Action Retro

Today we're turning our 2005 Power Macintosh Dual G5 tower into a retro PowerPC Minecraft server! To help PowerPC Minecraft players get the most out of their limited machines, a server can take the load off of world generation, allowing PowerPC Macs to get the highest possible in-game framerate. It should also be a lot of fun to play multiplayer with other people also using vintage Macs! But will this 16 year old one-time monster of a machine enough to handle multiple players? Which PowerPC Linux distro will work best? Let's find out!

Today we're taking a trip into our retro Minecraft server, running on an upgraded Power Macintosh G5 tower, to see all of the cool stuff that you've all built! The server is running Minecraft 1.2.5 on a dual-processor G5 with 8gb of RAM, using Adelie Linux to get a full 64 bit version of Java. We've been live for over a week now, and in that short time you've built some really incredible stuff - more than 100 of you!

oday we're back with our favorite frenemy, the Cursed Macintosh SE/30! The person who originally modified this mutant Macintosh used it for music production, and haphazardly glued a bunch of random speakers all over the case. Let's fix that by installing nice new fancy speakers in it, along with something special to really punch up the volume!

Oh my goodness. Today we're swapping out the Sonnet processor upgrade in the G4 Cube for an upgrade that's even more ridiculous. Just how much G4 power can we squeeze out of this Cube? What will it take to make this the ultimate MEGA CUBE? Most importantly, can we get playable framerates out of the Cube on our Minecraft Server spawn area?! Answers to all this and more in this week's Cubey shenanigans!

It seems like everyone has a cool miniature version of their favorite classic tech - except us Mac fans! Today, with the help of long-time friend of the channel Taylor, we're out to right this wrong. What does it take to turn this awesome 3D printed mini Blue and White G3 case into a working Power Mac? Stay tuned and find out!

Now that the Mac Yak PowerPC Challenge is over, it's time to take our community Minecraft server off of the loud and power-hungry PowerMac G5 tower and on to a machine that's a little more reasonable. Is a 12 year old 2ghz Mac Mini up for the challenge? Or, is a new Raspberry Pi 4 actually a stronger computer now? Let's install Debian Linux on these two machines, pit them head-to-head with some benchmarks, and transplant our server into a new home!

The Toshiba Libretto - a computer I've dreamt of owning since I was a kid, and I finally have one to experiment with! This Libretto 50CT is decked with with a Pentium 166 MMX, 32 megs of RAM, and Windows 98 on an incredibly loud and clicky hard drive. Let's give this tiny miracle of a machine a new lease on life with a solid state hard drive, and the most interesting operating system of its time - Apple's Rhapsody OS, the precursor to Mac OS X, which was actually released to developers on Intel!

I hope you have your bits-and-bytes diggin' gloves on, because it's time for operating system archaeology! After playing around with Apple Rhapsody on my Toshiba Libretto, I started to really curious about the origins of Mac OS X and modern macOS. Is there anything in modern macOS left behind from the old days of Steve Jobs' NeXTSTEP? Lets install NeXTSTEP on an old Compaq Presario and Apple Rhapsody on a PowerBook G3 Wallstreet, compare them to Mac OS X and macOS Big Sur, and find out!

Today we're tackling the last of the Cursed Mac's gremlins - a sketchy original power supply which was literally hack-sawed apart by the previous modder, and barely provides enough power for all of our mods. To do so, we're going to modify a modern Seasonic ATX power supply to cram 300W into this little guy. I hope you enjoy white-knuckle soldering, because one wrong wire and I'll wind up blowing the whole thing up!

Today I'm getting artistic, and trying to upgrade the Cursed Mac's looks to match all of the goodies we've crammed inside. Will our super special case mod arrive in time? Will I completely ruin the case by trying to get a little too creative? Bonus: let's mount all of the crazy hacked-in drives, but with metal and screws instead of double-sided tape!

Today we're going online, 90's style! Well, a retrofuturistic 1990's where Hayes-compatible dial-up modems could connect to a magic internet signal that permeates the air - WIFI! We're trying out an awesome RS232 WiFi modem emulator from TheOldNet, which requires a little bit of work to get running on old Macs. But maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live out a dream I mentioned in my very first-ever YouTube video.

Today I'm going to go all-in on fixing the Cursed Mac's case, with some bondo - and a new blue transparent case from MacEffects! What could possibly go wrong?

It's finally happening, after weeks of of not-so-subtle hints. And some of you totally guessed right! Today we're exploring one of the rarest upgrades in existence for the Macintosh SE/30, and then we're installing in the Cursed Mac. It's going to be wild!

It's no secret that the internet has become mostly terrible over the last decade or so. Long gone is the open web, and in it's place is a quagmire of ads, trackers and social media blobs that have gotten so complicated, we have to buy new computers each year just so Big Tech can track us better! Well, forget all that. I've built a service that strips the modern web back down to basics - text and images. So far, in fact, that even ancient web browsers can handle it again! Here's the story behind FrogFind.com and 68k.news.

