The sheer number of "this component only works if configured with the serial number of that other thing" instances inside Apple devices never ceases to amaze and disappoint me
Yeahhhh, sadly cars are like that now too! Many vin locked components, some locked to other modules aka the ECU to the cluster module, ECU locked to the ABS etc
@@mikepxg6406that phrase made me giggle a bit, I killed 2 power supplies by testing shorted stuff without knowing it, that little phrase hit home so much I personally felt it
@clemensruis "Haha, I have outsmarted your outsmarting." "But the freaking hole is even freakier now!" "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." "oh god"
Cool. My company was able to get a few of these DTK's and I had a bit to do with setting it up for the rest of our staff to use it. I had to lock it up in a room that only a few people (including me) could unlock and the rest of staff used it over remote access. When the time was up, Apple's lawyers were pretty adamant they wanted it back pronto, so I had to box it up and send it back via their special courier. Thanks for showing me what the inside looked like!
@@Rollmops94 The OP would have been using the DTK for it's intended purpose not for a laugh and a giggle. The video explains what the usecase of these DTK's was.
@@Rollmops94 the reason these were locked up is because they are the first ARM boards that could run MACOS, and apple is a jealous cunt and thinks they invented every technology that they copy from others
I had one also but as an independent developer and the process was much less threatening sounding. I originally wasn't even going to bother because it sounded like they had very few and were going to be pretty restrictive with who could get them, but a few weeks after they had started sending the kits out they sent a reminder email to developers that they were available and at that point I decided since they clearly weren't all gone I might as well try. I've never even published anything directly to the Mac App Store, I just gave them links to multiple apps I developed and they approved the application and sent the DTK. There was no special courier and the return was just a normal prepaid FedEx shipping label. It's pretty cool that someone was actually able to activate one of these several years later, I'm surprised they didn't disable that on the server side.
I once punctured my HDD pcb with a very small Phillips head screwdriver. HDD wouldn't respond whatsoever. I took out the pcb and after some careful observation, noticed there weren't any traces at or near the puncture, so I took a flathead and slowly ground away. Once there was a sufficiently large enough hole that I could clearly see through, I cleaned it off to make sure there wasn't any copper dust and finally taped on both sides to prevent anything going in and causing a short. Plugged it into my PC and it started working again. It's still in my PC right now, haven't had any issues whatsoever.
So there were no traces near the hole, but it wouldn't respond, and after you made the hole bigger, it worked perfectly? That makes absolutely no sense.
Many companies “destroy” prototype equipment when it is no longer needed due to IRC 174 (tax code). Basically the prototype is rendered reasonably worthless to insure it is no longer used by the company or anyone else, otherwise they do not get to deduct the cost of the prototype. The IRS became very concerned in the 1990s that companies were writing off the prototypes but still using them in business (if it’s still being used you can’t write it off). The developers basically leased it, and at the end of the lease they would send it back and get a credit for what is essentially a production level replacement (a bare bones Mac mini for developers was about the same price). They got the credit no doubt because maybe they might rather have something better than a base model Mac mini, like maybe more RAM, or more storage, or maybe a laptop instead. Cutting the PCB is just due diligence, certainly it “could” be fixed, but probably the amount of work would not be worth it. Though a determined you tuber with a soldering iron might fix it not for its intrinsic value, but for the views as well.
Company: makes functional prototype IRS: destroy that for tax money Company: how much? It's stuff like this which makes our society so wasteful and perversely incentivized
Yeah, the point is that they genuinely won't derive any more value from them, but the IRS doesn't know that if they export them. Breaking them first is easier/cheaper than maintaining records of what happened to them
I also kinda object to another common feeling people express. These aren’t “perfectly good machines”. They are a low volume orphan with limited potential. The processor wasn’t an M1, it didn’t support all the important MSRs that the M1 had (some for instance might make Rosetta work better). It didn’t have the same number of cores in the same configurations, the peripheral interfaces were not the same as the M1. Apple wouldn’t want to support this configuration in a shipping OS. “But Linux” you say… sure, but what district would want to carry around support for such a limited machine? It isn’t a waste, it is just how development works, there are steps and often times the intermediate steps are simply limited usefulness. Historically significant, sure, and I am confident that apple saved a few examples for its archives. I am equally sure that somewhere out there some developers didn’t turn one back in (probably more than one maybe). Either that developer just forgot, or intended to give it to a museum so others can enjoy it, or simply keep it secret for long enough to sell it to a collector for a profit later. (Which sounds a little shady I guess)
@@jonqu7041 This is a fair point "Apple wouldn’t want to support this configuration in a shipping OS", but I still think it's very wasteful that they deliberately destroy them! If people want to use them, they should be able to do, apple can just be very explicit that they are unsupported. The fact that this is considered normal is a pretty bad sign of how our society works.
This is absolutely astonishing. Your fix for the cut to the PCB is nothing short of miraculous; never would I have thought a multi layer PCB like that could ever be operable again after damage like that. Amazing repair of a piece of Apple history.
Depends entirely on where the damage is on the board. If it's through power rails, but doesn't affect any rails which are vital for basic functionality like in this case, you can just clear the damaged area and it'll work If the board's snapped in half and is multi-layer you're SOL since the traces under the surface layers can't be accessed to be rejoined without destroying the other traces above them. Same if the damage is more centralized, the board was drilled or the damage has occurred in an area where a lot of critical power and data traces reside.
