TV? Computer? YES! The Macintosh TV Restoration - iiiDIY

[@iiidiy]

1) Please don't work on CRT monitors or power supplies unless you have the proper training. This is not a full guide, and bits have been cut for time. DANGER! 2) I didn't recap the analog board because everything looked very clean with no signs of leaking. I will tackle that in the near future, as a preventative measure. 3) Post your favourite typo below! :)

[@retrodude6215]

Hey! The restoration was excellent and I really loved the video!

[@iiidiy]

@@retrodude6215 Hey, thanks!

[@retrodude6215]

One question- Can you try in your next vid to get the cheapest Mac possible and fix it up?@@iiidiy

[@iiidiy]

@@retrodude6215 I have a backlog of projects at this point :) And I'm sorry to report, but if all goes to plan, the next one is actually going in the *opposite* direction, hah. But then I'll be returning to normal computers for a few projects, including a free one

[@retrodude6215]

Ok! Sorry for recommending it then, it’s just as I finished restoring my 50 euro blue and white g3 with max os9 lives, and I thought that a professional like you could take it to a much better level by probably getting a cheap max from a flea market/local ad and fix up. Anyways, sorry.@@iiidiy

[@JeffGeerling]

14:20 lol the twist

[@chronoffxyz]

How do you not have tens of thousands of subs? This is absolutely incredible work. The detail you put into cleaning and repairing, the audio, the cinematography, the true genuine appreciation for the designs of the era. Chefs kiss, man. It’s perfect.

[@iiidiy]

Thank you so much for the kind words 🙏 I'm just making what I love and want to see, glad it resonates with you! If you have friends that like nerdy restorations, spread the word and we'll get there eventually ;)

[@Mr.MinerAL]

A couple decades ago, I found a SCSI Caddy-CD-ROM drive in black and fixed the big beige failure stripe on the front of my MacTV! Traded it about 10 years later for a recapped Q-605 lobo. Love the video. Subscribed :)

[@iiidiy]

It's on my long list of things to do - I hate that strip of beige, and want to either replace the drive or vinyl wrap that piece :) Welcome to the club!

[@aaaalex1994]

15:50 "Here bro, here's your controller." I'm not the only one who read that with Cathod Ray Dude's voice... right?

[@iiidiy]

I was going to put the "two of them" cats on the screens at 14:20, but ran out of editing time ;)

[@Dwarg91]

You weren’t the only one who heard CRD’s voice say that line.

[@ogami1972]

Your attention to detail is amazing! Loved every minute!

[@iiidiy]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@TheUrbanRebel]

At least the black plastic parts dont turn yellow like the beige colored Macs

[@spooforbrains]

I'm impressed that misaligning the ROM chips didn't fry them

[@ar_xiv]

the first and last pins diagonal from each other are positive and negative power on most ROM chips, so in this case no circuit would have been formed

[@kirishima638]

Fantastic job. I remember seeing these new in stores in the mid 90s. Just seeing TV programming in a window on a computer was mind blowing back then, especially compared to my lowly SE at home.

[@iiidiy]

Yeah, getting a TV card for my mid-90s LC was a total game-changer, and was a factor in me getting into filmmaking :)

[@therealchriscunningham]

I haven't heard clicks and snaps that *satisfying* outside of a Lego video on here.

[@mac27collection]

14:18 made me LOL. Also seems like these plastics were in much better (less brittle) shape than those LCs you did. That thing is in awesome shape! Nice work.

[@iiidiy]

Yes, I was extremely careful, because apparently the MacTVs are getting brittle... but it was SO MUCH better than the 580s

[@Jackpkmn]

Apple really did the Macintosh TV dirty with those specs. But Apple also did a lot of their Preforma line dirty. Unfairly gimped specs like 16 bit data paths for 32 bit cpus. Artificially low ram limits. Some of this stuff required expensive engineering work to implement. Making the computer more expensive than if they had just designed the computer more simplistically and allowed it to have some upgradability and better specs. It's a wonder Apple didn't almost fail sooner.

[@iiidiy]

I'd LOVE to hear the real, first-hand reasoning behind some of the mid-90s shenanigans! I believe that a lot of the Apple team by that point really believed in their products, and probably wanted to make great machines. I bet there were economic, scaling, manufacturing, and marketing constraints that led to some weird (bad) decisions. Some strange stuff got made during that era, but they made it through!

