Before I even begin, I must digress with the usual disclaimer:
Disclaimer/Warning
This article is for entertainment only. It is not guaranteed to be useful nor accurate nor entertaining. No guarantees of any kind are made, implied, suggested, or stated. Performing modifications to your computer will void any manufacturers' warranties, may cause damage to your computer, or result in personal injury. The author and site publishers emphatically do not recommend attempting any of the modifications listed herein. You assume all risk from and responsibility for the use of any of the information in this article.
Disclaimer/Warning Summary
Don't try this at home. Or anywhere else for that matter. You will void your warranty or hurt yourself. Just read the article and enjoy it. No one but you is responsible for what you choose to do and how you do it, regardless of what this article suggests.
Introduction - RetroMac
This article documents my experience retro-fitting an updated 1999 revision 1 Power Macintosh G3/300MHz into a 1989 Macintosh IIcx case during the Fall of 2001 as a nostalgic tribute to my favorite Macintosh of all time, the Macintosh IIci. Do you follow my train of thought? If so, read on. If you couldn't give a heap of rabbit droppings, and just want to see pictures of the final thing, click here.
This article is not a how-to since I was too focused on the project (and it was just taking too darned long!) to document some of the steps in sufficient detail for that. If you are inspired by this article, I'm sure you can come up with your own designs and solutions (not that I'm suggesting you try this at home... <:o).
History
In the Fall of 2001, a friend of mine (hey, Mike!) sold me a Macintosh IIci, two Macintosh IIcx, and a Quadra 660AV for $20. In a fit of nostalgia, I restored the IIci to near-new condition and put it in a closet for safe-keeping, since I wasn't actually going to use it for anything. I really wanted to have a IIci on my desk though, but didn't want to give up the performance of my G3 (who would?). A few days later, another friend (yeah, Chris!) dropped off another Macintosh IIcx that he had found in the trash (it still worked!) and an Apple 12" RGB display (I couldn't say no to that - makes a great server display!).
Then, inspiration struck! I'd never really use those Macintosh IIcx computers anyway...the cases are nice soft plastic...I had some scrap aluminum, some acrylic sheet, ATX chassis parts, bits of wire, LEDs, bolts, screws, nuts...I could make something that mostly looked like a IIci, but more powerful and somewhat up-to-date. I thought, "what the heck!" and got to work. Therein lies this article.
