The pico-mac-nano is glorious, useless, and you’ll have to assemble it yourself
Back in May on MacBreak Weekly, Andy Ihnatko recommended an incredibly clever project called pico-mac-nano, a seemingly impossible complete emulation of the original Mac in a case only 2.4 inches/62mm high.
I bought it while we were still on the air, and it arrived a couple of weeks ago. It’s slightly wonky (sometimes the display thinks it’s wider than it is, and though it’s preloaded with MacPaint it won’t actually launch it), but the fact remains: I can attach a USB mouse to this tiny thing and click around and run Mac software. It’s a miracle!
Unfortunately, it was also too good to last. Apple contacted pico-mac-nano creator Nick Gillard, who emailed me and others who ordered the preassembled pico-mac-nano:
…an email from Apple’s Trademark and Copyright Group has put a big question mark over the future of pre-assembled units. I will continue dialog with Apple but their current position is that I should stop selling the pre-assembled Macs…
Look, I understand why this is happening. Apple’s trademarks and intellectual property are being infringed upon, and no hobby project is going to be worth the time to negotiate some sort of licensing agreement. Apple is absolutely in its rights to target Gillard, even though it knows that it’s being a killjoy. Even Gillard gets it:
In fairness to Apple, not only are they perfectly within their rights to issue a cease and desist… 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.
So between the GitHub project and the parts available on Gillard’s 1bitrainbow site, you can still make one yourself.
What’s it good for? Absolutely nothing, of course — I have to take off my glasses and squint with one eye to even see what’s on the screen — but it’s such a feat of engineering that I really don’t care. It’s one of the most clever and interesting feats of retro computing I’ve ever seen. I love it.
If you appreciate articles like this one, support us by becoming a Six Colors subscriber. Subscribers get access to an exclusive podcast, members-only stories, and a special community.