Hacking A Video Card into a Molar Mac

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Hacking A Video Card into a Molar Mac

Рет қаралды 42,915

Жыл бұрын

Thanks PCBWay.com - The G3 All in One "Molar" Mac was never intended to have upgraded video. In fact, the video signals are split between two different connectors on a weird, proprietary "personality" card.
So, let's hack it up and upgrade the video anyway! And maybe even play Minecraft!
VIDEO LINKS:
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🍎 PowerPC Minecraft: macintoshgarde...
🍎 How to upgrade Molar Mac Video: www.ppcmla.com...
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Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: www.amazon.com...
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#PowerPC #Macintosh #Minecraft

Пікірлер: 262

@MatthewCobalt Жыл бұрын

This series of videos should be renamed “The Cursed Mac Chronicles”

@JaredConnell Жыл бұрын

Paint it black and blue and call it cursed Mac 2 lol

@The_G-Hamer Жыл бұрын

Mysterious Mac Mayhem

@minty_Joe Жыл бұрын

Hosted by Stewart Cheifet. Sorry, I couldn't resist! 🤣

@minty_Joe Жыл бұрын

@@JaredConnell 1.) What do you call a Macintosh with a black eye? 2.) What do you call a Macintosh with 2 black eyes?

@thomasb.900 Жыл бұрын

1:39 Haha i saw that poor PowerMac G3 Tower on eBay a few months ago with the professional cut outs for the jazz and zip drives, i was amazed to see it got sold, it all makes perfect sense now

@ActionRetro Жыл бұрын

It really spoke to me 😂

@retropuffer2986 Жыл бұрын

Bringing 90s computers to the modern world. I love it!

@ConanRider Жыл бұрын

Dragging 90's computers kicking and screaming into the modern world!

@deltakurshiva Жыл бұрын

There are versions of the Radeon 9200 that have the VGA connected with a ribbon cable off a pin header on a smaller board, so you could keep all the cabling internal. Though "less jank" does not seem to be a design priority here...

@samuelcolvin4994 Жыл бұрын

That's what I was thinking, didn't some really old compaqs have an internal monitor port on their cards?

@SirSmilie Жыл бұрын

My computer labs at school in the late 90s early 2000s had like over 60+ of these things. Seeing one again brings back memories of dancing baby screensavers and toasters. I love all these Frankenstein mods! keep up the good work

@a4e69636b Жыл бұрын

I envy you. We had Gateway 2000's at mine :(

@samuelcolvin4994 Жыл бұрын

I remember the flying toasters! Haha we had a bizarre mix of gateways, a few of these and the old classic black and white mac's at my school, also I SEEM to remember a commodore PET at my mothers old school but in hindsight it was probably a teacher's PET machine (my mom was an elementary school teacher but did NOT teach at the school where I attended to put this into perspective)

@justin6581 Жыл бұрын

@@samuelcolvin4994which one did the students want to use the most?

@nickwallette6201 Жыл бұрын

You know, for $20 at DigiKey, you could get a HDB-15 jack, a 40-pin header, and a 10 pin header. Source a short VGA jumper, and have ... I dunno ... some random PCB manufacturing house (ahem...) crank out a board, and this could be a slot-in adapter card right next to the video and personality cards. I think DigiKey still has pre-fabbed PCI slot brackets with DB-9 style cutouts, too.

@GendoPrime Жыл бұрын

You sir are the monarch of Mac jankery.

@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862 Жыл бұрын

i think you can disable the onboard video output by removing the components that give power to the internal gpu. in alot of devices just cutting off power wil make the hardware disappear from the device's bios too (which might work for macs too then)

@franklincerpico7702 Жыл бұрын

Damn that thing looks so much nicer since you've cleaned it up.

@charlesjmouse Жыл бұрын

Very good. I'm genuinely surprised Apple didn't deliberately screw with something to ensure an upgrade like this would be impossible. I can only assume they never considered it. The silly thing about the Molar Mac is it didn't have to be so hideously disturbing. Indeed it could have been 'better' if Apple had taken a more low effort approach... Imagine an upscaled Mac SE case to fit the components - job done and much, much nicer.

@MarcosCodas Жыл бұрын

80s and 90s Apple had a very different approach to upgradability and repairability than the past 20 years.

