This creator shoved a Framework inside of a 2006 MacBook: 'A reimagined classic, that's only a little bit janky'
There's a cheeky allure to the whole hackintosh thing. The idea of turning a Mac (a famously unupgradable and walled-off device) into something Frankenstein-esque is a nerdy joy, and this person who fitted their '06 MacBook with Framework embodies that cheekiness.
As they say, it's "a reimagined classic, that's only a little bit janky".
You might be wondering, 'Why an '06 MacBook? Does it have specific dimensions that might work?' The answer is 'just because and no', in that order. It turns out that Edoogg, the person behind the Framebook, just liked this specific model of MacBook as "it was one of the only MacBooks you could get in black besides the PowerBook G3."
The project started with a handful of A1181 first-generation 13.3-inch MacBooks bought on eBay.
"They were all pretty beat up and didn't have their batteries, nor did they power on."
Turns out that they were so busted that "pretty much all of the parts of the Mac I discarded, since they didn't work and even on their own, aren't worth a lot if I did sell them."
So, the final project has a Framework Laptop 13 motherboard with an Intel Core i7 1280P, plus 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, and an MND307DA1-9 CSOT display. They also threw in a USB hub, 8 MP camera, a Framework laptop speaker kit, and a USB 2.0 expansion module.
To get the MacBook's shell working with the internals, they had to solder a USB cable to the keyboard and trackpad, which they did successfully on the first try, until they accidentally yanked the cable and tore the solder pads off the case's PCB. Luckily, a new case and a second solder fixed the issue.
As with any good DIY project, there's a healthy amount of super glue in Edoogg's build, with an old, dead MacBook battery (sans battery cells) stuck in the middle of empty space and an I/O shield being shoved onto the side to accommodate new ports in the shell. Edoogg even stuck that USB hub in the case itself to hook up the motherboard to the rest of the internals.
Impressively, Edoogg even managed to get the Apple light on the back glowing, by ordering a custom-made 7x7x0.28 cm LED which was (you guessed it) super-glued on the back and plugged into the USB hub.
The finished product is a relatively new motherboard inside a two-decade-old machine that took three months to put together, alongside learning how to solder and how to create 3D models.
Edoogg does share how they would have done the project better, "namely making some custom PCBs in place of my USB hubs so I could have any I/O i want, and finding a better way to mount stuff instead of super glue lol."
Personally, I think the super glue adds to the character.