Re: Big Time IIe mod

["Bill Knight" <admin@ghettogamer.com>]

Well my original idea was to have just a new PC inside an Apple IIe case,
but then I thought that it would certainly be cool to have dual... I never
thought about the IIc motherboard, I will look into that. I was trying to
figure out if there was a smaller variant (the thought also crossed my mind
to see how hard it would be to mod a Mac LC Apple IIe PDS card). It may well
turn out that the dual computer idea will not work, if so then I will scrap
the IIe part and just use the new PC with an emulator.

I looked into the mini-itx epia boards, but decided that I wanted a little
more oomph, plus I already have a lot of Athlon compatible stuff (heatsinks,
memory, and probably a 1800+ CPU if I decide to upgrade my main computer
soon), plus the Nforce 2 platform provides fairly powerful graphics, sound,
and LAN all onboard, removing the need to have expansion cards, 90* adaptors
and such.

As far as cooling goes, I was considering making some brackets that sorta
look like this:
\
 |
-
(sorry that looks like crap, but basically it attaches on the base, goes up
like 3" and then angles in, then I could mount a fan at an angle to pull air
in from one side on the top ventilation holes, then do the same deal on the
other side except exhausting. It looks like a couple 60mm case fans would
work here. I might have to cut some interior plastic [like the sides of the
hole for the top lid, they stick down like an inch or so and would impede
airflow.])


"Liam Busey" <buseyl@yahoo.com> wrote in message
vh1jegcjesn17a@corp.supernews.com">news:vh1jegcjesn17a@corp.supernews.com...
>
> Bill Knight <admin@ghettogamer.com> wrote in message
> news:WgZPa.14758$C07.13925@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> - snip project hacking PC into IIe case while retaining IIe motherboard -
>
> Interesting project. I like many here would love to have an Apple II with
> the power of a modern PC. You seem to be doing this literally. ;) May I
ask
> if this is to be a conversation piece or a workhorse? If it's to be used
> regularly reliability is a major concern. The biggest issue that pops into
> my mind is heat. The idea of an Athlon, Nividia GPU and a IIe sharing a
> small poor ventilated case seems to work against that. Fully loaded IIe's
> are known to be toasty and many people ran/run them with their lids off.
> Your proposed design would likely be much warmer. In order too cool it
> adequately I imagine you'd have to install multiple fans virtually
requiring
> you cut holes in the IIe case, deterring from the visual appeal of the
hack.
> To avoid that, why not dump the IIe components and use an emulator in
there
> place?
>
> If your heart is set on have a dual architecture machine, why not try
> swapping one or both of the motherboards for more compact/cooler running
> variants? A IIe case is vertically challenged so you'll have a rough time
> putting any expansion cards in even with a 90 degree adapter. How about
> using a IIc motherboard in place of the IIe's. It has all the standard IIe
> peripherals built in and has a fairly small footprint. You could jam the
IIc
> power supply into the case and not have to worry about monkeying around
with
> a PC powersupply. For the PC end have you considered use one of the VIA
> mini-itx (smaller than micro-atx) boards ? They're cheap integrated PC
> compatible motherboards with CPU that run far cooler and use much less
power
> than Pentiums or Athlons. There's a whole community jamming them into all
> sorts of  interesting things www.mini-itx.com. It seems feasible that a
> combination like this could live together peacefully in the same case.
>
> Just some thoughts.
>
> - Liam
>
>