Category: Apple

Antique Mac Web Servers

SE/30

I own a Color Classic as well an a much abused SE/30 (I added an Apple logo shaped window to it’s side) and I’ve been wanting to get some more use out of them before they fail totally. In the past I’ve tried to use the SE/30 as a web cam server, it kind of worked but it was slow and almost impossable to configure because the Quickcam software is too large for the screen. The Classic has an AAUI card in it but after a rather impressive blue smoke event with a weird media adapter I have pretty much written the card off.
I decided to do a bit of searching and see if anyone had tried building a useful Internet machine out of these antiques and was quite happy to discover that a few had. One of particular note is the Classic web server. Its online and even has a small downloads section that is running off it’s FDHD. You might think, “big deal, there are millions of web servers out there”. Well that might be true but look at the specs of this one:

Specifications:
CPU – 8MHz Motorola 68000
RAM – Maxed out at 4mb
Hard Drive – 40mb
Floppy Drive – 1.44mb 3.5″
Monitor – Built in 9″ black and white
Ethernet Connection – Asante EN/SC 10T SCSI to Ethernet Adapter
Operating System – Macintosh System 7.5
Server Software – MacHTTP
Web Browser – MacWeb 2.0
Screensaver – Basic Black

Yeah, not what you would call a powerhouse!
From there I noticed the link to the ‘68K Macintosh Web Server Directory‘. That is like pure gold! Gobs of ‘old world’ macs serving up pages fo rthe world to see. The SE/30 Webcam Server. Now he cheats a bit, his webcam is Firewire’d into an iMac and the SE/30 just serves the images up. The page you see is coming from the SE/30 though.
The one I want to build will have the computer do everything. Take the picture and serve it up to you. I might have to settle with just FTP’ing the image to this page and serving it up from there, my ISP has this thing about servers.

cool, antique, server, Macintosh, Apple

iPod Up-Armor Project

Armor plated iPod

I don’t think I’d want to test the bullet resistance of this case, but if you think your iPod might be run over by a truck then this should protect it.
(Translated quote)

Aluminum A5052 that was comparatively high hardness, excellent in corrosion resistance (It is not easy to rust) was used for the material. After putting iPod in the case of the separation into the case and Fta, the screw stops Fta to a basic composition. The above-mentioned function is achieved ..can make it do by the headphone in the state, see the screen, and can synchronize with Mac by a cable standard ..can the operation.. the click wheel… It is likely to be able to stop it if the thickness of the material is 5 basically mm, and the gun bullets of about 22 calibers perhaps.

Armor plate for iPod Photo
( Here is a Translated version of the above page just so you can read the story. The translation service sometimes has issues with image heavy pages so don’t expect them all to work. You can translate the other pages via Excite Japan. )

Not to leave the Shuffle out, there is also an armor kit for those of you feel the need.
Armor plate for iPod Shuffle
Personaly, I like the titanium one better.
You can download PDF files of the plans if you have some quality metal and a mill handy.

titanium, armor, Japan, ipod, aluminum, cool, DIY, case, mod

Firefox Will Be There

Apple

Very cool, no matter what the platform Firefox will be there.

No-one quite knows what Apple’s move to Intel chips is going to bring. Is this the beginning of a bold new era for Macintosh? Can we expect to see weird hybrid Macs, capable of running Windows? Firefox fans needn’t worry though: apparently a working version of Firefox has already been ported over to the new OS, to my knowledge the first non-Apple app to do so. Apparently Apple helped out, as they wanted it for a tech demo. A sign of that Mozilla’s getting a bigger slice of Apple soon?
Again, who knows?

Firefox already ported over to Intel Macs

firefox, Apple, MacTel, platform