@MarcosCodas Жыл бұрын

They still had more Woz than Jobs in their hardware design philosophy.

@francesconicoletti2547 Жыл бұрын

I’m imagining you mean a SE looking case because this thing cannot be shoehorned into a big SE case. The monitor was not an independent component on the SE it was integrated completely with rest of the computer. When apple did that again it became the iMac.

@GAMECLOSET Жыл бұрын

I’m really enjoying your Dr Frankenstein shenanigans on this Molar Mac. 20 years ago I was messing with mine and now I wish I still had it. (I still have the zif card processor though haha). Fun vid, sir.

@minty_Joe Жыл бұрын

The Molar Mac took one look at all the mods and upgrades you wanted to do and said, "Are you f%^&ing kidding me? What kind of sadistic fiend have I ended up with?"

@IoIxD Жыл бұрын

If you do put in an M1 Mac Mini, you should go the extra mile of putting both computers in. Put a switch on the back that lets you change whether the M1 Mac or the G4 is being used!

@ActionRetro Жыл бұрын

I had the exact same thought haha

@MrDeelightful Жыл бұрын

@@ActionRetro oh please do this, what a fun idea! I bet you'd run into some tangles with that 🤣

@dcfuksurmom Жыл бұрын

@@ActionRetro maybe squeeze an Raspberry Pi or similar with Android on it in there as well, just for the hell of it.

@CRYPTiCEXiLE Жыл бұрын

1994 punk in drublic is one of NOFX best album \m/ rock on dude! great video!

@nukelauncher95 Жыл бұрын

I'm surprised that cable worked so well. Classic Mac OS is so easy to emulate that I feel like doing case mods and motherboard swaps on these old Macs is something we all can get behind. I don't think an M1 swap is right, but an Intel swap running High Sierra would be perfect. You have plenty of power to emulate classic Mac OS and with High Sierra, you can still run 32 bit apps. I don't know if it's possible to do so, but maybe you can dual boot Leopard and High Sierra so you also can run PowerPC apps. Or try running Leopard in a virtual machine. And with Intel Macs, you can run any version of Linux and Windows too.

@allalphazerobeta8643 Жыл бұрын

If you wanted to do it a bit cleaner. I'd open one of the IDE? ribbon connectors. You'll need bit of force to make new connection into the ribbon, a few light taps of a hammer does or some pinching tool. but that would allow you to shrink the length to something more manageable. And if you open the side away from the personality card. You could have the v and h sync cables go past or long. (making sure to cut them going to the personality card. So those two wire would exist the opposite end of the connector. Or you could pull them use personality side and have them not go to the connector. But I'd crimp the intact ribbon wire then take apart the connector and then split off the two wires and re-assemble. Since it will be hard to align everything for crimping with two missing wires.

@allalphazerobeta8643 Жыл бұрын

There might be a way to move the PCI card with an extension or something and be completely stealth

@JW-po1qd Жыл бұрын

You do every upgrade I always dreamed about as a high schooler. I’m so glad someone else has this max out every Mac gene, love these videos!

@pseudotasuki Жыл бұрын

I *believe* you can disable PCI devices in OpenFirmware, but it might not remember it after a reboot.

@Mainyehc Жыл бұрын

An M1 Mac Mini board with internal USB Zip and BlueRay tray-loading drives (I guess you could gut those from external USB units and stick them in there with room to spare), plus a card reader where the floppy drive is, would make for a perfect sleeper system… 😂 Add Basilisk II to the mix, and you can still boot Mac OS 9 on it, faster than ever 🙃

@oldhedders Жыл бұрын

This channel is the very definition of "... for science".

@aswxwing Жыл бұрын

I look forward to your insanity every week Sean. You are truly a crazy beautiful man. Now play some Escape Velocity danmit!

@jasonhill8696 Жыл бұрын

That cable splice is some of the best shit on tech KZfaq

@VexisMorlock Жыл бұрын

I don’t have an old Mac to test things like this but from looking at it from the BSD side of things it would be possible to disable the onboard graphics by editing the rc.conf and/or the loader.conf files. Prob not super easy but def do-able

@yourfavouritenerd Жыл бұрын

Love the shirt. Computers and punk rock, these are a few of my favorite things ;)

@macintalkshow Жыл бұрын

Call me crazy but I genuinely, unironically like the molar's design. I don't think it's hideous at all - on the contrary, I think it's pretty nice-looking and actually holds up a lot better than similar all-in-ones from the time. Honestly I like how it looks more than the original iMac. By a lot. But, yes, it does look like a giant tooth.

