Hello, welcome back to the 8-Bit Guy. So, not too long ago I agreed to be part of
Perafractic’s Think Different Challenge. Now, let me start by giving you a little back
story on that. It started out when he ended up with a spare,
empty Apple IIe case, and he decided to put a Raspberry Pi inside. He found a device to connect the existing
keyboard to the Raspberry Pi, and he hot-glued everything to the inside of the case, which
was something I was very skeptical about when I saw it. He wired up the internal speaker and managed
to load up the Pi with Retro Pi, so that it can play all sorts of games from old systems,
including the Apple II. He managed to get it working on HDMI and Composite
so that it works with an old original CRT display. When he was all done, he signed his name to
the bottom of the case, then he nominated somebody else to improve it. So I’m going to launch what I call Perifractic’s
Think-different challenge. What I’m going to do is nominate Jan Beta. So, off it went from California to Germany
so that Jan could work some magic on it. One thing he did was create bracket and add
in a standard 3-prong AC power adapter in the rear, which he mounted on a custom metal
plate, along with a few other modifications. He also used even more hot-glue to secure
the power supply inside. He signed his name to the case, and then he
nominated another YouTuber to take the project even farther. I think I am going to challenge my friend
Mark, better known to the community as Mindflare Retro I guess, so Mark, over to you, in Canada,
are you going to accept this and try to bring this to the next level? Jan, thank you very much for the nomination
and I humbly accept. So off it went from Germany to Ontario Canada. And by the time he got ahold of this machine,
some of the hot-glue, surprise surprise, had already come loose. As a temporary solution, he used blue-tac
to hold things in place while he could work on them. Mindflare spent some time working on this,
and added a standard parallel port to the back, and ran into all sorts of other little
issues, most of which he was able to fix. And of course, he also signed his name to
the case. At the end of this, Perifractic nominated
me as the final person to see what modifications I could do. And one name keeps coming up. It’s the 9-bit, sorry, 8-bit guy. So off it went from Canada to Texas. And now, here it is. All right, and so here we are. Before we get started, I wanted to tell you
a funny little story. So, when Perifractic first contacted me about
this several months ago, and I agreed to do the challenge, we started discussing the details
on getting the computer shipped to me. And I was warning him not to ship it at these
particular dates because I was going to be in London in the United Kingdom. And, by sheer coincidence, it turned out he
was also going to be in London around the same time. So, I said, well hey, why don’t we meet
up? And so that’s what we did. And, we spent the day together and it was
pretty fun. And I have a funny little story for you. We actually ended up eating together at a
place called Dukes, now we didn’t think much about it at the time, but when we went
in and we got the menu, we noticed they actually serve a product called the Duke Burger. And, we thought this was pretty funny because
if you’ve ever played Duke Nukem 3D, there’s an entire level in that name called Duke Burger
where you have to fight out in this restaurant called Duke Burger and they serve a product
called the Duke Burger. So anyway, I just thought that was a funny
coincidence. But anyway, now that I’ve got the computer
here, I already see quite a few things that I would like to improve about it, and I’m
going to start by pretty much just removing everything out of this computer so that I
can mount things properly. Because the hot glue has obviously not been
successful. Yes, of course, primitive. So, I continued to clip zip ties and remove
everything from the case. This is the speaker wire. Perifractic used an external USB sound device
for some reason. However, this appears to be held on with double-sided
tape. And since it is so light weight, I don’t
think it’s going anywhere. So I may leave that where it is. Now to remove this power supply. I can see the hot glue has already come loose
before I even touched it, but it seems to still be held in place by something. I realized Jan used a screw through the bottom
of the case, which I don’t remember seeing in his video, but maybe I just missed it. And the screw was a good way to mount it,
but it’s a pity he didn’t use both screw holes, instead of the hot glue. Speaking of, I’m just going to pull this
hot glue off. OK, so now it’s time to go shopping. I have a lot of things I need to buy, and
I’m going to start here at the hardware store. The main thing I needed here was a number
6 drill tap, but the smallest they had was a number 8. So moving on, I went to Fry’s which is one
