Im probably jumping the gun slightly here, but i wanted to put this on the forum...
for the last 3 months i have been using what i call a "takkoid" which is a nod to the original "takky" and stuart bell's "taco". wether coining this new take on the hack for CC's is good or not-(or allowed)..im not sure...! but, needless to say, thats what it is.
anyway-its still at its "work in progress" stage, but this is 90% cosmetic (finishing the case off), and about 10% practical (rerouting wires and adding power & restart buttons).
what is it then? ok, its a blue and white G3 (rev2), with a sonnet G4 500mhz upgrade, and a 10.4" LCD screen running panther with 512mb of ram and two HD's (20 & 40GB).
im wondering if anyone's screaming in horror yet regarding the LCD...
yes, i have cut and hacked the inside of this case to high heaven...which includes cutting out the front of the case around the original space for the sony monitor.
i was initially re-inspired by a G4 Cube se/30 and the Mac Mini se/30 that i've seen on the web...
plus i had some spare time in the summer months and was lucky to get two CC cases off e-bay for about £10.
the first version had a G3 MT 266 inside it, but after hellish problems with OSX and the awful graphics card i gave up and bought a (broken) B&W which i fixed and then canibalised.
initially the major problem was buying an LCD to fit-i was really lucky and managed to get one off ebay for £40 odd quid, which was uncannily white..it didnt look out of place next to my ibook! this was a small 10.4" LCD with a stand, controller card and only about an inch of surrounding sheilding/casing running around the screen...which was ideal considering the space limits of the case i had to work with. If i hadn't have found this LCD, i don't think i would've started this project-all the LCD manufacturers here in the UK thought i was utterly mad and couldn't get a grip on what i was asking for. once i'd got that LCD, the rest was fairly easy-essentially i'm only performing a case hack, theres no electronics involved.
its generally on for about three days a week all day and night-and its NEVER crashed, the CPU seems to be running OK, never too hot-haven't been able to test it as the software i used reeds as -1 C...hmmm, on the MT G3 i used to get it at about 20 C. (oh i say its never crashed, which isnt true, i had RAM problems for a week or so, which eventually sorted itself out...).
I will in the new year post some photo's. I love this machine, i think its really funny, and at the same time CRAZY.
ok thats all for now!
can't wait. Let me know when you do pledoux@gmail.com
I would love to see this puppy in action.
yeah sounds cool
Yeah let us all know when the photos go up.
Meanwhile can you tell us verbally how you mounted the B&W motherboard in there? It's kind of a large board. I'm assuming you've mounted it vertically. Where are the ports?
SWEET!!! I'd heard of people thinking of doing this, but as far as I know, I think that you are the first to actually pull it off. That is soooo cool. Good luck with finishing it. PICS PLEASE!!!
Well, it ain't a g3, but hey...
http://brsturges.freehosting.net/photo3.html
But hey, if you can make it look good, cool.
Sounds a great project. My recollection, that B/W G3 logic boards were bigger than the beige G3 l/bs in the original Taco, was obviously wrong, so where, as someone has already asked, did you locate it.
We want photos!
Stuart
PS We want photos - internal and external.
Do you have a link to the mini SE/30?
hello-and happy new year-im back at work (and online) so can now reply!
thanks so much for the response-its really nice to see other folk can get as excited by this as i have been and still am
the photos will be up (probably on flickr-i will post a link) asap-i've just located the early stages pictures that are from the 266 G3 days showing the LCD/controller card, the horrific mess of the first cuts to the case (and subsequent refinement) and then shots of the front of the CC running panther, and then OS 9 (when the first of many OS X G3 beige hells were descended into).
the mobo is mounted on the right hand side, vertically, with the ports at the back. this required horrible and nasty cutting to the bottom of the CC case to form a "slot" so that the mobo would eventually stick out through the bottom to allow it to fit in the case (if i remember correctly this is how Stuart originally fixed up his Taco, but when i was doing all of this surgery i couldn't find the info/pics (?) anywhere..??).
the new G3 rev 2 was even taller than the previous mobo, and this meant more cutting to allow it to fit in the slot (and give clearance to board components), this meant that the Firewire module had to come off (handy that it was removable...after all) as this interfered with the curved top of the CC. This has resulted in the height of the CC at the rear to be increased-as the mobo sticks out quite a lot, and clears the original feet, meaning that is less angled than it originally was when viewed head on. The problem now being i have to find a way of making the existing feet "taller" so as to not spoil the original styling. The G3 board will always be visible, unless i can make some kind of "skirt" that hides away that ugly bit and also acts as its feet or base. damned if i do, and damned if i dont?
access to the USB/adb/ethernet ports all resulted in having to cut holes in the grill where the original fan used to live. ok stop screaming in horror!
once i've rectified all of the cosmetics its getting a good sanding down and will be sprayed shiny white so it matches the white USB pro keyboard, and what i hope to also do is make an ADB mouse a USB mouse and spray that white as well. Black was the original choice, but somehow white appeals more out of a sense of irony.
essentially-what i did was all trial and error (its not rocket science!), once i'd found a way of fitting everything in, and had actually ran the machine for hours to see if it would go into meltdown, the rest is purely asthetic. I do have a spare case, i could now cut it using the first as a template, but it was a horrible job to do, and don't really fancy (potentially) wrecking a second case. So i'm hanging onto that for another day.
ok i think thats it for now, that link and other info to follow.
thanks!
My plan always was to put the beige G3 mobo parallel to the front face of the CC and behind the LCD, It was the only place it will fit without the case surgery you describe.
I'll see what's happened to the photos . . . .
Stuart
here goes:
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/backangle.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/backali.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/CCcutting.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/frontali.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/LCDinCC.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/LCDinCCfront.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/stage2a.
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/stage2b.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/stage2c.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/Taco3a.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/Taco3b.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/Taco3c.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/Taco3d.jpg
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/Taco3e.jpg
Shame it never worked reliably . . . . though I now have Alexei Danichenko's Taco, which was built by an engineer, not by me!
Stuart
hi stuart-and thanks for those pics-ive not seen any of those before except the one with the mobo screwed to the front case. i'm not sure why i thought you'd used the "right hand vertical mobo placement" method...sorry for my buffoonery!
btw-
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/backangle.jpg - isn't working
http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/NewTaco/stage2a. - appears to be missing "jpg"
i've been mucking about with flickr...info later
is Alexei Danichenko's Taco the "Silent Taco"...?
im interested in performing a hack to reduce the fan speed/noise-i've been told how to do it-but thats definately not a priority at the moment...
more to follow...
ok, go here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/el_spider
this is quite nerve racking actually-"hot coals' springs to mind...
g4 cube se/30:
http://www.cubeowner.com - you'll have to dig around for the cube that got put into an se/30 - the guy also put a pro mouse into an adb mouse, which is a good idea but weird-pro mouse-the worst apple mouse, ever!
and the mac mini se/30:
http://www.byodkm.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/29/sort/1/size/medium/cat/502/page/ - and dig around from there
if you dig REALLY deep you may be able to find a japanese site that can do the mac mini mod/hack for you for a "price" (if nothing else its good to see that others have hacked other compact macs and to see the actual pics...). whats interesting is the use of iMac tray loading drives in some of the models...i couldn't find the site recently-and the last time i looked at it it was back in the summer...
hope thats of use...?
ive just had hell with flickr playing silly beggers, but i finally put up some more pics...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/el_spider
Thanks! Looking forward to more of the faster version!
Stuart
Thanks! Looking forward to more of the faster version!
Stuart