Today we're taking a modern NAS, graciously donated to the channel, and seeing if we can turn this into the ultimate bridge machine for vintage Macs! Can we use this thing to make files available to all of our vintage machines? Better yet... can we get it to run Snow Leopard Server?!

Today, we finish a long journey of case modding that began long before I found this 1989 compact Mac on Craigslist, already painted black with the case chopped up to fit a CD ROM and 1GB Jaz disk drive. Oh, and stick around until the end for a special announcement! For Peter Parker, it was a radioactive spider. For the four turtles, it was a canister of green goop. For this lowly Macintosh SE/30, it was a fateful encounter with modding culture that led to this, it's near-final form! After adding a ton of internal mods myself - solid state hard drive, 68040 processor upgrade, modern power supply - today I'm taking the cosmetics to the highest level possible... whether that level is beauty or gaudiness, though, depends on your taste I suppose. All I know is that I love it, and I think you might too. So join me today in adding a wonderful MacEffects transparent blue case and a tasteful amount of lighting, so that we can all marvel at the heavily upgraded internals of this machine whene

I went to the amazing vintage computer swap meet hosted by VCF in Wall, NJ, and I found entirely way too many amazing vintage computers! Mac stuff, vintage UNIX machines, and some super funky laptops. Plus, I got to hang out with Steve from @Mac84 and Mike from Mike's Mac Shack! Check out Steve's finds from the swap meet here: • VCF 2021 Swap Mee... and here: • VCF 2021 Swap Mee... I hope you're planning on going to the VCF's Vintage Computer Festival East this October - because I'll be there!

Today we're fixing up a PowerBook 540c, a beautiful laptop from 1994 that brought many firsts to both Apple and the entire computer industry, but with a fatal flaw - the most comically under-engineered hinge in the history of Mac laptops. Thanks @ThisDoesNotCompute for letting me include some footage from your similar PowerBook 145B fix!

Today we're going to take a look at a Quadra 700, Apple's first Mac minitower and an absolutely iconic machine which, for some reason, makes me think of dinosaurs... We're also going to max out this machine with a really incredible purple upgrade with an interesting story, and talk about some big plans I have for this machine. Thanks @Mac84 for the cameo!

Today we're installing a really interesting Japanese G3 accelerator by InterWare, which will hopefully add the incredible power of a G3 266mhz to our lowly 133mhz PowerBook 1400c! Hopefully we won't run into any super obnoxious issues along the way... Bonus - the accelerator still has it's original packaging, including the super cheap-o installation tools!

Today we're putting UNIX on the Quadra 700... but not just any UNIX! This is last and greatest version of Apple's A/UX. Let's see what kind of shenanigans we can pull, and get this Quadra ready to be a game server at this year's Vintage Computer Festival!

Today we're turning the Quadra 700 into the mythical Power Macintosh 700, using a Daystar PowerPro 601 accelerator that radically changes the entire architecture of the computer. Just how much of a difference will it make, and can we install a completely unsupported version of MacOS?

Today we have the most powerful G4 machine that Apple ever released, and we're using a custom-built CPU to turn it into the fastest G4 in the world! Well, one of them at least. But we're not stopping here - this is part one in our quest to build the world's fastest G4 Power Macintosh!

Today we're tearing into the achilles heel of Macintosh gaming - graphics cards! In this second installment of our quest to build the world's fastest Power Mac G4, we're hacking a Windows-only GPU to work in our dual 2.0 GHz Mac G4. Oh, and we might accidentally kill the power supply, and have to hack in a modern ATX PSU!

The PowerMac G4 MDD comes with some of the fastest IDE available on Macs: ATA-100. Using a cheap IDE to SATA adapter results in blazing fast performance. But, can we push our speeds even further with a dedicated PCI to SATA controller card, flashed for Mac? Also, is buying a pre-flashed SATA card from eBay worth it? Let's find out together!

Today we're upgrading the Quadra 950, an absolutely BEHEMOTH tower from 1992. Can we fit the full (and bonkers) 256 megs of RAM in there? Better yet, can it run A/UX? This might be the perfect server to run our MUD at VCF East this year.

Today we're tearing back into the Quadra 950 to up the cooling, make a few internal changes, and get it ready to be a CircleMUD server at VCF East this year! Also, I make a dad joke.

In today's very special episode, we have the Mac that got me into vintage Macs... literally. I bought this LC575 from a thrift shop way back when I was in high school, and I promptly ruined it while trying to upgrade it. Today, it has no motherboard, no screws, and no drives... and it hasn't been turned on in well over a decade. Fortunately, thanks to Alex from @appleontheapex I not only have a new LC575 motherboard - but it has an INCREDIBLE PowerPC upgrade card on it! Can we bring this Mac back to life? And if so, how far can we push it? Let's find out!