It is possible to repair PCBs, including traces deep within a multilayer board. It just becomes more and more expensive to do, so it’s rarely worth the effort. Take a look at Pace’s “Adventures in Rework” video series. They demonstrate excavating traces, fixing them, and then repairing all the layers above them to restore the whole PCB.
This reminds me of a big box of windows 98se cds I recovered from a business that shut down and they tossed them in a dumpster. They had never been installed, or even opened, but they were supposed to be destroyed and written off. The way they choose to destroy them was to drill a hole through the installation cd. Unfortunately they only drilled through the box and went right through the center of the disc and through the hole that was already there. Not a single one was damaged and I managed to save and sell 120 discs for $40 each. That was a good day.
@@YimYum911 probably the easiest way to drill into those packages - and since the checkmark "drilled" was reached, the intern doing it didn't care for doing more damage
@@JoBot__ They do it because of depreciation and taxes. They are allowed do deprecate a PC in as little as two years if they want. So, in two years you allowed to claim back the full value of the PC (pay less tax). You can keep that PC if you want or dump it and get a new one and again claim back on your taxes. Is that the question?
not going to lie this was one of the most in depth repair and programming I've seen in years. absolutely wonderful video. keep up the good work brother.
@@cathrynm it’s nuts. It takes courage I certainly don’t have! But I suppose, if it’s already broken, nothing to lose if you have a level of patience I also don’t have lollll
Maybe he could put Mac-OS onto M1, 2, ...& A11, 12, ... iPad PROs ? Truly gods work if this would happen, .. & build hacking community about such a process!!
I know your content is mainly hands on work on systems, but I would love to see a deep dive into this machine. As it was under so many NDAs and whatnot when it came out, there wasn’t much info. It’d be fascinating to see benchmarks, any quirks in the OS, that kind of thing.
I remember a guy at work had blown a fortune on a dual pentium server board to get a bit of a gaming advantage while everyone else had the fastest CPUs but only one of them. He had his PC setup for ATX and when he first installed the MB there was a standoff sitting right where a heat spreader is mounted on the server board and this high spot caused the board to crack when he screwed it down. After this was discovered I helped him move the standoffs to the right spots for his server board and we got it running, but someone walking past his computer was enough vibrations to cause random errors. It was so painful watching him suffer with it.
I wonder how this worked out at all, as basically no game back in those days supported dual CPUs, some even couldn't run at all (famous domestic streamer around 2012 had a dual CPU based system, he semi regularly ran into issues like that. Great for stuff like encoding, but games couldn't use it)
that chime sent goosebumps down my spine. It often is surprising how much „abuse“ such devices can take. good it is not in CN anymore either because what I understand under recycling is exactly what you‘re up to. well done 👏🏼
I like how you repair things that look completely broken even to people who work with electronics. Amazing work! The DTKs are really interesting as it was the first time seeing macOS running on an “iPad”.
Omg I used one of these with the original macOS 11 beta build--it was terrible if not unusable: slow, freeze prone.. At least those issues were fixed, and the final product worked well!
@@mugwump-bk7os At work, we nicknamed Big Sur as "Bug Sir". Ironically, Apple accidentally put it as Bug Sir on a KB article until I used my connections to alert them...LOL. Big Sur on ARM was extremely buggy for the first few months.
@@mugwump-bk7os At work, I never wanted the fastest PC to develop on. All my stuff was for internal use. If it ran good on my box, it would run good on anyone else's. The last thing you want is the fastest PC in the company where everyone else is 2 or 3 steps behind. You WILL HEAR about it.
I don't get all the people suggesting that Apple would have a legal leg to stand on to give Colin grief about this. I *am* surprised they didn't blacklist the serials from activation after the program was over.
They will, next week now that this video was released, and someone somewhere will get in trouble for not sufficiently disabling them - big companies like to pin their problems on some unfortunate schmuck somewhere, rather than managers take responsibility
I'm surprised as well, xbox and sony did this with xbox 360 and ps3 dev kits back in the mid 2000's. If they logged online they were effectively bricked.
I love watching these videos. It amazes me to the extent Apple goes to make the devices unrepairable and unserviceable, but smart people have developed tools and the knowledge to make it work. Truly awesome.
I agree with you, but that's not what happened here. They wanted to destroy these machines specifically because they were never supposed to be given to anybody but developers on a temporary basis. The fact they were dumb enough to trust some random Chinese recycling company to not resell them is funny though.
Dosdude, first off I want to congratulate you on your dedication and hard work to get this project running. You’re also super-smart, though I’m sure you’ve heard that plenty of times before. Literally during the entire video, I was thinking, “How does this guy know this much?!” Now secondly, I want to challenge you. The DTK is a very cool Mac, one that I would love to see continue to live on. It can sort of do it on macOS Big Sur, but with even Sonoma about to be superseded come WWDC, I wanted to ask if you’d be up to the task of developing a patcher specifically for the DTK that would allow it to be updated as a normal Mac. If so, that would be absolutely amazing. Thank you for all you do!
Reminds me of the days before high level languages. I remember learning whole instruction sets in binary and BCD that were machine specific. That was when I learned about what a computer really is. It's a blank slate electronic circuit that you can turn into whatever you want..or at least simulate what you want. I had the same wow factor you just expressed when I learned how to reprogram NAND gates as you put it. I"m a terrible programmer anymore, I just debug what he AI spits out these days, or modify what's already present in the networks I work on.
It's immensely satisfying to see such things resurrected. I'm delighted that you were able to make it happen and to have one in spite of Apple's efforts to the contrary! 😊
It was for the sheer amount of power the silicon pulled on these DTK boards. Even with those batteries, it could still only last for essentially the duration these were available for. This was essentially an iPad chip working in a desktop form factor, and there had to be some way to persist the RTC upon power failures even if it really did guzzle through those coin cell batteries.
