberry Pi, brings together today’s technology and the past.
known as paper mac (opens in new tab)the Luna achievement, described as “disgusting” by its creator, uses the Raspberry Pi 3. (opens in new tab) Waveshare’s 16-color grayscale e-ink screen replaces the original 512 x 342 pixel display. Rather than actually booting Apple’s System 7 on the Pi, it’s news in itself. emulator (opens in new tab)uses custom software to display a System-7-like environment (the cleverly named Psuedo7) that displays highlights from the owner’s Google Photo Stream.
But rather than wrestle with the Google Photos API, Luna came up with an elegant solution for displaying images. He took his Google Chromecast and connected it to an HDMI capture card via an HDMI splitter which stripped his HDCP from the signal. This card is connected via an adapter to his CSI interface on his Pi and appears as a camera. Chromecast can be set to ambient mode to display photos. The photo is piped to the Pi and eventually displayed on an e-ink screen via Python code, resized, converted to black and white, and a nice frame added. Like windows in System 7. Very clever.
“I really hated dealing with Google Photos API authentication, queries and caching. For me, there was nothing new or fun about the process,” Luna writes on his site. “Instead…the Chromecast does all the heavy lifting of photo management for you, so you can learn more about camera ports you’ve never used before.”
The Paper Mac uses original Apple peripherals via an Arduino that converts Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) to USB, and includes a series of USB powered speakers and Stephen Jay Cohen Classic Audio Pack. Pressing the C key on a genuine Apple Adjustable Keyboard puts you in watch mode, while other keys take screenshots or shut down the machine.
Luna’s other projects include: Commodore 64 Insert into a USB keyboard and docking station From Commodore Pets.
