Macintosh IIci home server

Macintosh IIci home server

I recently bought a sold-as-seen Macintosh IIci that had been almost entirely gutted by its previous owner. Given that I didn't want to track down the multitude of parts to bring this back to working order, I figured I could do something with the case instead (don't worry, the original parts are being carefully stored!)

I have the original AppleColor High-Resolution RGB monitor that goes with this, and all components will need retrobriting. The case has been done so far:

It's turned out quite nicely! Disassembling the CRT to retrobrite that will be much more of an involved process.

In terms of hardware, the current plan is as follows:

An Intel NUC NUC7i3DNHE to run the media server - it's likely I will Hackintosh this to keep the Apple theme going. I plan to put a 240GB m.2 boot SSD in it, an internal 1TB hard drive and 16GB of DDR4 RAM.

4x4TB external USB3.0 hard drives - likely configuration will be software RAID5 - I will need to figure out a good way to mount this in the case

An ADB-USB Teensy 2.0 converter hooked up to original ADB ports at the rear of the machine, and a 3.5mm jack extension mounted where the original 3.5mm jack was. I'm also likely to epoxy serial connectors into the holes where serial connectors once were.

I also want to use the original power outlet layout (with the IIci, you plugged in the computer and then could plug the monitor into the computer's PSU). I plan to achieve this with an IEC to mains power strip mounted inside the case, which will mean that the whole thing can be powered from one IEC lead.

HDMI ➤ VGA ➤DB-15 converter to plug in the original CRT.

I'll update this post with progress and pictures as they happen!

Update #1:

No dice on the AppleColor Hi-Res RGB display - turns out it's basically unconvertable to VGA. Therefore, I acquired a 15" Apple Multiple Scan display which still fits nicely on top. Like the AppleColor display, it is in need of retrobriting but this will be on the to-do list for quite a while I imagine.

Similarly, the NUC7 didn't happen - instead, it's been replaced with a NUC8i3BEK, which doesn't officially support an internal hard drive - but the headers seem to be there on the motherboard, so I will probably run it with the bottom case off once the extra drives have been bought. For now, it is running with a 1TB external. It's successfully running Catalina, and will be getting situated inside the IIci case soon.

Update #2:

Up and running!

Update #3:

Got some NOS AppleDesign speakers to go with. Still need to retrobrite the CRT and do some work on the internal cable management.