TINKERING

LEGO Mini Mac

This 44% scale 1984 Macintosh 128K features a 4-inch touchscreen running a Big Sur themed Linux install, a complete System 7.5.5 emulator, and full retro gaming capabilities.

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LEGO Mini Mac

1980s Childhood in One Easy to Transport Package. Growing up in the ’80s, both LEGO and the original Mac have a special place in my heart. Combined that with a love of Atari & NES, I decided to put them all together into the LEGO Mini Mac.

BUILD PROCESS

LEGO® Mini Mac. The materials on hand partially drove the build process. It combines pieces from the Architecture Series and a few different Star Wars sets. Prior to receiving the 40-pin screen, the look was a bit more scale accurate. Once the full assembly started, it was clear the unit would need better venting and access, leading to a hinged top, fold-down back and side slit for the screen.

Putting it all together took a bit of trial and error. The original build didn’t take into account that the screen wouldn’t center on the Pi, but would be more offset than expected. To accommodate, I ended up making the left size open by one block width to make room for the ribbon side of the monitor. I also had the power running externally, but shifting the display over inside allowed me to use 90-degree adapters to run the power cable internally. For sound, I’m currently running off a 3.5mm cable that can be accessed in the back. In the future, I might dismantle the current speaker housing and slip the speaker inside between the Pi case and battery for a cleaner build.

Initial Build: PRINTED SCALE BLUEPRINTS

Build List

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 8GB

Pimoroni HyperPixel 4.0 Square

USB-C Power Bank (AINOPE 10000mAh with side-mounted USB C, power button, USB on top)

8bitdo Zero 2 Controllers

Macally Small Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo 2.4G

Portable speaker with 3.5mm jack

Odds/Ends – short USB-C cable, 90-degree adapters for USB-C, zip-ties, part of a plastic Raspberry Pi case.

Rescaled a 1984 Macintosh 128K blueprint for the HyperPixel Square 4″ display. Floppy slot added later to accommodate the 4:4 vs 4:3 aspect ratio screen.

Venting & Micro SD Card Access

Display Port Access Panel

Controller Storage

SOFTWARE

Raspberry Pi OS with a twist. To make sure everything is compatible, I’m running the legacy version of Raspberry Pi OS (Debian/Buster) so that I can support both the 32-bit System 7.5.5 emulator and RetroPie (as of May 2023).

Overview

For the System 7.5 emulator, I’m running the Arm compiled version of Mini vMac. Separately, you’ll need to find a source for both your ROM and boot disk. I found this tutorial from the Macintosh Librarian to be super helpful (view on YouTube) for figuring out the software side of things. As you can see from the photo, the total memory is a bit larger than the original Macintosh (64x with a 1.1GB boot disk).