Check Out This Functional 3D Printed Macintosh

Designer Kevin Noki recently spent several weeks creating his own homemade, functional Macintosh built from the ground up, which he dubbed the "Brewintosh." Designed to look like the Macintosh Plus, the machine Noki crafted features a 3D printed exterior and components, and it works like the real deal.


In a 47-minute video, Noki walks through the process that he used to create the device. As Ars Technica points out, Noki went completed more than 29 complex steps, each of which was a major task on its own. He started out by measuring every single surface and angle of a Macintosh Plus, modeling it in AutoDesk Fusion 360, and then printing the parts, putting them together, filling gaps, sanding, and texturing.

He modified a 10-inch thrift store screen to have LED backlighting and a dimmer knob, he crafted a power assembly, built in connectors, speakers, and other hardware, and designed a Mini vMac emulator using Linux. The whole process is fascinating to watch.

The Mac Plus is the exact right size and texture, it supports 3.5-inch disks, it supports appropriate Apple keyboards and mice, and has every other detail you would expect from a real Mac. Printing the components took over 48 hours, and the whole project spanned months.

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Top Rated Comments

vipergts2207 Avatar
13 months ago

Unless I am mistaken, this is NOT a 3D-printed Mac. The outer plastic shell was 3D-printed. But everything else was salvaged or replacement/upgraded parts. If he did print all the non-plastic (metal) parts, he didn't show him doing so in this video. And he didn't show how he printed the plastic parts like the wiring shell, the integrated circuit boards, and buttons, etc. If I'm wrong, please let me know and maybe a timestamp in the video where he shows/talks about these discrepancies I listed.

Impressive that he did all this, but I think it's extremely misleading to title this article "Check Out This Functional 3D Printed Macintosh".
Do you actually think you can 3D print a working screen and processor or are you just being pedantic?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
psxp Avatar
13 months ago
WOW! :D amazing!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
vipergts2207 Avatar
13 months ago

That's my point...as far as I am aware, you cannot print screens and processors with a 3D printer. There are 3D printers that print metal but I've never seen them in use and don't know their limitations.

I don't think I'm being pedantic about this...it was a question that I honestly wanted to know based on the article title, the 40 weeks of work it took, and the long video showing how he did it plus the hype from MR. The title of the article (and the youtube video) is quite misleading when all he 3D printed was the shell (as far I can tell) which probably took 1-2 weeks out of the 40 weeks of work. If that's the case (no pun intended), he might as well have just grabbed a Mac case and polished it up and used that instead of 3D printing one.
So being pedantic it is. Also, have you ever done any CAD work?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kingtj1971 Avatar
13 months ago
As someone who recently really got into 3D printing? Yeah, this is insane, but very cool!
I can't figure out how to get anything useful done in Fusion 360, to be honest, and I find Blender a big struggle. TinkerCAD is about my speed to create simple designs to print for people.

Luckily, I can find what I need already designed someplace, 99% of the time, so just wind up scaling a print up or down a bit, or doing minor things to one to get what I'm after.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JosephAW Avatar
13 months ago
Still have half a dozen actual working units. They have way too much time in their hands. :p
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
motorazr Avatar
13 months ago
This is a work of art. The detail and care in execution is amazing;
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)