Thank you for asking this question.. I had to shake my head at DOSDUDE for not even mentioning what the hell they were. Shame on him... and he's supposed to really teach us about these boards -_-
I got the exact same tool to clear the underfill and desolder SOCs on Aliexpress, feels very sturdy. Didn't use it yet since the phone I got which was supposed to have a motherboard fault ended up working
Goes to show…..This is an interesting video..and also goes to show that an iPad would totally run MacOS “if apple wanted it to” - The Apple Dev kit was a ipad A12z chip on a mac mini form factor mobo.. so its CPU/GPU totally can
You know how many years of experience you need to think like this guy? A lot...when he said "de-solder the nand" I fainted ... lol dude great work. Your skills have impressed me. Thank you for this great video.
I didn't understand much of the whole procedure, but as long as it means giving Apple the middlefinger, I'm all for it. I hope it helps to understand better their proprietary crap in order to crack it open. Kudos for what you're doing, keep it up.
I didn't notice the 54min time and continued watching it in 1.8x speed. I was so focused in the content that until I've watched till 46min I haven't even notice time
The thing that amazes me the most was the software used to program the nand. Such a powerful tool. That combined with your knowledge of apple software and its intricacies really made for quite the video. Excellent work. More people should learn about these tools and how to use them to improve the repair ability of apple devices by third parties.
This is great!!! You might want to look at getting a grinding pen - far easier than trying to flat file or using the drill?!? Amazing work and end result!!!
This is mindblowing to me. How passionate you have to be about something like this.. I mean.. I know computers really well, and would consider myself a nerd.. But then there's people like this, who make me feel like.. Ehh.. Man.. You have my respects. You know your stuff.
I have owned, and unfortunately sold, a few Apple prototypes including a Prototype "Pismo" and a red G4 QS Logic board; the Apple hardware ecosystem is so damn cool to marvel at... so much fanatical culture and things to geek over, I am in awe of your DTK and I am guessing it will be one of your prize possessions. This is literally like finding an original hand painted copy of the Mona Lisa that was painted over and had a few holes in it, and then restoring it to 100% and hanging it on the wall in your bedroom. Recording the process for all mankind, yet enjoying it quietly for yourself; as always, I applaud both your skills and tenacity my friend.
at this point, I am convinced bro can fix anything I can, right now, put my phone in a blender set to max speed, grind my phone down to dust and my man can still somehow find a way to fix the phone
I believe you had put insane amount of work to overcome the hurdles before having it to work and getting the processes recorded on camera. Maybe you're the only one on this earth have it working now. Amazing work as always Collin! Couple of questions though: 1. Do you think 2x NANDs configuration will work knowing that you have the Data from the FDR server? 2. Do you think one day you'll able to bypass it to run OS later than Big Sur? Because we all know the M1s also might not get the latest MacOS update soon/in future
1. FDR server is only for syscfg data (not the same as NAND firmware). Though, I still have gotten dual-NAND working no issue on these, you can use NANDs from A12Z iPad Pro. You can also install blank M1 NANDs onto A12Z iPad Pro board, restore on there, then they also work on DTK (after programming correct serial number and such of course) 2. I absolutely intend to attempt to get later macOS versions running. If successful, I will be prepared for the future when they stop supporting M1. Hopefully that won't be any time soon haha.
@@dosdude1 As someone who recently purchased an A2330 DTK from ebay (it's never booted for me, but DFU works if I use the correct powering up sequence), any hope of getting these things running macOS again definitely catches my attention! Just knowing I've got a genuine DTK on the shelf... even if it doesn't boot… is a bit of a pinch-me experience, but the dream of having it fully-functional is just too exciting!! As far as I can tell it's a production DTK that was never returned to apple. All the factory engravings on the enclosure have proper numbers, Apple Configurator identifies it as a Developer Transition Kit, and the inside seems to be surprisingly un-altered (except for a lot of fan dust). When it's not in DFU mode the only sign of life I've seen is the front light blinking two short blinks (white then orange), pausing, then those two blinks again, over and over until power is turned off.
dos dude is so cool dude. I've been watching him for years. Back In the day I had. white 2009 MacBook. I popped a ssd in 8 gigs of ram in that thing and used his patcher. that thing was an awesome daily driver for years and years, sorry for grammer really tired lol
What is the reasoning behind filing the power rail in two and it still being functional despite the gap not being bridged? Does it loop around somewhere else? I wouldn't think PCBs usually have contingencies for physical damage.
@@bemorewantless so would a lot of Mac users including myself if it was possible I wouldn’t hesitate in trading my two MacBook Air laptops for an iPad Pro 13 inch fully loaded
1/7/25 I enjoyed watching you fix a mac mini, it is amazing to see all the knowledge you must gain to understand the tech, the software, the hardware, and the parts to trouble shoot, repair, and test to a working knowledge. Was wondering what type of education and time to need to do understand and know what is needed to do what you do. I love the white wired clickity keyboard with 2 USB port and the Apple mouse, I am still using them to this day as my preferred keyboard and mouse, along with a non-Apple USB Wi-Fi with a scroll wheel. I have had Apple newer keyboards that have failed keys and just died on me where the Apple white wired keyboard has never failed me.
