1-bit rainbow has unveiled what is most likely the tiniest functional Macintosh replica ever! 1-bit rainbow is a website that sells parts for vintage Apple devices. Meet the pico-mac-nano.
The pico-mac-nano is powered by a small Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, mounted inside a miniature 3D-peinted Macintosh 128K case with a working 2-inch LCD screen. The tiny faux Macintosh actually works, runing an emulated version of tghe classic Mac operating system. The tiny Macintosh can even use a USB keyboard and mouse with it, via an included USB splitter cable.
Fully assembled, tested and working pico-mac-nano plus new USB splitter cable and hex key. This is the 1-bit rainbow implementation of the open source pico-mac project modified to run on a Pico Zero, and combined with a tiny 2″ LCD screen and a custom designed PCB in a detailed, miniature, 62mm high replica Macintosh 128k case.
1-bit rainbow’s Nick Gillard shared details about the pico-mac-nano in a blog post:
It all started with me stumbling across the crazy cheap Raspberry Pi Pico and taking my first foray into micro-controllers. Searching for what others had done with the Pico led me to pico-mac; a project by fellow Brit and super-clever-fella, Matt Evans. In a nutshell he created a stripped back emulator for the original Macintosh running Macintosh System 3 on a Pico with USB keyboard and mouse support and VGA out. This was no mean feat and took a lot of ingenuity (its a great read) due to the limitations of the Pico such as only having 264k of RAM.
The pico-mac project inspired me. To me it echoed the early days of computers like the first Macintosh when pioneers achieved remarkable things within the technological limitations of the day. Needless to say I set about building a pico-mac and am not ashamed (slightly ashamed) to say I giggled like a little girl when that black & white, 512 x 342 pixel Macintosh desktop appeared on my VGA monitor and I launched Lode Runner.
While 1-bit rainbow sells the pico-mac-nano for £56, it is currently out of stock, due to the attention it has received on tech blogs. The website says orders will resume “soon.” Interested parties can enter their email to be notified when more are available.
If you need instant gratification, you can create one yourself, using the pico-mac code and 3D-printable case files that are freely available on GitHub.