[@KaramRabee]

man your work is fantastic. i really appreciate what your doing

[@ashtonsretrocomputerroom]

Love it when an HDD decides to just come back to life! Had that happen with an old RODIME a few years back.

[@MillenniaEsoterica]

Watching this in bed on my ceiling using a projector. Absolutely comfy content, keep it up!

[@iiidiy]

Hah, thanks!

[@achiu31]

Oh man, that boot chime and those hard drive sounds has me all nostalgic. 🙂

[@fty-ys4ni]

I wish this type of functionality was carried over to the iMac lineup. I'd kill to have video input options for my iMac. I wouldn't need to keep a second display on my desk.

[@iiidiy]

Absolutely! I wish there was a simple analog fall-back on a lot of their products. Depending on what iMac you're talking about, and what your video input needs are, there might be a solution. The G3s are out of luck, but the G4, G5, and Intels could run a (laggy) USB2 TV box, and some intel models supported "Target Display" mode

[@allycat7699]

The editing on this one was so gooood. Thanks for another great video. : ) I'm gonna try removing electrolytics that way next time I do a recap. Maybe I'll manage not to lift a pad for once lol...

[@iiidiy]

Thanks! Don't forget the relief cut and trimming the legs.. if you leave those steps out, you'll be pulling up on the pads. Good luck!!

[@markwrightrf]

Your videos are phenomenal. You need more subscribers. Always a good subject, always an outstanding experience. Keep on! (PS: I always visualise you wearing a Daft Punk helmet in these vids as you're so anonymous.)

[@iiidiy]

Thanks for the kind words! And that's accurate, the helmet filters solder fumes ;)

[@RonLaws]

I agree, for 1993 the Mac TV was a compact solution that was a (little) bit ahead of its time. That kind of functionality wouldn't hit the PC market for a few more years with Avermedia and similar cards came out later that decade along with the CPU's that could handle it. I still have an old Avermedia PCI card actually :)

[@ben.alldridge]

Jeez, they really pushed that board to the limit of what thru-hole could possibly accommodate, and then decided to push it even further.

[@iiidiy]

Was not fun. Do not recommend :)

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Great Job That Mac Looks like the first day it was made

[@iiidiy]

Thanks Dave!

[@kayleeclassic]

The face that it was a trinitron tube too

[@iiidiy]

Yes! Such a great little screen!

[@TradieTrev]

I do enjoy your cap removal technique and struggles on the repair. Don't be shy to talk on camera mate, I would of loved to hear all the swearing lol!

[@iiidiy]

Thanks! If I left my voice in, it would be mostly censor beeps anyways ;)

[@BigBadBench]

Beautiful work! My TV tuber stopped working after recapping it too, but I haven’t been able to fix it. I’m incredibly impressed!

[@iiidiy]

Thanks! You see… the secret is in the magic of buying two :) That board is such a PIA, there’s no way I’d figure it out without a reference

[@Jdvc-yd5tx]

The Alfred Hitchcock of retro-brighting.

[@iiidiy]

Hah! OK, this one got me :)

[@TheGaryOgden]

Enjoyed this - nice restore!

[@iiidiy]

Thank you!

[@SwissAppleVintage]

As always very well filmed and great storytelling. However, a voice over instead if the jumping text would have added a more relaxed experience and allowed to to focus on the image rather than reading.

[@iiidiy]

Thanks, I'd say watch it multiple times ;) Joking aside, I mostly agree! But for a few reasons, I won't be doing audio narration. I try to balance enough time to read text vs having a 30min video - and hope that there's enough visual storytelling that you don't *need* the text most of the time, it just provides extra context if you want it :)

[@davidcarter9322]

Awesome restore! I had one of these to fix back in the day when I was a Mac Tech. They had potential but it just not to be.

[@InitialiseDisk]

lol I wish I could put in the same amount of energy into vintage pcs. i’m only just getting around to restoring the ex rat infested pc. epic video as usual. i love vintage multimedia computers.

[@iiidiy]

I hope they didn't chew up the wires! And please wear face protection, you really don't want to be breathing in any of their waste. Ugh, that's the worst, good luck with it!

[@InitialiseDisk]

@@iiidiy No luckily no chewed wires. I think there was only one and it built a whole nest some of which I have hoovered up but I still need to take it apart and basically put it all in the dishwasher. It’s the 7100 I restored on my channel lol 🫤

[@gordonwalker1987]

Love your video's. Keep it up :)

[@iiidiy]

Thanks! I hope to :)

[@BilisNegra]

And out of the blue turns out you have another of those scarce Macintosh TV's that were just a few months in production (and of which just about 40.000 were produced) "for reference"! Does that other unit work to some degree?

