Put a vintage Mac in your pocket!

The majority of vintage Mac enthusiasts focus on restoring original hardware. But here's a way to get the classic Mac OS experience in a device you can fit in your pocket!
Instructions overview for installing Mini vMac on PocketCHIP:
Download the .zip file from the GitHub repository and find/make a Mini vMac disk image (links below)
Install SSH server if it isn't already: sudo apt-get install openssh-server
Find the PocketCHIP's IP address: ip addr show wlan0
Connect to PocketCHIP using an SFTP client with credentials chip/chip
Create a folder on PocketCHIP and navigate into it
Upload the minivmac, MacII.ROM and your disk image file
On the PocketCHIP, navigate into the folder you made and make minivmac executable: chmod +x minivmac
Then just run it with ./minivmac (provided that your disk image is named disk1.dsk)
Sources and links:
biosrhythm blog post about MiniVMac on PocketCHIP: biosrhythm.com...
Mini vMac project page: www.gryphel.co...
GitHub MiniVMac port for CHIP: github.com/zzx...
Mini vMac premade disk images: macintoshgarde...
"Is This the End for the C.H.I.P.?," Hackaday: hackaday.com/2...
Leftover CHIP inventory photos: web.archive.or...
Suspicion about CHIP selling at a loss: www.cnx-softwa...
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Music by Epidemic Sound (www.epidemicso...).
Intro music by BoxCat Games (freemusicarchi....

[@Dolinmyster]

I bought one of these back in they day after I saw a review of it. It was really awesome and gave me a lot of excitement to have a handheld computer that I could mess around with and wasn't as locked down as a phone. I'm glad to see it getting some love finally. I've searched every few years what to do with it, but it just seemed it had been forgotten about. I will have to dig my old unit and try this out. Thanks for sharing!

[@benhofb]

Really appreciate the post mortem here. I remember the pocket chip disappearing and always wondering what happened, but now I know. Kind of a bummer, but I feel like they definitely laid the ground work for successful future products from other manufacturers, plus I recall the pocket chip being one of the first major things for pico-8, which is still really popular and impressive in it's own ways.

[@damianvila]

Great video, Collin! It was a blast being a part of the CHIP community at the time. The SBC was a great product, and the Pocket CHIP was a really nice little gadget. Cheers!

[@BlackRoseCloud]

So sad they went under I had so much fun getting things like OpenRCT2 running on the little guy

[@CralexKokiri]

Surprised is your unit still works, as mine often need to be reflashed after sitting around for too long. For anyone thinking about picking up one of these, it is not easy to get them updated, so you may want to stick with off-line projects like this. The most promising future for CHIP I’ve seen is that a couple people have been developing a port of PostmarketOS for it. Although the primary focus of the distro is bringing back old phones, it offers the promise of someday being able to flash an updated OS to the CHIP directly.

[@nikdog419]

Is this why I can charge mine, power it on and off, but it doesn't do anything? Not even drive the LCD? EDIT: Yes to all

[@quakestream6213]

I can't install almost anything on it keep on getting the package unavailable error almost every time are you familiar with the issue. Can't even install the new version of pico- 8 on it or DOOM😓 Would appreciate a lot if you could help me out, thanks.

[@richardthunderbay8364]

Seeing Mac system 7 always brings on waves of nostalgia for me. It was installed on the first computer I ever owned, a Mac IIvi.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Whoa, I hadn’t been paying attention to the CHIP story at all. I had no idea they went out of business so quickly. I have to wonder why they aggressively went SO low. Anyone would’ve tolerated an increase from the KickStarter sweetener price. I have to assume they wanted a very aggressive lead over RasPi hence not pricing at $35, but even at $25 say would’ve still been very competitive against RaspberryPi but made at least a little profit.

[@anupvenkat47]

Man its a real shame that NTC went bankrupt, had ordered it years ago via my uncle who stayed in US but never got it. Still nice to see people still finding ways to run old OS on discontinued devices.

[@Censorshift]

Totally sucks, I loved the product, the company seemed great and the community was flourishing until it all went south. I sold my Pocket Chip which I regret but I still have an OG CHIP with 8Gb storage

[@kbhasi]

Yep! I wanted to develop a device based on CHIP, but it didn't have enough storage for my use case and I didn't feel like going cheap and integrating a USB memory card reader. Before shelving the project, I would re-base my design notes on the Raspberry Pi CM4 platform (as that had larger storage capacities and more capabilities) paired with an integrated PiJuice.

