CustoMacs

Do you have a story about an unusually customized Mac that you’d like to share? Send it to us!

FaceBook – BlueSky

Not only is macOS quite customizable, especially with desktop images, appearance sets, fonts, and themes, but Macintosh computers can be customized, both inside and out. Over the years, quite a few individuals have made their own interesting custom Mac creations..

These are their stories. Just remember to be careful if you decide to customize your own Mac.

  • Stone Flecked Classic, 2000.06.08. This popular process covers the drab beige or platinum finish with a stone-lick appearance.
  • Ze PowerSuitcase, 2000.06.02. Inside a metal Smith-Corona typewriter case beats the heart of a Quadra 700.
  • CompuBrick 160, 2000.01.18. Would you believe a PowerBook 160 converted to desktop use with plastic blocks?
  • The Bronze SE/30, 2000.01.10. A look at a “bronzed” SE/30 customized by Gary Thornton.
  • The Yosemite/Radeon 2600XT 24″ ’06 Mac, 2023.10.16. Documenting how it was done, a GPU straight out of a Mac Pro 3,1 was slapped into here, along with OS X Yosemite + Piker Alpha’s Boot.EFI. (Also: See the Part 2 article, (2023.11.08) to this project)
  • Maximizing the AGP Power Mac G5 into space.. and beyond!, 2023.09.05. A Dual 2.0 Power Mac G5 ’03 outfitted with brand new fans, a 4x SSD RAID0 array, a second HDD/SSD bay (minus the DVD drive), flashed PC GPU, and uses a modern IPS LCD 1080p panel.
  • Modernized ’07 iMac + RX 580, 2023.09.05. Connecting an AMD RX 580, external PSU, and using OCLP to achieve full native graphical hardware acceleration under macOS Monterey
  • CustoMac: 3.1 Ghz i7-5557u-upgraded 11″ 2015 MacBook Air: 2024.11.29. A look at a turbo-charged ’15 MBA with a better CPU/GPU, with a black/red carbon fiber skin!
  • Gutted 20″ ’06 iMac + eGPU: 2024.11.29, Mac AMD Radeon 5700HD 1GB “eGPU”, ePSU, MiniPCIe-PCIe adapter, x1600 chip ripped off the board, T7600 > T7400, Piker Alpha Boot.EFI w/OS X 10.10.5, BT+Wifi, USB HDD, ODD fan now cools OG PSU. <2.5GB DDR2 to keep the chipset happy.
  • Ryan Anderson’s colorized anodized Macs: 2024.12.11, An entire collection of formerly silver aluminum Macs-turned all kinds of different colors, through anodization.

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