@mcdjchandler 8 ай бұрын

Nice shirt. I've owned 4 x G3s , 2 beige, 2 blue/white, and a few different G4s. Great for old TDM pro tools rigs

@proCaylak Жыл бұрын

1:28 aaaaah yourself! (a big wave of molar macs suddenly appear)

@absalomdraconis Жыл бұрын

If you wanted to do this with less jank, you could run a PCB to stick in an expansion slot so that the only jank needed was a VGA extension cable. Stick two IDE connectors inside, run the relevant VGA connections to the "crt side" IDE connector, and you're done. If you wanted to be fancy, you could even add a switch and a second VGA port onto the back to control an analogue video switcher, that way you'd still have access to the internal video at the same time. All with no need to splice cables.

@MrDeelightful Жыл бұрын

HELL YEAH MOLAR MAC! Love your videos man! Plus your graphic tee game is sharp af, I've loved seeing them in your videos lately!

@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs Жыл бұрын

Great graphics upgrade Sean with that G4 upgrade that is A beast of Molar Mac

@JohnSmith-xq1pz Жыл бұрын

Molar mac: I'm so going gonna end your sanatiy...

@stasalein Жыл бұрын

"The Hackiest Mod I've Ever Done" - in this channel that's definitely says a lot

@southernflatland Жыл бұрын

It's a CRT, you can adjust the yoke to at least center the screen. There's usually like 3 or 4 rubber wedges between the CRT and yoke which are likely glued in but easy enough to break loose and adjust. Your mileage may vary on the color purity, but usually tweaking the yoke angle doesn't tend to interfere much with color purity. But even if it does, the two rings closest to the connector end of the CRT neck adjust the color purity. The rings forward of that adjust convergence. Edited for corrections.

@eDoc2020 Жыл бұрын

On a monitor I looked at recently the rubber wedges were used to adjust dynamic convergence.

@southernflatland Жыл бұрын

@@eDoc2020 It's a bit of both the yoke and the rings really. The position of the yoke forward and backwards, plus the 2 magnetic rings closest to the board mainly adjust color purity. Adjusting the yoke up/down/left/right, and the rings further up the tube mainly adjust convergence. All other things being equal, assuming a decently centered input signal, you'd usually start by centering the raster roughly with the yoke, then dial in the convergence and purity with the rings.

@stephanemignot100 Жыл бұрын

Maybe you need the patched Merlin drivers on the OS9 side. The ones you need on the unsupported 1.25ghz eMac and his 9200 32mo AGP, I don't really know.

@goclunker Жыл бұрын

You can also solder your jank cable to the vga pins on the card to make it internal.

@KaitenKenbu Жыл бұрын

This jank is so lovely well done.

@therobb5738 Жыл бұрын

dude, i always look forward to your videos. Wish I had a Mac/Linux buddy like you around!

@Fred_Raimer 11 ай бұрын

Wow! Tons of respect to you, Sean!!!

@dennisud Жыл бұрын

I have a blast watching you and Mac-84! And occasional videos from Luke Miami when he shows old Apple Tech like today with an Apple iPhone 3!

@BlueJayBonsai Жыл бұрын

I’m only here for the googly eyes! 😂🤣

@JulietKilo-X86 Жыл бұрын

Wow a fresh video! Lovely :D

@coriollis 5 ай бұрын

15:01 was both extremely infuriating and hilarious at the same time

@SegaBoy8 Жыл бұрын

Great video! I love watching you do mods and the H word on old computers and Macs.

@zh84 Жыл бұрын

"the dark ages of the Internet - 2006!" I had a website ten years before that and ran it for eight years. I suppose that makes me part of the Internet's ancient history.

@klausschmidt982 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for providing my weekly dose of Cursed Computing™

@anthonysmith4222 Жыл бұрын

That square man on the table, he looks mighty angry.

@greendaykerplunk 9 ай бұрын

nice t-shirt lol nice to see my music interests and my computer interests colide with at least one channel lol

@MichaelSidneyTimpson Жыл бұрын

haha you are finally givng into the m1 suggestions.

