1994 PowerBook 520C Pro i5 Mod - running macOS Monterey
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- čas přidán 11. 05. 2024
- ******Note****** The keyboard needed a repair on one of the teensy connector pins, and a spacer was added to the left side. Both problems have been addressed in the short follow-up video :)
First and foremost, this project would have been impossible without Mr. Frank Adams. Frank rewrote the code I found from another individual's website, to make it usable on my projects. I was unable to get caps to work and Frank fixed it. I've not received permission from the individual who wrote the original code to use his name here, or link to his site, but he was able to shove a Mac Mini 2014 into a Powerbook 180 (CORRECTION: 165c). Frank's instructable can be found here www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-USB-Laptop-Keyboard-Controller/
One thing I forgot to mention in the video is the LCD power. To power the LCD I ran the wires from a stepdown connected to the LCD driver board set to 10v, to the positive and negative inputs on the battery charger board.
In 2020, when I acquired all the parts for this project (and should have finished the project then), 2015 MacBook Pros with the i5 2.7ghz were still selling for upwards of $900.00. Here is what it cost me-
iPad 3 retina 9.7in LCD- $32.00
Broken 2015 MacBook Pro, and I forgot, also a broken MacBook Air that couldn't be salvaged except for the trackpad and speakers (estate sale)- $37.00
Teensy 4.0- $19.00 (whoops....Teensy 3.2)
Adafruit LCD driver board- $90.00
New battery pack- $38.00
odds and ends (stepdown .65 cents, wires, ribbon cable, etc...)- $10.00
The PowerBook cases came from a friend many years ago who was going to throw away a pile of old disassembled Apple stuff in his barn, because mouse urine had ruined the circuit boards and the original LCDs were toast.
So for $202.00 (226 minus the 22 I made off reselling parts) I would have had a laptop with just a few less features than its $900.00 dollar original form, and none of the missing features were anything I used anyway :)
It appears that Adafruit is no longer selling the Qualia driver board, but it is open source and if you're up to it you can can make your own :) I plan on making a modified unit with three separate boards, one being a simple connector to the iPad cable with ribbon cable breakouts, one with the on/off and brightness controls on a separate board connected by a ribbon cable, and the last one having the power booster circuitry. The modified unit will enable more projects that have thinner space. - Věda a technologie
This mod is absolutely nuts! It feels like a combination of the distant past, powerful present, and imaginative future of computing.
Hey :) Yep, it reminds me of the "Retro" period that cars went through. This is back before square, flat, and ultra thin, when companies tried to at least "be different".
So awesome!!! I am just blown away and welcome back sir!
Why thank you :) I'm glad you stuck around for so long between videos! I'll try to get some more content pushed out shortly,I'm watching a Macbook Air M1 logic-board right now and planning my next project.
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION the mad scientist!
id love to see people's reaction to you plopping that on a Starbucks table and typing away, wonderful video
I'm going to try and get to a coffee house soon, but I have to drive over an hour away. In the coffee house nearest me, it wouldn't get much of a reaction, there's no wifi :)
This was such an awesome video to watch, well done Billy!
Thanks :) I hope to get another one out soon
Great mod and great video. Love your enthusiasm for that power book. I had a lesser speced power book 165 and I don’ t think I loved it as much to put a mod like that in it 😃 But this was great to see!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it :) The 165c would be an easy modification, it has almost the same size screen as the iPad 3&4, and if you were doing a Raspberry Pi project, you wouldn't have to remove any plastic from the LCD bezel since you can adjust the viewable area using over and under scan :)
Someday I'd love to modify an old Sony Vaio laptop with modern hardware, seems it might not be too difficult with the right hardware!
I've seen several people do Sony Vaio projects with Raspberry Pis :) On his instructables website Frank Adams did one and I think it was a Vaio?
just stumbled upon this channel, so far I am very impressed with what you're doing! Keep it up!
Thanks, I hope to get more videos out soon :)
I love this ! I used to have an old powerbook and the display was horrible old grayscale . Nothing like this ... nice wiring and i cant believe the trackpad and keyboard work
Thanks Bob :) My programming skills are almost zero, all effort goes to Mr. Frank Adams and his instructable for the keyboard and mouse, as well as to the man from hackaday, who shoved a Mac Mini into a PowerBook 165C :)
this is so awesome to see! Wish I had the patience and the know-how for frankensteining things together like this!