[@tarstarkusz]

It may be a "shame" but it was eminently predictable. Personally, I have a rule to *NEVER* back any crowdsourcing project. it is a fundamentally crooked scheme. It has you paying real money to buy something that doesn't yet exist. That's called investing and in investing you earn money if the product succeeds, not a "discounted" product. Investing is very, very risky. High interest rates compensate the investor for the risks of their capital. Imagine if Starbucks was going to open a Starbucks in your area if they could find 1000 people to each put up 1000 dollars. For that thousand dollars, you could get a free cup of coffee with the option to buy more. That is "crowdsourcing"

[@Chris-rg6nm]

It was really a crap product, very slow for the OS they used.

[@turbojjosh]

iiiuuuu

[@RobDimeo]

This is amazing!!! Any chance to bring old Mac OS to life is a treat.

[@kbhasi]

(5:44) Storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AND an integrated battery charge controller! I had a project that I originally designed to be based on a CHIP module with a custom DIP (that's what CHIP's add-on modules were called), but it didn't have enough storage for my needs. Despite shelving the project to work on other projects, I rewrote the design ideas I had written so far to instead be based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 platform on a custom carrier board with an integrated PiJuice alongside newer versions of the other components I originally wanted to use with the CHIP. Actually, come to think of it, I'm sure someone would've made a CM4-based spiritual succesor to the PocketCHIP!

[@nicholsliwilson]

Wow! I must dig out my Pocket Chip! I installed an amp & speakers in mine using some recovered laptop speakers. Mine, like a lot of them, came with 8GB of storage even though it was documented as 4. It’s a shame it wasn’t a success because honestly I loved my Pocket CHIP, it was a great little device. I know it’s unnecessary but I will be doing this. That resistive touch screen will work much better with a stylus, I have a bunch of them from different devices so it’s not hard to find one. Great video Colin, thanks & thanks for tipping me off about this.

[@RyanMercer]

Before I went through a lay off 98 days ago, I would always sit down on Fridays and watch this and LGR with a bowl of boneless wings. Here I fire it up on a Wednesday and Pavlovian response engage... start drooling and wanting wings, oof.

[@crims0n.x]

Was fortunate enough to have my pre-order fulfilled. Really loved the concept and had some fun with it, but man that keyboard was extremely unpleasant to use!

[@dotapark]

God, your videos are so good…calm myself, yet very interesting. Good for sleep, but good for when I want to watch something too. Greatly balanced middle ground of interesting videos.

[@bland9876]

This is reminding me of those 486 computers that some other KZbinrs showed off. If you're watching this video you probably know what I'm talking about.

[@Vostok7]

I have a Pocket CHIP somewhere and one still sealed in storage. It was a fun toy but the terrible keyboard kept it from being more useful. I think I've used my ArduBOY more and Pico8 can be had on other platforms. This is the most compelling thing I've seen one used for and even it would probably get boring pretty fast.

[@theharbingerofconflation]

I remember the pocketCHIP from its kickstarter phase, I gave it a minute of thought then decided it’s too limited and I can already do that with a Pi. This is the first useful project I’ve seen for the thing and it makes me wonder what else I missed.

[@CodyShell]

i havnt seen that puzzle game in YEARS!!!! Now that was a memory unlock right there

[@fairvalesecondary5883]

Pulled out my chip today. Was looking for new projects with it. This looks awesome. Thanks.

[@Jadiaz-ev9hm]

Nice! Picked up ome of these for like 5 bucks at a garage sale because why not? Def going to do this!

[@POVwithRC]

Came for the Mac emu, stayed for the neat history lesson

[@firejama3]

I had one of these. I sold it. This video is making me wish I hadn't. I still have one of the SBC's though.

[@joemartin5881]

Thanks for this video. My Pocket Chip has been collecting dust. I’m going to try this out.

[@l255j_3]

Someone please send Alan Kay a PocketCHIP. He's been waiting his whole life for a fully functioning Dynabook.

[@nodeswitch]

I loved my Chip. Had two Chips and one Pocket Chip for them to slot into. Both of them burned out eventually. After NTC went bankrupt, there were a couple of community efforts to keep things going, but for something that was connected to the web, I wouldn't have kept it running for much longer. There are some cool alternatives that'll fit various Pi boards out there, Tindie is always a fun browse!

[@borf42]

I may have to dig mine out and do this. I even 3D printed a neat case with proper keyboard buttons! That was a fun project right there....

[@umiy6299]

I am so sad that I lost my pocket chip because that thing was awesome. I mostly used it to make PICO-8 games, and it's extremely fun to use despite the trash keyboard.

