Build Log: Macintosh Classic(jeffgeerling.com)
jeffgeerling.com
Build Log: Macintosh Classic
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/build-log-macintosh-classic
19 comments
His aunt obviously had good taste. -Eric "The Grouch" Shapiro
Thanks for bringing a little joy to every file deletion on our family Mac during my childhood!
Are these old computers viable to use daily? Is there any advantage over using an emulator on more modern hardware? (Obviously not the point of this project.)
If you used them when they were current, the emulator experience is never quite the same. The input latency is always detectably worse, especially without a CRT (and even now you're no longer 15-25 years old), and there's always at least a bit of sound latency. Also, you're using a modern keyboard and mouse.
On the flip side, all the original hardware is now ancient and at least somewhat broken (or going that way), and it's a pain to keep it running as an ongoing prospect. CRTs, floppy disk drives, floppy disks, hard disk drives, key switches, mice with balls, aging capacitors, batteries, little plastic bits inside the keyboard that you didn't even realise were there until they crumbled into dust - they all go bad in the long run, and the repair always eats up at least a bit of time. (Even assuming it's actually repairable! Battery damage can be literally unfixable. Parts supply generally can be an issue. Mouldy floppy disks are time-consuming to rescue, and can damage the drives as you attempt it. Those little plastic keyboard bits are theoretically 3d printable, but you'll need to figure out what shape they were originally and how to glue them into place. And so on.)
The long-term prognosis for modern computers is uncertain too - but the nice thing about them is that you can always just buy another one. Turns out they're always making more of them!
On the flip side, all the original hardware is now ancient and at least somewhat broken (or going that way), and it's a pain to keep it running as an ongoing prospect. CRTs, floppy disk drives, floppy disks, hard disk drives, key switches, mice with balls, aging capacitors, batteries, little plastic bits inside the keyboard that you didn't even realise were there until they crumbled into dust - they all go bad in the long run, and the repair always eats up at least a bit of time. (Even assuming it's actually repairable! Battery damage can be literally unfixable. Parts supply generally can be an issue. Mouldy floppy disks are time-consuming to rescue, and can damage the drives as you attempt it. Those little plastic keyboard bits are theoretically 3d printable, but you'll need to figure out what shape they were originally and how to glue them into place. And so on.)
The long-term prognosis for modern computers is uncertain too - but the nice thing about them is that you can always just buy another one. Turns out they're always making more of them!
> The input latency is always detectably worse, especially without a CRT
Apple 2e for the win! 1 MHz is (apparently) enough for anyone. ;-)
https://danluu.com/input-lag/
discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25290118
Apple 2e for the win! 1 MHz is (apparently) enough for anyone. ;-)
https://danluu.com/input-lag/
discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25290118
> On the flip side, all the original hardware is now ancient and at least somewhat broken (or going that way), and it's a pain to keep it running as an ongoing prospect
Fortunately there are FPGA implementations, though you might want a non-USB gamepad and keyboard, and a CRT (or maybe a 120Hz or better HDMI display?) to get closest to the original performance.
https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/
Fortunately there are FPGA implementations, though you might want a non-USB gamepad and keyboard, and a CRT (or maybe a 120Hz or better HDMI display?) to get closest to the original performance.
https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/
That’s not the whole picture. I have a “mini Mac” I built that runs BasiliskII directly on a Raspberry Pi 3’s framebuffer (using SDL on a directly attached LCD) and the thing is _much_ faster and snappier than the SE/30 it sort of looks like.
Were it not for the size (it’s 1/3 scale, so the screen is tiny), it would be pretty “usable” with Word and Excel.
Were it not for the size (it’s 1/3 scale, so the screen is tiny), it would be pretty “usable” with Word and Excel.
You could use a freznell lens like "Brazil."
> freznell
Fresnel[1]?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens
Fresnel[1]?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens
Yup. I've got quite the collection of old computers, including all that were mine in the past, dating back to my Atari 600 XL, Commodore 64 (several of these), Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga 500 and then a few others I collected throughout the ages: a cool Texas Instrument Ti/99-4a (had one for a few days in the past so I had to get one), a Macintosh Classic (as in TFA), the little Atari Portfolio that young John Connor uses in Terminator 2 to hack doors (I had to have one), etc.
But these are complicated to keep working, especially when you know nothing about electronics.
As the years are passing by, fewer and fewer of these are still working (yup, I did remove the batteries when applicable). And they don't bring much, if anything, compared to a modern one.