of the few remaining electronics stores in the area, since over the last 15 years we’ve
lost Computer City, Electronic Discount Sales, CompUSA, Service Merchandise, Circuit City,
Incredible Universe, and finally RadioShack. However, even Fry’s often disappoints. I found a few things I was looking for, like
these standoffs, but they never seem to have what I’m looking for these days. They did have some rubber feet, but not the
size I needed. I was also looking for a panel mount RCA jack. While they did have some, I ended up not buying
anything at all. You see, if I have go to Amazon to buy one
of the parts, I might as well buy everything I need on Amazon. And, of course, about 8 hours later my packages
arrived. And yeah, here’s all the stuff I needed
for this project. OK, so one of the first things I wanted to
check was, I bought this HDMI panel mount cable. And it plugs into the raspberry Pi like this,
and then I can mount this end somewhere on the back of the Apple II case. Ideally, I’m going to try putting it in
one of these slots, so let me remove this cover. And yeah, I think this will fit nicely in
here. I still need to do a little clean up work
here, such as removing the left over hot glue. You can see how easily this stuff comes off,
that’s why it isn’t a good choice for mounting stuff. Then, also there is this sound cable that
Perifractic designed. And, I noticed he used electrical tape. I’m not a fan of electrical tape in this
scenario because over time it always loses its adhesion and starts to unravel, and just
leaves sticky gunk everywhere. So, I’m going to replace it with heat shrink. However, what’s worse is now I see these
wires aren’t even soldered. They are just twisted together. So, yeah, I am going to need to redo that. So, I’ll go ahead and get started on that. I’ll tin the leads first. So, normally Perifractic does solder stuff,
so I asked him why he didn’t do it this time and he said his soldering station was
not functioning at the time and he was on a tight schedule to get this shipped off to
Jan in Germany, so that’s his excuse anyway. Then I’ll cut off some of this heat shrink
and slide them over the wires like so. Then I’ll take a larger piece and slide
it over the whole wire here. Then it’s just a matter of melting this
together. By the way, I would be a lot more steady than
this if I wasn’t trying to film it. In case I’ve never mentioned, it is challenging
to film soldering stuff because the camera is always in the way, plus you have to make
sure your hands aren’t in the way of the action, or that you aren’t creating any
shadows in the way of the action. Anyway. I always follow this up with some pliers so
that I can smooth out any sharp points that may have formed. Otherwise, it could puncture through the heat
shrink. And time for a little heat to finish it up. And there we go. I feel much better about sending off this
computer to somebody now that these have been soldered. OK, next thing I want to do is properly mount
this power supply. I’m going to show you a little trick I learned
a few years back. I’m just going to trace out the shape of
the power supply on this piece of paper like so. Then I will cut out the shape with some scissors. Next I’ll use my finger to feel around for
the hole, and then I’ll get the other one. And now I have a perfect template for the
power supply. So I’ll flip the computer over. So this spot here is precisely where I want
it to go. So, now I know exactly where to mark the two
holes. Next I’ll come back and drill a couple of
pilot holes. Then I’ll come back and enlarge these with
the correct sized bit. And then I can put in the screws. And as you can see, it is nice and out of
the way, plus that sucker is not moving. Again, I feel much better about sending this
to somebody with this properly mounted. OK, so I really like this little 7 port USB
hub that Perifractic picked out. And one reason is because it actually does
fit really nicely right there in this open slot. Now, if you’ll notice, there are these two
standoffs on either side of that slot. And I’d like to make use of those. There are a few products that I think may
help me with this. I could use this regular double sided foam
tape, but I also found this extremely strong mounting tape. And I think I’ll use that in combination
with these things. These are for use on aluminum fences, but
I like to use them for a variety of things. They are flexible enough to actually work
with, since you can bend them by hand, but they are also strong enough to use for mounting
things. So what I do is bend them around the object
in question, then use pliers to form little loops at the ends so that you can mount your
screws. Then cut off the excess. So, I’ll put some of this mounting tape
on the bottom. The tape is great for preventing things from
scooting around. But not too great for keeping things attached