The three button cells are for the CMOS/PRAM memory because apple didn’t spend the time to optimize the power draw. Thus the three cells to keep it alive long enough for the time devs were using them
I dunno why I watched the whole video but I did. Respect for your retention of the know how to go about this type of eh stuff😊. I used to break apart components from tech stuff for gold and scrap. Thinking of making a short spoof video of what my attempt at a go for this would look like. Godspeed young man!
Definitely a cool Mac, a lot of work but it’s awesome to see one in action! Reminds me of the Intel transition “PowerMac” with a Pentium 4 inside. Great video!
Flash NAND. I just added to our 2011 mid 27" imac a Sata SSD and reinstalled with the latest unofficial(OCLP) Sonoma. The system boot in 10 second to the login screen.
Made my ear lobes tingle with delight and joy! Bravo on an ineluctably magnificent piece of computer restoration and thank you for sharing! A think of beauty is a joy forever.
i bought one on ebay to reference for repairing damage to a different one (components torn off up by the ports and a hole drilled in it) and it has the same serial number and identical damage neat
@@dosdude1 Why are you reselling them, though? I saw another comment talking about someone getting this board and using it for a legitimate purpose and I'm thinking how can that happened? Surely this guy isn't selling these. Low and behold, you are. Also wear a mask. You're inhaling fiberglass.
You have the hands of a surgeon my friend and I have worked with a lot of surgeons. I started doing a little SMD work following you guys but nothing on this level. I am curious why Apple would destroy them. They are only worth scrap... or to collectors who would pay more than scrap price as is no warranty same as the scrap dealers. I am sure there is some business/legal reason but makes no sense to me.
Bro, you never cease to amaze me. I wish I had the kind of skill that you had when it comes to this stuff because you have defied apples laws in so many different ways. It just goes to show that people like you are the people who actually own the future in tech, not these large corporations
I feel like this would be one of those awesome items you write in your will to donate to a computer history museum While not really practical compared to an M1 Mac, I feel like this hardware is more interesting than the intel transition dev kit
Try to use the Dremel wire extension you fix it the Dremel chuck. It is around one meter long and has a small handle that allows you can cut straight and use other grinder bits with. Having a small rotory grinding pen is practical for cleaning and exposing traces.
I don't quite get why you needed to use a hand file in the drill at around 10:40 They make precision metal filing bits for a Dremel, and it seems like you'd have a much easier time keeping it steady that way as well...
I know this is older, on the Dremel step third-party vendors make fiberglass reinforced discs that are larger in diameter which will make cutting into the side of the board easier. Also you may want to put some acrylic nail polish or some conformal coating on where you did the grinding to protect the exposed surfaces.
I'm not deep into current apple lore. Do they have any hardware they ship w/ MacOS that supports a touch screen interface out of the box? Maybe MacOS w/ touch isn't exactly ready for prime time yet? But yeah, it also wouldn't make very much sense from a SKU marketing perspective, both from the sales cannibalism vantage point, and from the consumer confusion vantage point. The latest M4 iPad pro is at the very border of sanity in that regard.
You couldve done this without removing and adding the NAND chip twice but you did it just to show us the problem of non matching serial numbers and its solution. Thats dedication.
What even runs through the deleted area? I thought I was going to see some little jumper cables or something to bridge the gap, so I'm confused why it just works with nothing there.
The reason is the area damaged wasn't very critical, at least not such a small slice of it. Think of the power connections as multiple sheets of aluminum foil alternated with fiberglass covered in glue. There is enough power layer left elsewhere to handle delivering power, and cutting a small piece out of it won't have much of an effect. They ended up cutting it in the one kind of place that's easily repairable. Data line connections, however, use lots of tiny lines and ribbons of foil and repairing those is not feasible usually. If it was drilled, say next to or through the SoC or NAND slot.... good luck fixing that.
Using an iPad chip in a Macintosh and having it run full macOS in its unrestricted glory means that iPadOS needs not be so locked down at all, and that the SoC supports free form window management….
@@JonGretarB I use an iPad Pro and would love a much better window manager… I’m so sick of dismissive comments like yours i.e., “because I don’t do something means everyone thinks just like me!” Apple put the name “Pro” in iPad, they also gave it the Mac chip when they didn’t have to… they gave us proper mouse support, which once upon a time did not exist, in the m4 generation they moved the camera to the top of the screen like on a MacBook, they also gave us an excellent keyboard with function keys like a MacBook… it’s clear from the hardware perspective, iPad Pro pro is much more Mac like than ever before. Apple also gave us thunderbolt (with pcie tunneling), and the ability to connect to a monitor (with DisplayPort tunneling). These are Mac like hardware features. But the software is too limiting. Apple should bring macOS lite (with the traffic lights 🚥) and free form window management, possibly the ability to run Mac apps, the ability to use more than one audio source simultaneously. The files app should have the ability to unmount media and format media with no partitions (give us APFS, HFS, exFAT … just like on Mac). The hardware is already more than capable… the software needs its training wheels taken off and let power users tap in to the hardware. And just like stage manager, if you want to turn off the free form window manager and go back to ‘regular iPad OS’ then give us that option as well. I think Apple needs to stop presuming that only it knows best what the user shall be able to do with the hardware, and instead empower users to be able to use the hardware in a more open manner, similar to how it is on the Macintosh. The Macintosh is a great paradigm for what an Apple operating system can be.
Wow so much work for a mini and yet didn't clean up the flux nor added solder mask to the filed area on the pcb nor mention why and what you will do with it?
Basically the circuitry that is responsible for the real time clock? Or nvram? Not really sure is not optimized at all and uses "a lot" of power when the system is off. So the quick fix was to tack on multiple batteries because it's a prototype after all and was designed to be returned after a few months. I read somewhere that even with the three batteries installed it drains them in a few months lol.