[@iiidiy]

I couldn't have had better luck with the timing :) It came up for sale after I started this restoration, but before I screwed up the tuner. No, it doesn't work... yet!

[@TheBasementChannel]

Nice work. Love your video style.

[@iiidiy]

Thank you!

[@tony714keene]

I had yours, mine in beige color. I used to watch tv on my macintosh color classic

[@falecore8585]

Your videos are pure fire!

[@iiidiy]

Thanks!

[@juankerr]

A steam cleaner is another effective way of cleaning ingrained dust and muck out of those sharp corners and grilles on plastic parts- it certainly reduces the number of passes you have to do with the ear buds.

[@iiidiy]

Interesting, thanks for the tip!

[@juankerr]

Look forward to watching all your current and future videos - the Tizio alone tells me to expect even greater things. @@iiidiy

[@iiidiy]

@@juankerr Hah, good eye! Just clicked into your profile, so you might enjoy this tidbit: I almost made a channel about the long-term restoration of my TT mkI. I'm very happy that I went with my computer hobby instead! :)

[@juankerr]

@@iiidiyI think you made the right decision. I didn't get properly into Macs until 2005, so the few things I have [mega nostalgia for] aren't quite at the stage of needing full restos, yet. Quirky, beautifully designed CD players on the other hand...

[@Urosaurus]

Thanks

[@michaelcarbone6101]

Thanks 👍

[@ConsolesRetro]

Nice job and never give up! 👍

[@iiidiy]

Thanks!

[@Rotterdam93]

Great video❤

[@iiidiy]

Thanks!

[@AldoArellanoYcaza]

Great work! New subscriber here 🙌

[@iiidiy]

Thanks, and welcome! :)

[@snesfan8935]

Macintosh with Trinitron CRT tube inside. Interesting.

[@amacaddict]

I remember looking at these at Best Buy, wishing I had a bunch of money so I could get one.

[@iiidiy]

Wow, I didn't know BestBuy had these back in the day! I only got to see them in the back of Mac magazines :)

[@zaprodk]

8:32 That's not a resistor, that's an inductor :)

[@iiidiy]

D'oh! I found that out while doing some research and forgot to change the text! Nice catch :)

[@BryanTrustyChannel]

Got me! this is great

[@iiidiy]

Thanks, and welcome to the club! :)

[@theParticleGod]

The stupidly high price was the problem with these things. If they'd priced it right they could have sold boatloads of these things, but pricing stuff for volume sales is not Apple's forte

[@charlessale409]

Hahah the bush album

[@ryan-zv6xp]

Very nice video! May I ask what you use in the ultrasonic cleaner?

[@iiidiy]

Thanks, I'm currently using Flux-Off Aqueous from Chemtronics

[@ARTrasatt]

Have you ever considered modding for RGB/component? I’m almost on the hook to buy one but hesitating. The composite looks way worse than the computer display (for many reasons I’m sure) but hesitant because for the same price I could get a PVM. Awesome as a collectors piece but maybe not as practical for retro gaming as I thought. Any input from your experience?

[@iiidiy]

I hadn't considered that, and I'm not sure that's even possible. The video input isn't going directly into the CRT, it's being digitized, so I doubt it'd be like modding a 1702 or something... but that's beyond my level :) Re: quality... yeah... it's not good. It's dithering from a smaller color palette, nothing close to a good "real" CRT TV or PVM. The tube itself is nice, but the capture isn't. It's a great party trick, and on SNES or older games I don't really notice the limited palette because it's already limited... but next to a real TV, it's no contest.

[@celsotrio]

amazing!!

[@trekintosh]

Was that a Cathode Ray Dude reference at 15:50?

[@iiidiy]

🫡

[@Cameront9]

Irks me to no no that this model doesn’t have a black cd rom

[@iiidiy]

Yup, also the beige plastic around the power switch... they were SO CLOSE haha

[@alphabeets]

Why no talking?

[@iiidiy]

It's the format I'm able to produce... given the time, resources, and talent I have :) There are so many channels that talk at the viewer already, and I prefer this calm, quiet approach. The text can be hard to read sometimes, but I hope it's just extra context, not essential to enjoying the video. Thanks for watching!

[@paulstubbs7678]

Talk

[@iiidiy]

No thanks