@grassblockzach Жыл бұрын

insane retro mac lol

@agamemnon8163 Жыл бұрын

I love how action wiggles and jiggles around in the videos ❤

@jetsonian Жыл бұрын

You missed the opportunity to integrate the sponsor! You could have designed a card with a VGA connector on the outside and the internal connections that match the personality card. Then you’d just need a short VGA jumper. :-D

@SciFlyGal Жыл бұрын

What might be fun is to use the personality card for an external monitor, and play “A-10 attack” with it. This was a Mac only flight simulator from 1995 that for some reason had multiple monitor support 🤷‍♀️. Also, about the phantom monitor. That might be a driver error. I have a g3 iBook snow that used to have that problem. (Also it was stuck at 640 by 480j It turns out that even though they only sold that type of iBook for about a year there were about twenty different models, and some of the later models used a different graphics chipset than the original which is what the internet archive restore disks were for. Apparently mine used the same chipset as an eMac, and once I used those restore cds I was able to get the laptop to stop that.

@kFY514 Жыл бұрын

I think the software is working as intended. The display being internal, probably doesn't have any presence/identification signals, and if it does, he didn't mess with those signals at all, as he only intercepted the R, G, B, Hsync and Vsync signals, nothing else. So electrically, the machine still "thinks" that there is a display connected to the personality card and there is probably no easy way around it. Some people hack modern MacBooks into the PC-in-keyboard form factor (so basically just remove the display) and that also causes a similar "phantom display" issue. It's much less of a problem, though, since both displays being on the same adapter means that there's basically no performance penalty to mirroring - but it can still be a mess when trying to access e.g. recovery options.

@SciFlyGal Жыл бұрын

@@kFY514 That is also a possibility. I’m curious why one would try for the keyboard only form factor. Why pay for the built in monitor when you could just get a mini? Or is this a holdover from the intel days? The M1 mini, air, iMac and MacBook Pro are all literally the same computer. The ones with fewer graphics cores are just units with a manufacturing flaw that has the bad core disabled.

@kFY514 Жыл бұрын

@@SciFlyGal I _think_ it's just hardcore minimalism - a Mini is still a box you need to put somewhere, while a screenless MacBook gives you the perfect minimal desk setup - the keyboard, the screen, and that's it. Some people are after that kind of aesthetic. I don't quite understand that as well, but I'm a "why would you ever _want_ less functionality under _any_ circumstances" kind of guy, so I don't understand defending Apple's "no touchscreens on Macs" stance either, for example.

@AlicanMuezzinoglu Жыл бұрын

Love the NOFX t-shirt my man

@lboston4660 Жыл бұрын

ahahaha when he said "something ridiculous" i already knew he was gonna say minecraft xD hell yeah

@Wobble2007 Жыл бұрын

This was a really dope video, thanks, you could have also used a GPU with an FPC VGA output to keep the whole thing internal, I wonder if the CRT can do 15Khz, if so would make it pretty nice for running 240p games. Maybe install a MiSter or RPi.

@jamesburke2759 Жыл бұрын

Lol professional soldering "this is janks AF"

@DerekWitt Жыл бұрын

This sure gives a different meaning to the term “hackintosh!” :)

@anonanon3482 Жыл бұрын

Diggin the nofx shirt

@readtedium Жыл бұрын

I like how the fans are so dominant in the background on this episode

@kaplanfx Жыл бұрын

Love the NOFX shirt, this isn’t the first I’ve seen in the channel IIRC. Sad they are retiring in 2024…

@hi-friaudioman Жыл бұрын

Is that a NOFX shirt? If it is, you're soooo oooooldddd. 🤣 Edit: that's a joke because I'm just as old. Lol

@ActionRetro Жыл бұрын

hell yeah we're old as dirt 😂

@SilverCat486 Жыл бұрын

Nice NOFX shirt sean

@hardline2a Жыл бұрын

I guess I just like under dogs, but I’ve never thought it was that bad looking. Sure the iMac G3 was much prettier, but the AIO has a lot of charm and of course, expandability

@XyNoST Жыл бұрын

OMG awesome drunk in publi.....Punk in Drublic shirt !

@alextirrellRI Жыл бұрын

I am relieved you didn't cut up the original internal cables!

@richardestes6499 5 ай бұрын

A wise man once said "because it's science, that's why!"