The SoC was designed for use in an iPad, which has a gigantic battery at its disposal to run the SMC/RTC coprocessor off of when the device is off. In that instance, the amount of power it draws is not an issue. The DTK doesn't have that, of course, so instead they added multiple coin cell batteries... Which even then, still die after 6 months.
@@dosdude1Ah that makes a lot of sense. it was such a joy seeing you bring this back to life. Seeing that restoring software bar move along after all the trouble you went through... I am so glad this unique piece of hardware made it into the right hands. Thank you for persisting and saving it. And thanks for the reply too. That's hilarious that even with the added capacity of 3 batteries that it still only lasts 6 months 😆
Idk if you know this but they also sell the angle kit for dremel and also flexible extender cord to make it easier to access somewhere the tools can’t initially
The sheer number of "this component only works if configured with the serial number of that other thing" instances inside Apple devices never ceases to amaze and disappoint me
I'm suffering this same issue with my lincoln town car lol
Yeahhhh, sadly cars are like that now too! Many vin locked components, some locked to other modules aka the ECU to the cluster module, ECU locked to the ABS etc
Haha "it will destroy the power supply if you plug in like that dont ask me how i know it " was personal 🤣
but it didnt.....
@@mikepxg6406 he meant with the short in place. he used a bench supply which was probably current limited.
Yeah that's how that saying works
Do you like when people explain a joke to you?
@@mikepxg6406that phrase made me giggle a bit, I killed 2 power supplies by testing shorted stuff without knowing it, that little phrase hit home so much I personally felt it
Damn, you're dedicated. 👏
@ComputerClan Hey Krazy Ken, didn't expect to see you here 😂... Collab with dosdude? Haha.
fr
shut up illrelevant channel computerclan
What’s the next video about?
He definitely caught the Krazy
Apple: saws an iPhone in half
DosDude: “well there’s actually a really easy fix to this…”
I saw David Copperfield did the same :/
"Let me just cut out this cut"
@@clemensruis💀
DosDude: "Hold my beer"
@clemensruis
"Haha, I have outsmarted your outsmarting."
"But the freaking hole is even freakier now!"
"I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
"oh god"
Cool. My company was able to get a few of these DTK's and I had a bit to do with setting it up for the rest of our staff to use it. I had to lock it up in a room that only a few people (including me) could unlock and the rest of staff used it over remote access. When the time was up, Apple's lawyers were pretty adamant they wanted it back pronto, so I had to box it up and send it back via their special courier. Thanks for showing me what the inside looked like!
Why is that? Can you do anything with these?
@@Rollmops94 The OP would have been using the DTK for it's intended purpose not for a laugh and a giggle. The video explains what the usecase of these DTK's was.
@@adem1781 Thanks for nothing.
@@Rollmops94 the reason these were locked up is because they are the first ARM boards that could run MACOS, and apple is a jealous cunt and thinks they invented every technology that they copy from others
I had one also but as an independent developer and the process was much less threatening sounding. I originally wasn't even going to bother because it sounded like they had very few and were going to be pretty restrictive with who could get them, but a few weeks after they had started sending the kits out they sent a reminder email to developers that they were available and at that point I decided since they clearly weren't all gone I might as well try. I've never even published anything directly to the Mac App Store, I just gave them links to multiple apps I developed and they approved the application and sent the DTK.
There was no special courier and the return was just a normal prepaid FedEx shipping label.
It's pretty cool that someone was actually able to activate one of these several years later, I'm surprised they didn't disable that on the server side.
I once punctured my HDD pcb with a very small Phillips head screwdriver. HDD wouldn't respond whatsoever. I took out the pcb and after some careful observation, noticed there weren't any traces at or near the puncture, so I took a flathead and slowly ground away. Once there was a sufficiently large enough hole that I could clearly see through, I cleaned it off to make sure there wasn't any copper dust and finally taped on both sides to prevent anything going in and causing a short. Plugged it into my PC and it started working again. It's still in my PC right now, haven't had any issues whatsoever.
I hope for your own sake you have backups 😅
@@spicybaguette7706 screwdriver is his backup
I'd replace that hdd immediately
That's one way to get rid of a virus! 😅
So there were no traces near the hole, but it wouldn't respond, and after you made the hole bigger, it worked perfectly? That makes absolutely no sense.
Many companies “destroy” prototype equipment when it is no longer needed due to IRC 174 (tax code). Basically the prototype is rendered reasonably worthless to insure it is no longer used by the company or anyone else, otherwise they do not get to deduct the cost of the prototype. The IRS became very concerned in the 1990s that companies were writing off the prototypes but still using them in business (if it’s still being used you can’t write it off). The developers basically leased it, and at the end of the lease they would send it back and get a credit for what is essentially a production level replacement (a bare bones Mac mini for developers was about the same price). They got the credit no doubt because maybe they might rather have something better than a base model Mac mini, like maybe more RAM, or more storage, or maybe a laptop instead. Cutting the PCB is just due diligence, certainly it “could” be fixed, but probably the amount of work would not be worth it. Though a determined you tuber with a soldering iron might fix it not for its intrinsic value, but for the views as well.
Company: makes functional prototype
IRS: destroy that for tax money
Company: how much?
