The Dayna MacCharlie: Combining the vintage Apple Macintosh with the IBM PC.

[@leo.binkowski]

I remember an accountant client I knew had one of these because she loved the MAC for writing, but needed to use a PC for her accounting software, and didn't want both on her desk.

[@ScottGodin]

This is fascinating to me -- I came in from a TRS-80 Model III world, around the time the 512K macs were being superseded by the MacPluses but had a 512K of my own (with the external floppy) for a couple years before upgrading to a plus of my own. I don't recall ever hearing about the MacCharlie but that may have been because they had already faded by the time the 128K macs were being replaced by the 512Ks I have SO much nostalgia for that time of my life. gawd.

[@vhm14u2c]

Thanks for sharing, and showing the operation of this product. Back in the 90s, the main Mac Charlie box (cpu,ram,ps) was in dumpster where I worked. I did take it home, gutted it to use as a HD enclosure for a syquest HD I was using for my Atari st(still have it). Pretty sure I kept the mainboard in case I wanted to put it back the way it was.(in a box in my basement somewhere). I didn’t have the accessories or software for Mac Charlie though.

[@Mac84]

Great video! Thanks so much for showing us your MacCharlie, it was great to see one up and running. Keep up the good work!

[@kents7260]

Indeed a cool piece of history -- thanks for the review! I remember when these came out, and never understood the appeal... basically attaching a full IBMPC to the side of your Mac and it pops a window up on your already-tiny Mac monitor. It really wasn't cost-effective vs just buying an IBM PC and putting on your desk beside your Mac. IBM PC $1595, MacCharlie $1795.

[@timmooney7528]

The Mimic Spartan was also a money saver. IIRC the Spartan sold for $599, compared to the $1075 price of a Franklin Apple II clone. Too bad it came out in 1986, two years after it was slated to be sold.

[@markbanash921]

I remember seeing ads for this right after I had purchased my 128k Mac back in the day. Thank you for doing this because I always wondered how well it would actually work but as I was a poor grad student back then I had no cash to buy one and by the time I did I had forgotten about it.

[@mccrh7737]

Very cool, the Predecessor of the Dos Compatible Macs and the Dos Card ;)

[@hypertalking68k]

One of these slipped through my fingers a few years ago. Thanks so much for sharing - great to see it all running and love that you have all the packaging and documentation - really cool to see as well.

[@binarydinosaurs]

Thanks Santo, I've known of the MacCharlie forever but have never seen one work, much less get my paws on one.

[@applemuzeumpolska]

Great video, it's such a rare sight. We only have the MacCharlie enlarged keyboard in our collection, would love to get the whole unit. Thank you for the presentation!

[@bzotto]

The glamour photos in the manual to start each chapter are extremely fun, even better than most of the ones in the actual apple manuals

[@vintagecomputerca]

I really enjoyed them too and had to figure out a way to put them in the video without having to walk through the manual in the video :)

[@theodricaethelfrith]

Still a cool piece of kit. If I ran across one, I'd scoop it up! Looks to me like it just pops a terminal to a device on a serial port. I guess you could replicate its functionality (or extend it to CP/M) by simply connecting something with a serial console output to the port.

[@vintagecomputerca]

I did try the MacCharlie with an RS232 to USB cable and a PC terminal program but that didn't work. I did learn it might be an RS422 port so I should try that at some point.

[@saturn5tony]

Awesome vid of maccharlie. I was a mac person in the early 80s so I never got but heard of this system.,thanks for sharing, -Tony

[@BollingHolt]

How cool! I never knew such a product existed. I was thinking that it really did just look like it was behaving like terminal software, and you verified that. Nice video! I just subscribed.

[@vintagecomputerca]

Thank you. There will be more videos to come so thank you for subscribing.

[@MotownBatman]

Thats Awesome! Just hit that Sub button keep it up! I've seen images of this in the past, but never one running, that's amazing!

[@gklinger]

Thanks for the great video! Always something interesting.

[@userlandia]

Great to see one of these in action! Always curious about the internals and the capabilities.

[@Leofwine]

Are the manuals and/or the software disks archived somewhere?

[@That_hasselblad_guy]

@ActionRetro needs one of these

[@CoolerQ]

I wonder if it would be possible to use the MacCharlie with a traditional serial terminal like a VT220. There's probably some magic initialization sequence that starts it booting, but it wouldn't surprise me if it uses normal ANSI escape sequences after that.

[@vintagecomputerca]

I did try it with RS232 but from what I heard afterwards, the connectivity might be RS422 and I didn't get a chance to try it. It would certainly help as I have a second MacCharlie that needs repair.

[@nicholashein1238]

Wow this thing is pretty neat! There is no Dayna, only Zule...

[@samsulummasamsulumma6898]

Nice!!! I wonder if it can boot DOS from a hard disk... That would be neat. I am also curious if the apple mouse will work on the PC side.

[@vintagecomputerca]

In the second half of the video, I connect an IBM 5161 expansion with a hard drive. The MacCharlie unit itself cannot accept a hard drive internally.

[@samsulummasamsulumma6898]

Yeah, I was considering the possibility it treated external units as if they were internal. I assume it's just the isa bus speaking to the 5161. But then again, it might not be that simple. Anyway, I really enjoyed your video. If you are planning to further tinker with your Maccharlie, a follow-up video would be welcome.

[@redleader6442]

Huh. Looks like the MacCharlie has vents that connect to the bottom right vents of a Mac. Does that fan cool the Mac as well?

[@vintagecomputerca]

I believe the air gets pulled in from the bottom of the MacCharlie and then shoots out of the top. As a consequence, some air comes out of the floppy drive openings. It does not connect with the Mac at all.

[@SusaraThenuwara]

Sir, i sent email

[@ladronsiman1471]

I HAD BETTER .. I had an ATARI ST 1024 .. I could run a Mcintosh emulator ,a MS dos emulator ..And even run Minix an Unix CLONE ...try to beat that ..And i forgot all the Atari soft too.By the way the Mcintosh emulator resolution on the Atari was way better than in the original mac ...beat that ,, and faster also ..

[@lausk9613]

I know it had hardware emulator too. Pc speed for dos and specter gcr for mac

[@LostieTrekieTechie]

The brief time when the fastest Mac was an Atari