@nickwort123 Жыл бұрын

As always, sick shirt

@igeekone Жыл бұрын

2006, from my perspective, was the fun wide open west of the internet. Broadband was fairly common back then. YT and FB weren't the bloated mess they are today.

@GenericSweetener Жыл бұрын

It's really fun to see a monitor VGA mod used for the machine/purpose it was built for, rather than hacking something else entirely in there. That's fun too, but this mod is wrong in all the right ways!

@crashmatrix Жыл бұрын

That raytraced mac wallpaper on windows is *disgusting*. Well done.

@archivis Жыл бұрын

the most beautiful ac ever! :)

@DotNetDemon83 Жыл бұрын

Came for extreme jank. Was not disappointed.

@KennethPlaysOfficial Жыл бұрын

I would love to see leopard running on this thing

@thumbtak123 Жыл бұрын

You use the other desktop by (the one to the right) using something like Anydesk to connect to the computer, and select the second Display. If you can get it on the Internet, that is. Another option is NoMachine as that is local networking, to connect to the display. Note, this will cause some lag, but it will give you access to the virtual desktop that you have.

@parliamentarian6598 Жыл бұрын

align the second display to the top right corner of the main screen in the settings so that the corners are touching. should make it almost impossible to accidentally drag onto it

@ActionRetro Жыл бұрын

Oh genius

@CocoaEm Жыл бұрын

I wonder if you could desolder the old video chip without any ill effects. thatll disable it for sure.

@Francois_L_7933 Жыл бұрын

The guy who designed the shell of this thing was probably just back from dental surgery and still a bit under the effect of the sedation 😁

@kght222 Жыл бұрын

you could go further and just bodge all the way by soldering wires to the back of the graphics card, that vga port uses through soldiers. wouldn't even have a cable sticking out of the case.

@StanislavBruiev Жыл бұрын

Neat job! Thanks for the show!

@HardDriveGuruOfficial Жыл бұрын

I would love to see how you got Windows on that thing!

@Ryan.Lohman Жыл бұрын

Craziest video yet.

@tenminutetokyo2643 Жыл бұрын

What a monster beast! Do a 4400/200 next.

@channelite Жыл бұрын

Cool soldering of wires. Awesome.

@greypatch8855 Жыл бұрын

PCBWAY IS THE WAY

@chironbramberger Жыл бұрын

Too many Chris's. ;-) But seriously thanks for all the great videos!

@JD3Gamer Жыл бұрын

I disagree that it's ugly. Maybe it's because I grew up with one but I actually like the way it looks.

@abx42 Жыл бұрын

It must have been a long time since I've looked in a Mac I didn't know foxconn was deep into them as well I was more of a PC side back in the day.

@wilymcgee Жыл бұрын

sean... you gotta have some links to that desktop background man, every-time i catch your content... i wants it...

@bluephreakr Жыл бұрын

The solder job ws pure jank indeed. No solder would had been required with crimp-on connectors and a little bit ofo heatshrink. If it's good enough for JST and DuPont, it'll do for this!

@key_bounce Жыл бұрын

If you want to improve minecraft performance, switch to G1GC garbage collection. It does make a difference. And, if I recall correctly, any surface that has to be culled out will slow the rendering -- so any caves/ravines, and any trees. ... yea, find a desert or plains, see if it goes faster.

@Vlad-1986 Жыл бұрын

It was a cool upgrade, but not having Classic Mac and the gluttonous mouse mirror screen issue are bit nopes for me

@MrAtda Жыл бұрын

Seems like pcbway could've assisted in making a breakout board for that extension haha. very cool in it's jankness tho

@aaronfidelisrecine Жыл бұрын

It alllll makes sense with the nofx shirt. F#$& the system, but applied to vintage computers 😂

@MidnightThunderYT Жыл бұрын

15:30 Nice Activate Windows Watermark there in the corner! :)

@NJRoadfan Жыл бұрын

There is an OpenFirmware patch that can force disable the onboard video. Sadly I don't have it handy anywhere. Someone posted it to the XPostFacto support forums ages ago. EDIT: Try this from the OpenFirmware prompt setenv pci-probe-list fffbffff reset-all

@ActionRetro Жыл бұрын

Oh thanks I'll try this!

@CRYPTiCEXiLE Жыл бұрын

molar mac actually know what should be the default display that's impressive.