It's stuff like this which makes our society so wasteful and perversely incentivized
@@maverick9708 Tax office and legislature want taxes be paid, not avoided
Yeah, the point is that they genuinely won't derive any more value from them, but the IRS doesn't know that if they export them. Breaking them first is easier/cheaper than maintaining records of what happened to them
I also kinda object to another common feeling people express. These aren’t “perfectly good machines”. They are a low volume orphan with limited potential. The processor wasn’t an M1, it didn’t support all the important MSRs that the M1 had (some for instance might make Rosetta work better). It didn’t have the same number of cores in the same configurations, the peripheral interfaces were not the same as the M1. Apple wouldn’t want to support this configuration in a shipping OS. “But Linux” you say… sure, but what district would want to carry around support for such a limited machine? It isn’t a waste, it is just how development works, there are steps and often times the intermediate steps are simply limited usefulness. Historically significant, sure, and I am confident that apple saved a few examples for its archives. I am equally sure that somewhere out there some developers didn’t turn one back in (probably more than one maybe). Either that developer just forgot, or intended to give it to a museum so others can enjoy it, or simply keep it secret for long enough to sell it to a collector for a profit later. (Which sounds a little shady I guess)
@@jonqu7041 This is a fair point "Apple wouldn’t want to support this configuration in a shipping OS", but I still think it's very wasteful that they deliberately destroy them! If people want to use them, they should be able to do, apple can just be very explicit that they are unsupported.
The fact that this is considered normal is a pretty bad sign of how our society works.
This is absolutely astonishing. Your fix for the cut to the PCB is nothing short of miraculous; never would I have thought a multi layer PCB like that could ever be operable again after damage like that. Amazing repair of a piece of Apple history.
Depends entirely on where the damage is on the board.
If it's through power rails, but doesn't affect any rails which are vital for basic functionality like in this case, you can just clear the damaged area and it'll work
If the board's snapped in half and is multi-layer you're SOL since the traces under the surface layers can't be accessed to be rejoined without destroying the other traces above them. Same if the damage is more centralized, the board was drilled or the damage has occurred in an area where a lot of critical power and data traces reside.
It is possible to repair PCBs, including traces deep within a multilayer board. It just becomes more and more expensive to do, so it’s rarely worth the effort.
Take a look at Pace’s “Adventures in Rework” video series. They demonstrate excavating traces, fixing them, and then repairing all the layers above them to restore the whole PCB.
There's a guy who does it regularly to fix $2000+ GPU's. He has a channel here on youtube. The shit he does is levels crazier than even this
hes just lucky there were no vital connection in that area - this could have required some potentially complex external wiring to bridge any gaps.
This reminds me of a big box of windows 98se cds I recovered from a business that shut down and they tossed them in a dumpster. They had never been installed, or even opened, but they were supposed to be destroyed and written off. The way they choose to destroy them was to drill a hole through the installation cd. Unfortunately they only drilled through the box and went right through the center of the disc and through the hole that was already there. Not a single one was damaged and I managed to save and sell 120 discs for $40 each. That was a good day.
Wow that was stupid of them
@@YimYum911 probably the easiest way to drill into those packages - and since the checkmark "drilled" was reached, the intern doing it didn't care for doing more damage
Sounds like you beat them from their planned dumpster dive.
I don't understand why businesses do things like that. I found my own main PC in perfect condition in a dumpster similarly to this.
@@JoBot__ They do it because of depreciation and taxes. They are allowed do deprecate a PC in as little as two years if they want. So, in two years you allowed to claim back the full value of the PC (pay less tax). You can keep that PC if you want or dump it and get a new one and again claim back on your taxes. Is that the question?
not going to lie this was one of the most in depth repair and programming I've seen in years. absolutely wonderful video. keep up the good work brother.
You truly have a gift, Collin.
I'm just in awe, that this guy would even try to repair that cut.
@@cathrynm it’s nuts. It takes courage I certainly don’t have! But I suppose, if it’s already broken, nothing to lose if you have a level of patience I also don’t have lollll
Maybe he could put Mac-OS onto M1, 2, ...& A11, 12, ... iPad PROs ? Truly gods work if this would happen, .. & build hacking community about such a process!!
@@johndfella1That would be a sight to behold. It would also make the iPads worth their crazy high prices!
Yeah, the soldering work alone, on those tiny components. Like he could do it blind. That would have taken me a week of trial and error 😅
Insane amount of research to get this to work. There were so many points where I thought "how could he possibly know that".
This right here
plot twist: bro's hacking irl 💀
the hive mind knows...
I know your content is mainly hands on work on systems, but I would love to see a deep dive into this machine. As it was under so many NDAs and whatnot when it came out, there wasn’t much info. It’d be fascinating to see benchmarks, any quirks in the OS, that kind of thing.
I remember a guy at work had blown a fortune on a dual pentium server board to get a bit of a gaming advantage while everyone else had the fastest CPUs but only one of them.
He had his PC setup for ATX and when he first installed the MB there was a standoff sitting right where a heat spreader is mounted on the server board and this high spot caused the board to crack when he screwed it down. After this was discovered I helped him move the standoffs to the right spots for his server board and we got it running, but someone walking past his computer was enough vibrations to cause random errors. It was so painful watching him suffer with it.
I wonder how this worked out at all, as basically no game back in those days supported dual CPUs, some even couldn't run at all (famous domestic streamer around 2012 had a dual CPU based system, he semi regularly ran into issues like that. Great for stuff like encoding, but games couldn't use it)
@@AccAkut1987 Depends what he's doing with it. Windows NT did actually support multiple CPU's way back when
This is the antithesis of everything Apple stands for and it brings me such joy to see you do this!
Why?
Don't know what you think Apple stands for?
that chime sent goosebumps down my spine.
