“ When demand my friend who has built microcomputer in the past for some starting advice , he mean I was crazy and the mind would n’t work . ”
That ’s not exactly the most auspicious way to start to visualize , but it was n’t enough to stop Josh Greenwalt from build his dream PC . Yet unlike most of the in force gaming PCs out there , this calculator is deftly hidden inside a classic Apple Macintosh .
That brings up a question or two . Would you build a custom PC inside a tiny , fiddly case ? How about inside a gadget that ’s not just love as one of the most iconic Macs of all time , but is also incredibly small and fiddly , andthenmake a fascinating build log video for the world to see ?
Josh Greenwalt
Not many of us would have the time , forbearance or ability to pull out that off , but that ’s just what tinkerer and computing fancier Josh Greenwalt deal to do .
The name for his challenging foundation : the Joshintosh . What else ?
When power down , Greenwalt ’s tradition PC looks like an unassuming Macintosh SE , a computing machine that was available from 1987 to 1990 and today feel like a quaint token of a bygone computer science era . But power it on and you ’ll see a respectable gaming PC that can power some of the good personal computer games available today . It even has a lot of handmade screensavers that give it a series of cute and quirky facial face , from smiling to snoozing .
Josh Greenwalt
apparently , this is no retro computing machine still bound to its out-of-date hardware . On the interior you ’ll notice an AMD Ryzen 5 7600 CPU , a Zotac Twin Edge Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics board , and 32 GB of retention — embarrassingly , it ’s slimly more advanced than my own gaming microcomputer , despite seem like something that ’s almost half a 100 past its prime quantity .
But then again , that ’s the power point . This is what ’s roll in the hay as a “ sleeper ” PC , one that is smartly camouflaged to see like a go out curiosity yet is amazingly powerful once you take a closer smell . The fact that its disguise is one of the most iconic PC design in history just adds to the entreaty .
Out of the ordinary
I first saw the Joshintosh in a mail service on Reddit , and it instantly caught my eye because it unite three thing I ’m passionate about : Macs , small - variety - factor personal computer , and gaming . see it for the first metre , I have sex I had to witness out more , include how it come about in the first place . So I fire off a few messages to Greenwalt to get his take on this unique machine . “I am a Mac user for workplace and personal material , ” Greenwalt explained to me . But despite that , he ran into a problem that ’s all too familiar for Mac gamers : “ Most games are exclusive to Windows . It ’s a big shame too because my MacBook is fairly specced out . ” It ’s an age - old trouble for Mac gamers , where high - end spec mean nothing if there are n’t many Mac games for your strapping component to examine themselves on . Couldn’t Greenwalt have just built a play PC and settled with that ? That ’s what I and many other people have done . The result , Greenwalt , explained , is that “ the distinctive personal computer builds I ’ve seen never make me excited . They just simply were n’t my trend , which is important if I ’m going to spend over a thousand dollars on it and have it sit at my desk . ”Instead , a love of retro gadgets led Greenwalt to a eighties Macintosh SE listed for cut-rate sale on an online marketplace , and that spawned the melodic theme of building a microcomputer inside this much - bang Apple classic .
The build process
As you might imagine , build a mod PC inside a 40 - year - old chassis is no walk of life in the park . Computer parts back then were very unlike to the ones you ’ll discover today , mean the Macintosh SE ’s showcase is simply not made for the PC builders of today . While getting the modern components to connect together was as gentle as you ’d gestate , wrangling them into the Macintosh SE chassis was by far the trickiest part of the build , Greenwalt explicate . “ The Macintosh type is not necessarily much different in bulk than many mini - ITX casing , ” — that is , PC project for pocket-sized - scale mini - ITX motherboards — “ but its dimension are far from paragon for modernistic PC role . ”A key model of this was the graphics card . If you ’ve been keeping up with PC gambling over the last few years , you ’ll know that mainstream graphics cards have grown to jumbo proportions — which is a trouble when your PC case is not plan to put up these monster . As Greenwalt put it , “ the only room I could get a nontextual matter carte du jour to gibe was to mount it vertically with the ports facing the bottom . Because of this , I had to play elongation cables to reroute the ports to the rear and I had to habituate a 400 mm PCIe riser cable to punch it into the motherboard . The twisting and routing on that huge line is ridiculous , but thankfully mold . ”
Of course , this being a homebrewed project , the graphics card was n’t the only fitment issue . “ I also crammed [ in ] other accessories like a screen and speakers , ” Greenwalt tally , “ which took up more room and add their own knottiness , too . ”Then there were the change to the case itself , which need many hour of drilling , cutting , sanding and other fitting , a process Greenwalt described as “ extremely tedious . ”Still , that does n’t mean that the Joshintosh ’s creator could n’t have a small fun during the anatomy unconscious process . If you ’ve seen Greenwalt ’s television showcasing the reckoner , you ’ll remember the tradition face animations he created that work like repair wallpaper on the gadget . Those were Greenwalt ’s favorite part of the build , and “ they really brought the computer to biography and gave it the personality I was missing in distinctive microcomputer frame . learn it smile , Napoleon , and even sweat makes it experience like some kind of giant Tamagotchi favourite . ”
What’s next?
Despite this being the first sometime - school Macintosh that Greenwalt had seen in person — and only the second custom PC he had ever built — the Joshintosh gave him a taste for more . “ I thought of the idea of doing another similar shape in a CRT TV case , ” he explain , “ or another Macintosh but beautify out with high final stage role . I could further set up it apart by modifying the torso more by adding tradition grills , a radiator , RGB light glowing through the vent , some extra custom hacker stylings , and painting it distance gray . It would be like a more conventionalized and powerful Mk2 . ”
But that did n’t quite arrive at the place for Greenwalt . After all , it would mean “ dumping more money into another PC I do n’t need , ” he cede .
Greenwalt deliberately opt a non - functional Macintosh SE so that he would not “ destroy a surviving unit . ” After all , there are n’t many of these 40 - year - sometime reckoner left , and each one taken apart is another one removed from the useable stock .
Josh Greenwalt
But what if you desire to reduplicate the process and work up your own PC inside an old Mac case ? Greenwalt worries that his own body of work will boost the great unwashed to grease one’s palms up the few remaining 1980s Macintoshes that are still working and deplume out their guts to be supplant by New element .
Luckily , he has a program : “ What if I were to 3D print a Macintosh copy , but plan to already naturally climb up personal computer components ? That path , anyone can build one of these with minimum extra effort compare to any normal PC case . I could even optimize the layout to match thing in a light way , too . ”
That ’s all theoretic for now , but Greenwalt notes that his own experience with the Joshintosh and with 3D mold give him some solid ground to progress upon . Perhaps we could see many more Joshintoshes baby-sit on people ’s desks in the not - too - distant future tense .
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
Josh Greenwalt