Today we're checking out the RaSCSI, a device that connects to a Raspberry Pi, and lets it communicate directly with the SCSI bus on your vintage Mac (and other machines too!) Using the RaSCSI software, you can emulate drives, networking adapters, and even cool stuff like video cards are possible (in the future). There's amazing functionality in the web interface, including absolute magic like download a file from the internet, and mount it inside an HFS cd rom image on the fly! Getting files from the web onto a vintage Mac was never easier. We also have the BEAUTIFUL PotatoFi case, an Apple-esque Snow White design language case for the RaSCSI and Raspberry Pi together. Let's put this stuff together, and see just what it can do!

A few months ago, we had a grand ol' time with TheOldNet's Serial WiFi Modem Emulator. Well, those boffins have released an updated version! Today, let's pair it with our Apple //e, and pit it against our tried-and-true Uthernet ][ ethernet card. Then let's use the //e as a terminal to our Quadra 950 running A/UX!

Today we're taking an amazing mid-90's Macintosh clone, the Power Computing PowerWave 150, and starting on an epic journey of extreme upgrades. We'll talk about the history behind this strange machine, and how it fits into the weird world of mid-90's Macintosh. Then, we're going to answer the most important question: How far can we push this rare machine?

What happens when you upgrade a Mac from 1995 to 1ghz? Today we have one of the rarest SoNNeT Macintosh accelerators ever produced - the SoNNeT Crescendo PCI/G4 1ghz! I cannot believe I have this absolute grail of a mythical upgrade. But will it work in our Power Computing Macintosh clone?

Today we're taking out 1995 Power Computing PowerWave Macintosh clone build across the finish line - or at least that's the plan! We've run into a bunch of problems so far with our ancient and rare upgrades, so we'll see if we can fix them up while adding in a whole host of cool upgrades! Will we end up with our dream build - a 1GHz Mac clone running OSX Tiger with 1gb of RAM? Join us for the exciting conclusion of our extreme Mac Clone build!

Today we're doing the impossible - Minecraft on a computer from 1995!

Today we're answering a question that no one has ever asked before - will two 90's Macintosh clones, based on the same architecture, actually be able to use exactly the same set of upgrades and accelerators? And if they are, will the perform exactly the same? Well buckle up, because who knows what kinds of problems we'll run into!

Today, we're talking a look at FlappyMac, a brand new and incredibly fun game for vintage Macs, designed from scratch by the one-and-only @gruz ! This game should work on pretty much any vintage Mac, from PowerPCs down to black-and-white compact Macs. We'll even try it on a Mac Plus! Check out the game here: https://gruz.itch.io/flappymac

The Cursed Mac is getting a spooky upgrade for VCF East - We're modding a transparent MacEffects case to fit all the upgrades, and let people gander at the crazy accelerators inside! But will the Cursed Mac lose some of it's Cursed Magic with this new set of digs? Let's find out!

Today we're hitting the road with a bunch of the heavily modded Macs, and taking them to VCF East!

At VCF East this year, I rescued a pretty beat up PowerBook 540c, which just so happened to have a PowerPC upgrade and maxed-out RAM! Today, let's combine my two 540c's to make one perfect one, and test out the PPC upgrade to see if it's really as mind-blowing as 1994 Apple claimed it to be.

Now that TenFourFox is no longer in development as of October 2021, how will we ever subject our PowerPC Macs to the horrors of the modern web... safely? Today, we're trying out a few options to keep the web alive on PPC.

Today we're taking Apple's amazing 90's subcompact PowerBook, the 2400c (which was actually built by IBM!), and upgrading it to solid state storage. But before we do, can we save it from ITSELF?']

The Macintosh Portable was an iconic machine released in 1989. The problem is, I don't own one. Let's build a bootleg Mac Portable and see if it's any good!

Well, it's the holidays, plus I'm in the middle of moving to a brand new house. So, it's the perfect time to procrastinate and check out an old sealed PowerPC software compilation! Let's break out the G3 iBook Clamshell and have some good ol' fashioned shareware shenanigans.

Today we're exploring a brand "new" version of OSX released for PowerPC Macs - the unofficial 10.5.9 Sorbet Leopard! Combining parts of 10.5 and the unreleased 10.6 PowerPC Beta, and throwing in a bunch of interesting quirks and features, Sorbet promises Tiger-level compatibility and speed, with Leopard-level compatibility. Does it live up to this promise? If I try it on my G4 upgraded Pismo, will it literally explode?! Let's find out!

Today we're upgrading a very neglected iMac G4 to fix some of its issues, install an SSD, and get it ready for some big adventures I have planned for it! Plus, Sorbet Leopard!

Many moons ago, we installed Adelie Linux (the hard way!) on an iMac G3 to get a modern Linux kernel on a machine that should run no such thing. Well, Adelie has a lot of update live install DVDs that make things much easier! Unfortunately, they don't work right on PowerPC Macs. So today, let me show you the work-arounds I've figured out to get a fully-functional modern Linux desktop on your gracefully-aging PowerPC Mac! Also, low-key face reveal lol.