It often is surprising how much „abuse“ such devices can take. good it is not in CN anymore either because what I understand under recycling is exactly what you‘re up to.
well done 👏🏼
Dude, mask off the drilled hole with UV-resin. It will isolate the layers and improve board integrity
Already did that actually.
That was kinda what I was thinking. This answers my question heh
Ok bro
@@brkbtjunkie bro ok?
Are the damaged lines not relevant for the functioning of the board? If I understand correctly they were not fixed.
I like how you repair things that look completely broken even to people who work with electronics. Amazing work! The DTKs are really interesting as it was the first time seeing macOS running on an “iPad”.
Omg I used one of these with the original macOS 11 beta build--it was terrible if not unusable: slow, freeze prone.. At least those issues were fixed, and the final product worked well!
@@mugwump-bk7os At work, we nicknamed Big Sur as "Bug Sir". Ironically, Apple accidentally put it as Bug Sir on a KB article until I used my connections to alert them...LOL. Big Sur on ARM was extremely buggy for the first few months.
@@mugwump-bk7os At work, I never wanted the fastest PC to develop on. All my stuff was for internal use. If it ran good on my box, it would run good on anyone else's. The last thing you want is the fastest PC in the company where everyone else is 2 or 3 steps behind. You WILL HEAR about it.
I don't get all the people suggesting that Apple would have a legal leg to stand on to give Colin grief about this.
I *am* surprised they didn't blacklist the serials from activation after the program was over.
_They might, now._
They will, next week now that this video was released, and someone somewhere will get in trouble for not sufficiently disabling them - big companies like to pin their problems on some unfortunate schmuck somewhere, rather than managers take responsibility
I'm surprised as well, xbox and sony did this with xbox 360 and ps3 dev kits back in the mid 2000's. If they logged online they were effectively bricked.
@@jforce321same with the Xbox one x dev kits I believe
@@lordgamer0912 yeah they've all done it since then just mentioning how far back they started
I love watching these videos. It amazes me to the extent Apple goes to make the devices unrepairable and unserviceable, but smart people have developed tools and the knowledge to make it work.
Truly awesome.
This one is a two part screwing,
The IRS for saying you can write its expenses off if you destroy it and apple for complying
they have to destroy them by law.
In the name of sustainability this shit needs to stop.
@@maverick9708 Imagine if I could write off my car as expense if I said it was a prototype and just destroyed it.
I agree with you, but that's not what happened here. They wanted to destroy these machines specifically because they were never supposed to be given to anybody but developers on a temporary basis. The fact they were dumb enough to trust some random Chinese recycling company to not resell them is funny though.
It’s a shame they tried to destroy them all, but now you get to have a super rare piece of kit. Very awesome work!
Think of e-waste.
You, sir, are continually redefining my perception of what's possible. Bravo!
Hats off to all the tool makers who build out the hardware and software to enable craftspeople like this to make a functional tool good. 👊👏🙏
bro I know Tim Cook has a bounty on you
Tim can get Cooked. A financial wanker banker and not a real innovator.
Boeing's guy just got another job this week
Dosdude, first off I want to congratulate you on your dedication and hard work to get this project running. You’re also super-smart, though I’m sure you’ve heard that plenty of times before. Literally during the entire video, I was thinking, “How does this guy know this much?!”
Now secondly, I want to challenge you. The DTK is a very cool Mac, one that I would love to see continue to live on. It can sort of do it on macOS Big Sur, but with even Sonoma about to be superseded come WWDC, I wanted to ask if you’d be up to the task of developing a patcher specifically for the DTK that would allow it to be updated as a normal Mac. If so, that would be absolutely amazing.
Thank you for all you do!
Not even the weirdest DTK apple made, The one they made for the move to intel was a Pentium 4 in a power mac G5 chassis.
thats not weird, just lazy.
@@domi8585 more like logical, as Pentium 4s were known for their heat, as were the latest PowerPC variants.
It was an Intel reference design.
@@domi8585 Not lazy more like cheap, it wasn't a commercial product for the masses so why invest in a ton of R&D for it.
This video is so crazy. It's just amazing how far you can go with the hardware, such as reprogramming the NAND gates. Wow!
Reminds me of the days before high level languages. I remember learning whole instruction sets in binary and BCD that were machine specific. That was when I learned about what a computer really is.
It's a blank slate electronic circuit that you can turn into whatever you want..or at least simulate what you want. I had the same wow factor you just expressed when I learned how to reprogram NAND gates as you put it. I"m a terrible programmer anymore, I just debug what he AI spits out these days, or modify what's already present in the networks I work on.
It's immensely satisfying to see such things resurrected. I'm delighted that you were able to make it happen and to have one in spite of Apple's efforts to the contrary! 😊
Reviving stuff like this makes me so happy, and your skills amaze me!
Amazing work! Thank you so much for taking the time to film your process and documenting it so thoroughly.
Collin as a user of the OpenCore Legacy Patcher I appreciate your dedication!!
What are the 3 coin cell holders for? One wouldn't be out of place but 3 just seems odd?
It was for the sheer amount of power the silicon pulled on these DTK boards. Even with those batteries, it could still only last for essentially the duration these were available for.
This was essentially an iPad chip working in a desktop form factor, and there had to be some way to persist the RTC upon power failures even if it really did guzzle through those coin cell batteries.
@@FairPlay137 ah so the coin cells are basically replacing what would have been the original iPad battery that would have been used for keeping time.
@@FairPlay137 Oh okay that makes sense thank you!
Thank you for asking this question.. I had to shake my head at DOSDUDE for not even mentioning what the hell they were.
