The Mac mini is probably the smallest computer in Apple’s lineup. This is technically not in Apple’s lineup—an argument could be made that it used to be—but it’s probably the tiniest Apple computer your eyes will ever gaze at.

A DIYer named Nick Gillard had a little too much free time on his hands and put together the “pico-mac-nano,” a small, fully functional scale replica of the iconic 1984 Apple Macintosh. The computer itself is just 62mm tall, which is about the size of your thumb. It’s pretty impressive. And the best part is that you can fully use it as a computer—as fully functional as a 1984 Macintosh can be, that is. It has full support for USB keyboard and mouse input, so despite technically trying to emulate older hardware, you don’t need to go around digging for an era-appropriate mouse to use this.

So, how is this made? Of course, we don’t have any original hardware in here. Rather, this is built around the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller. The project is an evolution of “pico-mac,” an earlier endeavor by Matt Evans, who successfully emulated the original Macintosh System 3 on a Pico with VGA output. The final size of the pico-mac-nano was dictated by the smallest available 640x480px LCD that could display the Macintosh’s native 512x342px resolution. A 2-inch TFT display is what’s being used here, and the developer also made an internal PCB that could not only fit inside the tiny case but also drive all of the modern features he wanted to add. The standard Raspberry Pi Pico, sold by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, was too large; instead, the more compact WaveShare Pico Zero was chosen for this thing’s guts. Other specs include a microSD card slot that serves as storage for this computer.

The case itself was 3D printed, but the person behind this did make an attempt to incorporate authentic-feeling details, such as the box looking pretty similar to the original box from 1984, except miniaturized. By all intents and purposes, this is, really, just a tiny Macintosh.

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This is probably not something you would use as your main computer because of two very obvious reasons. For one, it’s too small for it to even be worth using, and even if it wasn’t, this is still just imitating 1984 hardware that’s long since deprecated. This is just a good conversation opener for when you have people over at your house.

If you want one of these, you can buy a fully-assembled version of this for £56, or £78 for a “Collector’s Edition.” Check out Nick’s website to learn more.

Source: 1-bit Rainbow via The Verge