My most prized possession is however a vintage arcade cab, complete with its CRT screen and both original (and bootleg) vintage PCBs and a Raspberry Pi with a Pi2JAMMA (an arcade cab standard) adapter and thousands of arcade games on MAME.
There's something about an actual arcade cab with a CRT and proper joysticks that a modern PC with a 4090 GPU cannot reproduce. Say playing Robotron 2084! with two 8-directions joysticks (one in each hand): that's simply not an experience you get on anything else but a proper full-sized arcade cab.
Even kids, who have no nostalgic appeal to vintage arcade cabs, are drawn to that thing.
That cab I plan to keep working for a very long time. But all my 8 bit and 16 bit computers? I'm not so sure.
But these are complicated to keep working, especially when you know nothing about electronics.
As the years are passing by, fewer and fewer of these are still working (yup, I did remove the batteries when applicable). And they don't bring much, if anything, compared to a modern one.
My most prized possession is however a vintage arcade cab, complete with its CRT screen and both original (and bootleg) vintage PCBs and a Raspberry Pi with a Pi2JAMMA (an arcade cab standard) adapter and thousands of arcade games on MAME.
There's something about an actual arcade cab with a CRT and proper joysticks that a modern PC with a 4090 GPU cannot reproduce. Say playing Robotron 2084! with two 8-directions joysticks (one in each hand): that's simply not an experience you get on anything else but a proper full-sized arcade cab.
Even kids, who have no nostalgic appeal to vintage arcade cabs, are drawn to that thing.
That cab I plan to keep working for a very long time. But all my 8 bit and 16 bit computers? I'm not so sure.
Assuming they’re not doing any kind of fancy processing and are just pumping data straight to pixels, shouldn’t some OLED displays now be capable of latency close to that of CRTs?
Yes, in fact I believe BlurBusters was working on some display modes at high refresh rates to emulate CRT displays: https://blurbusters.com/crt-simulation-in-a-gpu-shader-looks...
Infinite Mac (https://infinitemac.org) is honestly incredible and gets you 99% of the way there for running old software for the nostalgia.
But there's definitely something fun about running the old hardware with an old spinning hard drive, clacking away while it boots up for 2-3 minutes.
And then launching Microsoft Word 5.1 and wondering if it locked up, while each toolbar loads in one by one!
Honestly though, if you just wanted to do word processing, it's fine for that, and with modern tools like FloppyEmu, BlueSCSI, and some of the networking hacks with modern cheap hardware, you can get one of these things to transfer files to and from a network share very easily.
I'm using a netatalk server on my Raspberry Pi to serve up Samba shares over AppleTalk. Very simple to do nowadays! https://github.com/geerlingguy/apple-pi
But there's definitely something fun about running the old hardware with an old spinning hard drive, clacking away while it boots up for 2-3 minutes.
And then launching Microsoft Word 5.1 and wondering if it locked up, while each toolbar loads in one by one!
Honestly though, if you just wanted to do word processing, it's fine for that, and with modern tools like FloppyEmu, BlueSCSI, and some of the networking hacks with modern cheap hardware, you can get one of these things to transfer files to and from a network share very easily.
I'm using a netatalk server on my Raspberry Pi to serve up Samba shares over AppleTalk. Very simple to do nowadays! https://github.com/geerlingguy/apple-pi
Ah yes, the good old days of word processing before autosaves and when you only had one level of undo...
The (lack of) latency is probably the most difficult part to reproduce not just emulation, but with a modern hardware+software stack period. It’s not necessary to go back as far as the Mac Classic to get that though, anything that can boot Mac OS 9 (including a few that can hacked to run it, like the G4 Mini) will get you that too. When I boot up my PowerBook G3 the sheer responsiveness when typing immediately stands out.
I have a couple small computers built with modern (micro controller) components and software but with similarly constrained environments. The point is to not have access to most things your full modern PC does (the modern web, games, youtube etc) so you can focus on creative tasks.
People bought them to do real work when they were new. I can't see why they can't continue to do that as long as you don't want to connect it to the internet.
I have a relatively ancient 8086 I still use from time to time with plain text files and a simple editor.
It provides a distraction-free environment for writing.
Save it to a 720kb floppy that my linux box can still read, and move it to a "modern" system for editing and such.
It provides a distraction-free environment for writing.
Save it to a 720kb floppy that my linux box can still read, and move it to a "modern" system for editing and such.
I identify myself as still living in the 1990s.