Thanks :) it really wasn't all that hard, I have a very basic background in electronics. You should start with a Raspberry Pi build :)
I like seeing these projects, the effort put into converting and adapting it to house new hardware while keeping its essence, keep them videos coming!
Thank you for the like :) I hope to get more projects out soon, but right now, chickens, goats, and tractors are a priority :)
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION Please take your time! Coming from a family of farmers and cattle-raisers I understand you ;) Greetings from Argentina
Just subscribed as impressed with your project, keep up to good work
Thanks for subscribing :) I hope to get more videos out soon, give a shout if there is some project you'd like to see :)
I just discovered your channel and I immediately subscribed after I seen your project.
Thank you for subscribing :) I hope to get more content out soon. Let me know if there is something you would like to see as a project?
This video is inspiring, I'm a 20 year old IT student from Serbia that loves tinkering with technology.
Now I am thinking of attempting to do the same build but I have access to 3D printers and PCB Board Printing so I was thinking of doing the same thing but instead of running jumper wires I would have custom PCB boards for everything and a new board for the screen buttons. When it comes to the batteries being held and everything else I could 3D print a holder for them.
I'm glad you like it :) I was going to do a custom board for the brightness control board, so I could unplug it from the controller board, but since it was only six wires I used the old board.
Great job Billy
Thank you sir:)
Руки мастера творят чудеса... :) Молодец!
Thank you, you're too kind :) I hope to get more videos out soon :)
this is actually insane that would be such a cool project to turn into a storefront
Hey..... Thank you :) I've sold many restored and modified Macs to storefronts, museums, and corporate lobbies around the world :) If you do a search on youtube using "Macintosh" and filter it by view counts, the highest view count by a very well known young man who does tech reviews, is of a Macintosh 128K that I restored. I sold it to his staff at a very discounted price, asking that he mention my channel, he never did, and I lost hundreds of dollars on the sale. They used every trick to disguise the fact that it was sold by me to them...... oh well :) I hope you stick around to see my next project :)
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION i’ll definitely be there i loved your video🙌
Thank you brother:)
Welcome back Billy! Great project!
Thank you Tim:) I'm hoping to put some more projects out soon.
As an owner of a Powerbook 520c back in the day this is......awesome. Loved my PowerPC upgraded Blackbird it was my first college laptop, sold it to help pay for a Bondi Blue imac G3 cause I absolutely had to have a G3.
Hello :) I'm glad you liked the mod:)
Fantastic job bud :)
I love when people retrofit old laptops, I remember someone doing similar conversion on a ThinkPad 701c using Framework board. For the 701c they also used an iPad screen, but they connected it directly to the board since both use eDP, so I was wondering, is there is a reason you didn't connect it directly too?
Hi, I'm glad you liked it :) For the 701c project you mentioned, it must have been an iPad first generation LCD? The iPad retina used in this project doesn't have an eDP connector?
Great mod Billy Love it
Thanks Dave:) I'm waiting on a video driver board for my old Wallstreet G3 cases with a 14 in screen, I'm going to put a Raspberry Pi 5 into it. I never saw the last part of your G4 conversion project? Did you finish it?
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION Yes I have not worked on it Need to do the final video on that
awesome work, thank you for the video! what do you think - is it possible to modify MacBook 13 inch 2009 with hardware of modern MacBook Air models?
Thank you Alexey :) Which 2009 do you want to modify, the plastic or aluminum model? Either way, yes, they are possible to mod, especially using MacBook Air logicboards.
About the buttons you mapped on the side of the screen, what does all of them do? The bottom left turns the display on and off while the top and bottom right buttons control the brightness. What does the top left button do? Anyways, excellent work! I've seen someone do something just like this! 🔥🔥🔥
I'm gad you liked the video Amir :) The top left button doesn't do anything, I was going to use the left buttons as volume controllers for an amplifier, but decided to keep it simple. I don't take credit for the idea, I was inspired by a similar project on hackaday by a person with the alias "Tylinol"
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION Thank you for the input!