[@abdelali9279]

0:13 Ohmigosh, Dead Or Alive 5+ spotted, man the nostalgia, I want to get a PS Vita again, that port of DOA5 is so impressive for a portable console

[@legerdemain]

This is a very cool use case that I'm going to have to try. I did receive my PocketChip, several months late, having ordered the moment they appeared on general tech blogs. Pleased with the product, and the excellent documentation they maintained, I pledged for a Dashbot right after it was announced. It was so frustrating over the following months, having seen a demo video, to then watch them post updates about working out basic parts of the product months after promised delivery, "here's our team designing the case!" I wish it'd all worked out, and feel a little betrayed.

[@MatteoPascolini]

ya, i put in my money also for what they ended up calling Voder. Such a joke that they couldn't get their shit together.

[@ExperimentIV]

i hope someone makes something comparable as a DIY project with a raspberry pi zero w or something. i loved my pocketchip, but it would be way cooler to have a similar pi handheld

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

That is so cool. I ran MacOS 9 on a raspberry pi once (using Action Retro's image of mini v mac)... it was very slow though.

[@Markimark151]

Pocket Chip was an epic fail! This is why at least Raspberry Pi was successful, since they have more support from distributors and chip suppliers! I was able to emulate a Mac OS System 7 for the CD-Rom games!

[@bghoody5665]

Pocket CHIP looks like something, that if Terminator 2 were made today, young John Connor would be using it to hack into bank machines.

[@MarkEichin]

Neat! I had a Pocket CHIP that worked when it arrived, I should dig it out and try this....

[@chrisrios802]

this will actually be perfect for beat making trackers

[@smoguli]

Emulating what used to be a 10K$ computer (the Mac II) on a 9$ computer the size of a playing card is insane!

[@SteveDrees]

Insomnia, this video, and having a pocket chip in a drawer makes for a late night.

[@Kw1161]

Thanks for the video, and history lesson. I wondered about that $9 board…too good to be true, although $35 still seems like a good deal. I am ordering a Clock Work Uconsole computer containing a PI4 Lite board, and after I put it together and master the OS, this sounds like it would be a good project to try. Have a great day!

[@desktorp]

I remember when it first launched and I immediately knew it was going to end badly. It would've needed at least a $35 price tag to not lose money.

[@ruffnutts]

Still got my 8GB model lol boxed mint :)

[@reggiebenes2916]

I got a Pocket Chip when it first came out, and I love it, it's still kicking . I always wondered how they could sell at the price they started with, obviously they couldn't. I would have bought one if it was $40 more, and I think most people would have. Too bad because they made a great product, they really should have started at a price point that allowed them to turn at least a slight profit.

[@jam3sn]

It’s a shame Next Thing went bust. It was a cool product. At the time of preorders a good friend of mine had a horrible accident leaving him in hospital for quite some time. I emailed Next thing asking if there was any way my preorder could be moved up the list and shipped to him, knowing it was the perfect little machine to distract him as he loved to tinker with Raspberry Pis among other things. While they couldn’t expedite my order to be shipped to him, one of Next team shipped their personal Pocket CHIP to him, half way around the world. For that I’m ever so gratefully. He healed up and I in time got my Pocket CHIP, this might be a good excuse to dig it out the draw!

[@ExperimentIV]

damn i gotta dig out one of my pocketchips now. they’re still so cool

[@accountunknown4487]

I’d love to see more pocket chip videos/projects mine is a glorified paper weight 😂

[@LdotSdot210]

I wanted a pocket CHIP so bad just so I could use sunvox on it but it was already discontinued by the time I became aware of it.

[@mingzhezhang2992]

I have a pocket chip. Its biggest problem is its rudimental NAND module which has zero controller logic to manage data retention and wearing issues. Basically it loses data in a span of maybe a year and it requires you to reflash the whole thing.

[@stanleywatson2559]

Lost some money to PocketChip after they never delivered my second order. I liked the device but it was probably the only time I really couldn't get my money back from something online because of the time that had passed etc. Finding my cooked old pocketchip now just brings back sour memories.

[@gordonwelcher9598]

The meat of the Blue Kazak camel has a nutty cheesy flavour and is highly prized. It is usually dry aged in the desert buried under the sand for at least 60 days before consumption. Boiled in fermented mare's milk with garlic and honey it is reserved for special occasions. Brutal wars have been fought to gain acquisition of the animal.

