Join RetroChallenge 2026!

It’s time for RetroChallenge 2026, and we’re looking for everyone to join – yes everyone! Setup to encourage people across the world to challenge themselves for a month and document their achievements in the process, the ACMS & RetroChallenge judges will follow along and post updates to the community.

How to get started

1. Sign up on this form: RetroChallenge sign up – to nominate a goal
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2. Think of a project & a goal for this project.
- If possible, include a URL for the project. Makes it easier to find.
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3. Sign up here, next forum.acms.org.au – the judges will follow along.
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4. Document your progress along the way.

You can also sign up for HACKADAY RetroComputing Contest, while you’re at it. Updates will be posted by judges, they’ll give encouragement, and share community feedback if asked for. A Show & Tell will wrap-up the contest at the ACMS on October 31st 2026; everyone is welcome to dial-in and share a 5-minute presentation of their project. Judges will review the forum and balance ingenuity, difficulty, outcomes, and passion to choose winners within the next 6 weeks.

Prizes will be given out including a $500AUD voucher, products from ZuluSCSI – and there’s also gonna be RetroChallenge merch like pins and keychains up for grabs!

My entry/project

Goal: Turning a 2007 MacBook into a desktop 2007 Mac Studio from an alternate universe, while also running a Mac OS version it was never designed to boot. If possible, 3D print (or make) a proper-looking case for it too.
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Retro computer target: Early Intel Macs, year 2006

Premise/Backstory: In an alternate earth, with alternate economics, influences, design teams, and whatnot. In this alternate universe, Apple unveiled the Mac Studio in 2006, alongside the first generation of Intel Macs.

See article: In an Alternate Universe: Apple unveils the 2006 Mac Studio

Story time: It started out as an elaborate April fool’s joke which piggybacked off some pandemic-era Franken-Mac projects I had; but then I thought about it – since mini PCIe is a thing, if only power supplies were a little heftier and maybe if there were a need for such desktops.. could one actually be made instead of just Photoshopped?

It was fun to work on 2006 iMacs, especially circumventing their graphical hardware limitations and allowing newer Mac OSes to have native graphical hardware acceleration without patches.. but something in me wanted to build something new.

The project

1. Testing

For a while I’ve had this itch to make a proper eGPU case to go along with 2006-7 MacBooks/MacBook Pros.. and VCF Midwest was the perfect opportunity to pick up some project MacBooks. Fortunately, they both test working! Picked one up for $5 and another for $10 from the Wisconsin Computer Club.

The 2006 Core Duo is sitting on a shelf untouched, whereas I picked the Core 2 Duo to experiment with. Having to take some parts off a different project, I took to disassembling the MacBook and removing the AirPort card to test an eGPU video out. Since this is a GMA 950 Mac, chipset limitations means I have to keep under 2 GB or 2.5 GB RAM so it doesn’t conflict with a GPU over mini PCIe. Fortunately, this Mac came with a 2 GB module.

There’s.. one more thing. Since the SATA-to-PCIe power adapter requires 12V for any GPU to even work, a MacBook’s internal SATA port simply won’t cut it, meaning it can’t run entirely enclosed off a MagSafe power supply; another power supply has to be added. Even so with the power requirements of this card, it would get dicey. In order to make sure the card powered on for this test, I had to borrow 12V SATA power from a 2006 20-Inch iMac’s logic board.

2. The turning point

At first I was actually going for an eGPU build, until I suddenly realized how small the MacBook’s logic board is. A Radeon HD 2600XT is not much smaller, and would probably stack well.. that’s when it clicked.

I got to removing the logic board and to my surprise, it’s able to work entirely off a single display adapter, a boot USB, a MagSafe 1, and just the system fan – nothing else. The tiny USB drive has a broken cover, so it almost blends in with the port.

3. At first, a weird case idea, then..

I was trying out different ideas for cases, including even cutting up a DVD case since this MacBook logic board fit perfectly inside one. Since I don’t have access to a 3D printer, I thought about repurposing the orginal MacBook bottom case. The logic board can screw into there, it has metal braces for structural rigidity, and the ports will have shielding.

So I took a metal saw and cut carefully along the outer perimeter of the logic board area, mirroring the cut on the keyboard above it, so this way there’s a lid to fasten to. With the PCIe (USB 3.0 as connection) cable snaked through where the display used to connect and the other cables through other openings, I taped the SSD on top.

The ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB cannot at all be powered off the MacBook’s internal SATA, because it needs 12V. I have a few 12V barrel jack PSUs laying around, a PCIe to SATA power adapter, and an old USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosure which has a board with an on/off switch, perfect for this.

4. Connecting the GPU/eGPU

With the Mini PCIe to PCIe board connected to the Radeon, the new board connecting to supply power, it’s time to test! This absolute monstrosity booted and stayed functioning through the entire cloning process, but something stopped it from getting to the login screen for some reason..

I cloned a copy of Piker Alpha OS X Yosemite, knowing the 2600 XT could handle the graphics. The boot screen would get all the way to the end, get garbled, and it would reboot. I also had some hurdles along the way; 12V 2A is enough for a boot screen, but apparently not even enough to use the second DVI port, only the first.

5. Troubleshooting

As it turns out, I needed more power; the 12V 2A barrel jack wasn’t cutting it – but where in the world could I supply enough for this card? That’s when I remembered I had.. one more thing. Sitting behind the HiSense was a 12V 5A barrel jack powering the formerly temperamental OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual.. the PSU of which was from an old router, and I spliced the cable so it had the right barrel jack.

Now this is stretched across my table to the desk on my left, just to power the graphics card portion of this project.. and it worked to get past the boot screen!

So far.. so good.

Getting to the desktop and online is only proof the configuration works.. the next steps are optimization. Some work went into fashioning the bottom part of the case, but I don’t want to leave second half like this. Now that it works, there’s an opportunity for this to eventually go into a proper case.