to something. So, using a combination of the tape and a
mounting bracket, it should hold this in really nicely. I ended up using an extra piece of foam tape
at the top because there was a small gap I needed to fill. And now I can plug in the sound device to
it. Moving along, the next order of business is
to mount this keyboard converter. Since this is the cable it needs to connect
to, I’m going to mount it right about here. More or less where Perifractic mounted it
the first time. But, I’m going to do things a bit different. I’m going to use a sharpie to mark the 3
hole positions. And you should be able to see the 3 dots I
made on the metal. Now, I’m going to use this punch to make
a tiny indent right in the middle of those holes, that way my drill bit will stay centered
when I drill my holes. Just like before, I’m going to start with
a tiny pilot hole. Unfortunately, I realized I couldn’t reach
the other two holes with the drill, so I had to remove the case. That should make life a lot easier anyway. And now I’ll put in the larger bit and widen
the holes a little. And now, here’s where that number 6 drill
tap comes into place. This will put threads into that hole for me. And now, I can mount one of these standard
motherboard standoffs just like the ones used for ATX computer cases. Now to see if the board lines up. And it does. However, I ran into another problem. The holes in this board are slightly too small
to fit the screws I need to use. So, to fix that, I’m just going to run the
drill through and widen them a little bit. All right, so let’s try this again! And it works perfectly. And this sucker is mounted great, it’s definitely
not going to go anywhere! And now I need to do the same procedure with
this Raspberry Pi. I’m not sure where to mount it. The only cable that is critical do to its
short length is the HDMI cable. So I think I’ll just go ahead and mount
the board here. And so, fast forwarding a bit, here are the
mounts. The Pi only has 2 holes in it, so I hope that
is enough. So, here we go. Everything lined up, and it seems pretty stable. So I’ll go ahead and plug in the HDMI cable. Moving on I did want to take a look at this
top cover piece which is slightly yellowed. In fact, if you look at the unboxing video
here, you may notice the top cover doesn’t match the rest of the computer. I think the top piece was mismatched from
another Apple II at some point. This area here doesn’t look too bad because
I suspect there was a monitor sitting there shielding it from the sun. But you can clearly see over here that it
is yellowed and I’m going to try to fix that. So, I’ll use my regular retrobriting method. Since this is fairly small I can use a smaller
bucket. One concern I have is possibly whitening it
too much and then it may still be mismatched but instead be too light. Oh well, I guess we’ll find out. Now I’m going to use these little sticky
mounts, to help tidy up some of the cables. These use double-sided tape, so I hope they
will not come loose. So, for example, I’m going to stick this
one here. I did clean the metal off first, so it should
adhere well. Then I can place my zip-tie through like so,
then tighten it up, and cut of off. By the way, while I’m in here, this would
be a good time to sign my name to the case as well. Something else I want to do is, I want to
install one of these RCA in the back for composite video. I thought maybe I could put it through one
of these plastic slot covers. Well, that didn’t go too well. These are so old and brittle it just broke. Well, I think I can salvage this. So, I’ll go ahead and start drilling a hole
in it. Unfortunately, it ended up snapping into pieces. So, I have this other heavy duty RCA jack
I’ve been wanting to try in something. I had the idea to maybe mount it in this hole
here. But the hole isn’t quite big enough. Fortunately, I discovered this nickel was
almost the perfect size, so I used it as a template to draw the correct shape around
the hole. And there we go. So I just need to cut that much out. For this job, I will use this attachment on
my Dremel. You can see how this thing works. So let’s go to town. This actually worked really well. I went very slowly to make sure I didn’t
overshoot past the line. It took about 5 minutes but the result was
perfect. OK, so I had planned to do this horizontal,
but it looks like I’ll need to turn it to a vertical position to make it fit. I’ll just draw some circles for the holes. And then, I’ll drill them out. Next, I want to solder this RCA cable to the
jack. And with this style of connector, that turned
out to be pretty easy. So all that’s left to do is run the wire
through the hole, and screw this thing down. I’m going to be using two nuts on the inside
to hold the RCA jack down. And there we go.. That looks very sturdy. And on the inside, I’ll just connect this
to the Raspberry Pi’s composite video port, and tidy up the cable. All right, and here is everything finished,
