One of the things about long-time Mac owners is that they are passionate. As well as my day-to-day Apple devices, I have stashed away in my cupboard and Apple MessagePad, eMate and a 12-inch MacBook Air. But when Nick Gillard from 1-bit rainbow started selling his pico-mac-nano, I knew I had to have one.
Using a Raspberry Pi Pico board and 2-inch LCD screen, Gillard used a 3D printer to create a 62mm tall facsimile of the 128K Macintosh. The pico-mac-nano is a wonderful little artefact of times gone past.
Unfortunately, the folks at Apple’s Trademark and Copyright Group have asked Gillard to stop selling the pre-assembled Macs.
Gillard says:
In fairness to Apple, not only are they perfectly within their rights to issue a cease and desist (and I’m surprised it didn’t come sooner given the Collectors Edition box!), but they have been super-nice and polite about the project saying things like “…it’s clear you’ve poured a great deal of care and passion into your work. We genuinely appreciate your enthusiasm for—and admiration of—the original Macintosh.”
They could have requested that the whole open source project be taken down from GitHub but are currently only requesting we stop selling the assembled units. So anyone can still build one themselves for their own use.
Even the story of how he manufactured the Collector’s Edition Box, complete with a copy of the original Picasso inspired artwork, is worth reading.
The software part of the pico-mac-nano is available on GitHub – a popular online software code repository. And Gillard provides lots of insights into how he created the pico-mac-nano on his blog.
I’m incredibly pleased that I managed to order and receive a pico-mac-nano before Gillard had to stop manufacturing. While I won’t be using it to do any real work, it’s a nice piece of nostalgia that I’ll enjoy having on my desk.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.