How To: Upgrade Your Old Mac To Run OS X

Now that the 24th anniversary of the Mac is upon is, and now that Macworld is literally just around the corner, why not a fun and cool hack to get that old 512k Mac you may have lying around or sitting in the closet put to good use?

The hack allows you to still use the original Mac 512k keyboard and mouse, and by using an Atmel AT90USB162 to create a standard USB HID device the keyboard and mouse appear as standard USB devices, as will any modern USB deviceYou don’t even have to spend countless hours coding drivers for the custom micro-controllers that make it all work, it’s available right on the site.

[Via Hackaday]

“This is a Macintosh 512k which I upgraded to run OS X by replacing the innards with a modern Mac Mini and various supporting components, including a grayscale CRT monitor, an LS-120 floppy disk drive, and a microcontroller-based USB device that interfaces the Mini to the original keyboard and mouse. Why? Mainly because I wanted to experiment with creating a custom USB device. Also I guess I wanted to waste hundreds of dollars and countless hours building a semi-useless computer with a 9 inch black and white screen and no arrow keys.

The most interesting part of the project for me was the circuit that allows the old original keyboard and mouse to be used with the Mini. It is based on an Atmel AT90USB162 microcontroller, which is basically a standard AVR µC with a special coprocessor dedicated to USB signaling. It comes with a C library that makes it relatively easy to create USB devices like HID keyboards and mice, speakers, storage devices, etc.”

Frank's the editor in chief of tech.nocr.at. He can be found surfing the internet and playing with gadgets. Follow him on twitter @franklinhares