there’s only one little caveat. So, there’s parallel port that was added
on, well, there aren’t enough internal USB ports to connect this. And I don’t think a lot of people are going
to be possibly using that, so I’m just going to leave that and if anybody absolutely wants
to use it, what they’ll have to do is they’ll have to run it out of this hole here and plug
it into one of the USB ports down there. That’s just the only way we’re going to
be able to do that. I will also say that there’s one thing I
kind of wish that I had done, which is to route the audio from the raspberry pi to the
back with some RCA jacks as well, that way you could choose either internal sound or
external sound and you could do it via software and you would have ports on the back for that
but, I think I am done with this and now it’s time to test it. OK, now it’s time to put the cover back
on. OK, so one problem we’ve got is we have
two feet back here but we are missing two feet up here. And I just happened to pick up some feet on
amazon. These should be the right size. Yeah, I think that will work. Let’s do the other one. Yes, perfect fit. Now it has all 4 feet again. And it's been about an hour and a half so
I'm going to check on the retrobrite process. Looks like it is about done. so let's see if it matches the rest of the
case now. I'd say it looks a lot better! Time to test this thing, and I’m going to
try it with an HDMI monitor first, so I’ll plug in to my external HDMI port here. And then we’ll plug in some power to Jan’s
power port. And let’s power it on. And it works! I played around with Retro Pi a bit, and I
admit the controls are somewhat clunky being it is a bunch of different emulators all being
controlled by a single front end. But it works. I also wanted to test the keyboard, and that
appears to work as well. And the next thing I wanted to try was the
composite television. So, I’ll plug that into my fancy RCA jack. And I did realize I have to unplug the HDMI
so that it will output composite, but it does work. Well, everything but the Apple II emulator,
which requires configuring it separately for composite video. But everything else worked. For example, this is the Sinclair spectrum
emulator here on composite. All right, so I think I am finished with my
part. Now, I was asked to improve the hardware pretty
much however I saw fit. And, I think I actually did a pretty good
job of improving both the hardware mounting and some of the cosmetic appearance of the
computer. But, you know, this is a project that could
essentially never end. I mean, you could keep sending it to different
people and improvements could keep going pretty much forever. But, I think for all practical purposes, we
can call this machine done for now. So, that being the case, I’m going to turn
it over to Perifractic where he can tell you about the details of the giveaway. Cheers eight, mate. Sorry. Welcome to Perifractic’s retro recipes kitchen. Retro with a twist. Where, on the menu, among other things we
usually have Commodore 64s in dishwashers, extreme refurbs, Amigas doing modern email,
don’t eat it! don’t eat it! Dogs trying to retrobrite their noses, don’t
eat the bl… NO! Don’t eat the bleach. And of course, C64 minis installed inside
of C64s, because why not? And if my 8-Bit mate and I travel in that
TARDIS he showed you back in time, to when this Apple IIe was nothing but an empty case,
I had no idea the cool improvements that would follow on the highly recommend channels of
Jan Beta, Mindlfare Retro, and of course the 8-Bit Governor. Bringing it even closer to emulating the beautiful
retro machine it once was. As I often say, these machines deserve our
care in return for all of the happiness they gave us as kids. So, thank you all for your hard work and dedication
in finishing up the Apple Pi. But, also, if we travel back to episode 1,
I said that we’d each autograph the case, and give the finished machine away to one
lucky viewer at the end of the project, so it can continue to give a big kid happiness
today. Well, the end is nigh. And entering the contest is easy as pie. Just click on the link in the description
below to enter the free giveaway. And then cross your fingers unless they’re
in lots of pies. I’ll announce the winner on my channel in
true retro style. Feel free to subscribe if you don’t want
to miss that. Good luck everyone. May the nostalgia be with you! And by the way, I do hope this will inspire
future think different challenge collaborations between other channels. It would be really great to get more diversity
out there too, instead of just us bunch of knuckleheads. Maybe we can even get some dog retro gaming
channels involved as well. dance. Yeah. No, that’s an Apple IIe, we don’t dance
with those. Thank you so much for watching. And until next time, from the 8-Bit Guy, and
from me, cheerio, y’all.
