What secrets could this almost 20 year old computer hold? Come along and let's find out!
My baby, in all her glory
I've spent so much time looking at the innards of this thing. The arduino's tucked away between what used to be the CD tray and the green motherboard. The SSD is where the hackintosh os sits. In that metal container are two 3D printed plastic swoops that guide the air out of the system a bit more effectively. The system originally blew air straight back into the plastic shell, but it had vent holes in the shell THAT WENT BACK INTO THE CASE. So I have plastic guides within the shell to reroute the air out the original hole in the back as well as a small area I cut out.
Just a quick peek at the rear. That little jagged part some of the plastic case I cut away to encourage more air to not overheat my system.
Lol yeah, the exhaust from the CPU radiator blows right into the Vega 64, but hey the reference card is like an exhaust anyway, right?
The power's on and now we can see the HDMI passthrough! I love my VR headset and this makes plugging the thing in a breeze. The button below the power button has been rerouted to signal the arduino. The arduino then moves the little rack with a face on it with a motor to open and close the CD-ROM flap. I grinded out space on a regular USB 3.0 CD ROM thing to flush mount the HDMI female to male cable.
Another beauty shot of my fine cable management skills. There was actually so little room to do anything. I was lucky I was able to tuck some of the motherboard cabling inbetween the metal where the motherboard sits and inside of the outer plastic shell. I don't think I'd be able to open it otherwise.
Just a nice profile of how this thing looks when it's closed. I do really love this design. Those handles make carrying this thing so easy even though it's as heavy as a tank.
Power Mac G64
I made a video about it! Go check it out if you want even more info!
https://youtu.be/G1rE2M8nD18
I was out on a run and I found this thing on the side of the road. It was perfection in a really heavy box. I took it home, yeeted out the old parts from it, and stuck a whole bunch of new things inside of it over the course of like a year.
Also it's a dual-booting all-AMD (woo team red!) hackentosh and windows 10 machine with an HDMI passthrough that is hidden behind the original CD-ROM flap, which I also used an arduino, an h-bridge and the original CD drive's motor to let me open it using the original front button. It's also full of 3D printed parts to reroute the airflow because whatever idiot designed this thing thought it would be a good idea to let hot exhaust air blow back into the system.