[@TroyFletcherKeyboards]

Excellent video. If you want to update or maintain your CHIP some work has been put into getting it on the latest Debian

[@volvo09]

I forgot about CHIP... I was just thinking of "what was that $9 kickstarter single board computer" like a month or two ago. Always wondered how they got the prive so low, guess it makes sense now.

[@exodous02]

I wanted one of these so bad, I didn't back the kickstarter because I found out the DAY AFTER it ended! I remember reading a news article on how successful it was. I ordered sometime after and never got it. I did get a refund though, I had no idea that they had made the boards and just didn't send them out. . .

[@danteblake9701]

Would love to see anew version or equivalent 720p screen & stereo speakers of course. optional gamepad

[@SDRIFTERAbdlmounaim]

09:58 should of said *Biting of more than it could Chip* 😂

[@MrNicetux]

I own two Pocket C.H.I.P and i'm happy with them.😊

[@asherael]

oh, i had a pocket chip!! i SHOULD check that out

[@SuperNicktendo]

Great. Now I want one

[@Robospidera1]

Wow looks like it was a cool product I never knew about it sadly.

[@donatj]

Huh, I have my pocket chip and a spare chip board in my desk. I played a ton of Pico 8 games for about a week and haven’t touched it since 2017, I should dig it out.

[@WingDings_666]

Hey just so you know those old Pocket Chips and their Chip modules kinda tend to die overtime due to their flash failing like it did with my Pocket Chip. I'm surprised yours still works but you probably didn't try to use yours as much as I did mine as an actual computer on the go lol; Complete with hacks and a custom home screen and scaling programs to fit on the display.

[@8bitDNA]

Please bring back the “Hi how’s it going” intro

[@thekornreeper]

Cool concept

[@anon_y_mousse]

I guess I missed the boat on that, but did you know that Celeste got its start on the Pico-8? You can actually still play that version for free and one of these days I'll beat the third level.

[@AOClaus]

I never did find a good use for the pocket chip. Maybe I have now!

[@AutumnRain]

i love seeing people be able to do things with the pocket chip, it's a shame what happened to it. i actually have one! i didn't know about what it was until much later, but i received it as a gift from a professor when i was in college. i was never really sure what I wanted to do with it, it was pretty fun to just tinker around with. but these days, something's happened to the battery and it won't turn on again :( i figure it probably wouldn't be too hard to tinker and replace it(and maybe make some other mods... micro-usb to usb-c, eeyy??), but i've never done that sort of thing before and wouldn't know where to start!

[@theoldtechhandheldtinkerer4092]

Ah, installing old Mac OS's on random devices, I've done that plenty of times, heheh. I think my first one, apart from Mac-on-Stick, was my Jailbroken iPod Touch 4th gen if my memory doesn't deceive me. Then I installed it on my super old HTC TyTn II, still have it today, and love that little flip up screen blast from the past. Both previous ones though were not fully installed, I just ran the image of the Mac OS Classic installer, which is in itself a fully functioning system, just without the ability to make changes and keep them on the next launch, image was not writable, but you could still mount images of apps and run them. On my PSP Go though I fully installed Mac OS 7.5.3 because for whatever reason someone decided to port Basilisk II VM to the PSP, so I was able to install a few games and programs, I actually have a game of Monkey Island ongoing, The system runs a little slow, but for a point and click game like Monkey Island it's enough. But even more amazing is that I was able to install Windows 95. I still have a Nintendo DS that I want to fix, I think there's also a classic mac emulator for that. Emulators and VM's have always fascinated me, especially on devices you least expect them to work.

[@alinayossimouse]

I'm still so sad that my order was among those last batches that were never fulfilled. I'm quite poor and with shipping to Europe and all the Pocket CHIP set me back more than 80 bucks that I would never see again. That was and still is a huge amount of money for me and I will never forgive them for the way they handled orders in those last months.

[@willrrrr]

Huh did you upload a video about your raspberry pi Mac Plus project? I don’t see it on your channel but maybe I’m bad at binging. Great video thanks!

[@rmcdudmk212]

Thes pocket chip computers are still super cool. Thank you for sharing this. 👍

[@garrykanter5773]

Who asks "Why?" when witnessing one of the greatest things ever?

[@Un_Pour_Tous]

Not a big apple fan but this is awesome.

[@Jkauppa]

you could "emulate" with a

[@Jkauppa]

no i dont mean the 8k-40k cells chips, but the smaller entry range fpga chips

[@mattportnoyTLV]

One of my friends was involved with CHIP as an embedded software engineer. They basically ran out of $$$ and couldn't raise more money.