This is great! Been wanting to do something similar but the thoughts of the keyboard and track pad always derail the idea.
Hey man, don't worry about the keyboard and trackpad, after you read the instructions from Frank Adams several times (yep, read it several times), it becomes apparent how really easy it is, and if you need help just give me a call on here :)
My... My knees... They're bending on their own... I kneel, Sir Billy!
Now if someone could just find a way to put an M1/M2/M3 motherboard inside a Penryn MacBook Pro. I love my 17 inch, but it's worthless power wise nowadays...
Thank you you, I'm glad you like the mod :) I'm considering several M1 projects right now, just waiting on the price on logicboards to come down a bit, the Penryn is certainly a candidate for a mod :) Big screens are the future!
pretty cool build
Thanks :) I hope to get more out soon, I'm trying to find someone to program controller boards for some of the older LCDs.
Sweet video!
Thanks, I hope to get more content out the door soon :)
your skills are second to none, It is a fascinating video! What happened to your finger? 0:18
Thank you:) You should check out Rocky Hill, his mods on the iMac G3 and eMacs are mind blowing! I think you're talking about my pinky finger? I was fooling with an M14 thirty years ago and the bolt released closing on my pinky, and it snapped the tendon, it's called a mallet finger.
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION m14 rifle caused that injury?
@@Mr1BOSANAC Actually it was a M1A, I was confused by small fragments near the ejector cutout and was using my pinky get at them when the bolt went home, I must have hit the release by accident?
Are the Apple Silicon boards an option?
Hello :) Definitely Yes, the Silicon boards are so small and power efficient that they are an ideal option. I'm hoping to get a project out in the near future with a MacBook Air M1 board.
HAHAHA Clinton Body Count numbers, I love it. Great to see people know about that.
Yep..... I started keeping up with the numbers very early.
Cool
Glad you like it :)
Man u cool
Well thank you :)
Молодец! Уважаю
Thank you, I hope to get more videos out soon :)
use a 2008 macbook mobo so it will be slow cuz powerbook was slow
Hmmmm....... not sure what you're saying?
@@BillyTheKidCENTURION use a 2008 macbook motherboard
He can use any mobi he wants, @@sajtcraft3473
So you put new parts in old case. Wow, such an upgrade.
Sorry you're disappointed by my video, so I guess your video of an upgrade, demonstrates what an actual upgrade is, and ........ oh wait......... where is your video, I can't seem to find it, perhaps it's being blocked from public viewing?
10:28 - Legendary. 😂
Cool, but other than the case it's not a 520c anymore. Kind of like mounting a Subaru body onto a 4x4 pickup frame.
Thank you for saying it's cool, but I don't understand turning around and equivalating
it to putting a Subaru body onto a truck chassis by another auto-maker?
It uses the cases, keyboard, trackpad, and brightness/contrast control board, from the 520c.
A Subaru body mounted on another 4wd pickup, let's say a Ford F-100, is very noticeable, and quite apparent that it isn't an original Subaru, if you are not intimately familiar with the PowerBook 520C, you would not know it's not an original 520C in this project.
This is what I don't get about people like you, did the PPC upgrade make it no longer a 520C? At what point does replacing parts mean it's no longer its name plate?
I have upgraded a 1972 Maverick with a Chevy 305, Is it no longer a Maverick, I have upgraded a CJ-5 with a 351, is it no longer a CJ-5?
Lastly...... where is your video highlighting your work with micro-controllers?
Again, thank you for saying the project was cool, but I don't understand what you are going after here?
this is damn cool and if you cant see that you're a fool
No you did not put a Mac Pro into a laptop. A Mac Pro is a DESKTOP computer.
Hey AA-ron, you focused on one audio skip at the beginning of the video, throughout the rest of the video I clearly stated it was a MacBook Pro. Also you evidently can't read, or comprehend what you read very well, because once again I state that it is a MacBook Pro in the description. Also you don't seem to know your Mac Pro desktops all that well, how many of them have an i5 processor? Thank you for the snarky, silly comment :) Oh, forgot to add..... there is no "Climate Crisis"