[@trumpeter811]

was expecting the ending to be "they had too many chips left to eat "

[@tevkaber4604]

I have a couple PocketChips and a couple Chips, last time I tried to use one, though, I ran into issues as it gets firmware updates from a site that no longer exists. I’ll have to look into if anyone has a workaround, see if I can get a PoackerChip up and running again to try this.

[@MissPlayAndWatch]

I got a Pocket CHIP to do Pico8 development and play on the go but the keyboard was just way too stiff to use more than the casual terminal command. I need to dig it up. I remember that when Next Thing went under, their connection to the Pico8 servers went down and you had to manually update it whenever the API updated enough to be incompatible.

[@EricGranata]

Oh dang. With this I could have HyperCard on the go!

[@dhariri]

It turns out that you can get people pretty excited if you sell a dollar for 50c.

[@TechRunnerW175B]

I managed to get like 3 Chips, a Pocket Chip, and the HDMI module before they went under

[@AkaBigWurm77]

surprised we did not see Pi adapters, or clones made for Raspberry Pi's, I know there is Github project but I don't want to make it myself.

[@CallMeZrix]

Someone needs to 3d print a housing for easier pressing and make a macintosh housing for this to put in as a decoration.

[@williamhart4896]

Wish the guys from orange pi would remake that device with a newer soc and more ram and onboard space

[@expexp562]

I did install macos 7.5.3 -->8.1 with basiliskII on a PSP1000 but 8.1 was slow

[@retrogamedude]

No practical use? Marathon and Escape Velocity on the go is where it's at!

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

OK, because Macs are used to forcing you to wait for _them_ to eject optical disks and floppy disks (which is different from how it treats USB hard disks and flash, obviously -- but back in those early years there was no USB or flash), then show us what it's like on this when you insert a floppy or optical disk emulation and then: 1. issue the eject command on it but it can't eject that, and 2. eject it yourself (as a USB stick plugged into a hub alongside the mouse) without first ejecting it virtually. Does it just treat that floppy or optical disk emulation as a flash card anyway? And actually, what I really want is to watch a Mac emulator on a computer with _actual_ floppy disks that it can't eject, like on the Amiga or Atari ST.

[@padawanmage71]

In the end, isn't everything all about fun?

[@cman86s]

Wouldn't a pocket version of NeXSTEP more closely resemble a modern day iPhone or iPad?

[@retr0bits545]

Can I upload via floppy disk to this and vice versa?

[@MotownBatman]

I wanted to get one of these, but at the time it was RPi3b+ or that. and I wanted a RPi3 for some reason lol

[@bigbadhodad3894]

yeah Chip Pro killed Next thing, there was a pair of Chip 2's that literally kicked many more butts than most people have, I wish they had placed the flasher available as a standalone but it stayed web based and some guy bought it in the auction and locked it behind a paywall, and well, its gone now, some guy got the chip 2's and released them as the popcorn computer but he failed as I understand. I loved my Pocket chip, she lived in my pocket for a long time, and now sits on my shelf with her Alpha Pocket chip sister.(thanks Gus!)

[@ccooper585]

Hi Bigbadhodad! The Dashbot, er Voder, Kickstarter plus some supply chain issues did a number of NTC's ability to start in business. You're right about the CHIP 2 being kick-butt. Many years ago they have/had similar specs to one of the darling Raspberry Pi alternatives of today. I haven't tried to see if I can get any of them running with that board's firmware but it would be fantastic if it was compatible.

[@ezrareacts3604]

i NEED this

[@DriftingMunki]

The Celeste machine!

[@remasterzero]

I have a pocket chip but !! is locked in the logo at boot , what can I do?

[@nickle52003]

I still have my pocket chip!

[@allentoyokawa9068]

Only bad part is the Shenzhen cHinA part.

[@HelloKittyFanMan]

"When I first got one in 2017..." How many times have you gotten one?

[@iwatchforknowledge2766]

I ordered the Chip computer, but unfortunately I never received my order.

[@GameboyZeroOfficial]

Was that a game boy zero in the box?

[@RoderikvanReekum]

Nice computer!

[@doc_sav]

That is fun. The company really seemed to have a handle on marketing with those great graphics and color coordinated cables, and in fostering a community. It is a shame that in the end the consumer friendliness of the business proved to be its downfall.

[@JeskidoYT]

NTC sounds alike to Limitedrungames lol

[@leonidas14775]

At $35 your options are many for somthing portable that can emulate old macs. Best to leave these boards for the makers