Shame on him... and he's supposed to really teach us about these boards -_-
Wow @@FairPlay137
It's genuinely incredible to watch you work on these projects, amazing that you were able to get that thing working!
I got the exact same tool to clear the underfill and desolder SOCs on Aliexpress, feels very sturdy. Didn't use it yet since the phone I got which was supposed to have a motherboard fault ended up working
Goes to show…..This is an interesting video..and also goes to show that an iPad would totally run MacOS “if apple wanted it to” - The Apple Dev kit was a ipad A12z chip on a mac mini form factor mobo.. so its CPU/GPU totally can
You know how many years of experience you need to think like this guy? A lot...when he said "de-solder the nand" I fainted ... lol dude great work. Your skills have impressed me. Thank you for this great video.
Never have i seen someone execute a apple repair with such dedication
Would it be reasonably feasible to modify an iPad Pro to run full macOS? Or an iPhone for that matter?
The dedication you have is absolutely insane. Mad props to you for getting it working!
@@paincreatesfame I’m just sad I can’t find anymore to buy and repair... These were so fun to work on and get running again.
I didn't understand much of the whole procedure, but as long as it means giving Apple the middlefinger, I'm all for it. I hope it helps to understand better their proprietary crap in order to crack it open. Kudos for what you're doing, keep it up.
If it's crap, why do you care what Apple does?
pretty sure they can patch this after watching this video
Huge kudos to you. Love your methodical approach in walking through this and getting the DTK up and running. Really amazing work and patience!
I didn't notice the 54min time and continued watching it in 1.8x speed. I was so focused in the content that until I've watched till 46min I haven't even notice time
A really fascinating and informative watch. Your natural enthusiasm is life-affirming and infectious so thank you for the lift :)
2020? Wow! Collin you're holding a very significant Covid souvenir.
The thing that amazes me the most was the software used to program the nand. Such a powerful tool. That combined with your knowledge of apple software and its intricacies really made for quite the video. Excellent work. More people should learn about these tools and how to use them to improve the repair ability of apple devices by third parties.
This is great!!! You might want to look at getting a grinding pen - far easier than trying to flat file or using the drill?!? Amazing work and end result!!!
Northridge Fix has good grinding pens
Still my favorite repair so far! Great work
i happy to see this job ended with success because you worked so much on it
This is mindblowing to me. How passionate you have to be about something like this.. I mean.. I know computers really well, and would consider myself a nerd.. But then there's people like this, who make me feel like.. Ehh.. Man.. You have my respects. You know your stuff.
I have owned, and unfortunately sold, a few Apple prototypes including a Prototype "Pismo" and a red G4 QS Logic board; the Apple hardware ecosystem is so damn cool to marvel at... so much fanatical culture and things to geek over, I am in awe of your DTK and I am guessing it will be one of your prize possessions. This is literally like finding an original hand painted copy of the Mona Lisa that was painted over and had a few holes in it, and then restoring it to 100% and hanging it on the wall in your bedroom. Recording the process for all mankind, yet enjoying it quietly for yourself; as always, I applaud both your skills and tenacity my friend.
As a Pismo owner and fan, I'm very curious about what the Prototype was like.
Or it's like taking a shit in a bucket, sniffing it to reminisce the essence of a days past... This is cool, you huff shit bucko
You vincent
It's 3 years old, it's not Apollo mission SPACE equipment that actually did something, shitiot
Sweet disappearing messages, is that what happens when your parents play hide the salami with ru Paul and gang lol
at this point, I am convinced bro can fix anything
I can, right now, put my phone in a blender set to max speed, grind my phone down to dust and my man can still somehow find a way to fix the phone
I believe you had put insane amount of work to overcome the hurdles before having it to work and getting the processes recorded on camera.
Maybe you're the only one on this earth have it working now. Amazing work as always Collin!
Couple of questions though:
1. Do you think 2x NANDs configuration will work knowing that you have the Data from the FDR server?
2. Do you think one day you'll able to bypass it to run OS later than Big Sur? Because we all know the M1s also might not get the latest MacOS update soon/in future
1. FDR server is only for syscfg data (not the same as NAND firmware). Though, I still have gotten dual-NAND working no issue on these, you can use NANDs from A12Z iPad Pro. You can also install blank M1 NANDs onto A12Z iPad Pro board, restore on there, then they also work on DTK (after programming correct serial number and such of course)
2. I absolutely intend to attempt to get later macOS versions running. If successful, I will be prepared for the future when they stop supporting M1. Hopefully that won't be any time soon haha.
@@dosdude1 Can you also test this with Asahi Ubuntu?
@@dosdude1 As someone who recently purchased an A2330 DTK from ebay (it's never booted for me, but DFU works if I use the correct powering up sequence), any hope of getting these things running macOS again definitely catches my attention!
Just knowing I've got a genuine DTK on the shelf... even if it doesn't boot… is a bit of a pinch-me experience, but the dream of having it fully-functional is just too exciting!!
As far as I can tell it's a production DTK that was never returned to apple. All the factory engravings on the enclosure have proper numbers, Apple Configurator identifies it as a Developer Transition Kit, and the inside seems to be surprisingly un-altered (except for a lot of fan dust). When it's not in DFU mode the only sign of life I've seen is the front light blinking two short blinks (white then orange), pausing, then those two blinks again, over and over until power is turned off.
dos dude is so cool dude. I've been watching him for years. Back In the day I had. white 2009 MacBook. I popped a ssd in 8 gigs of ram in that thing and used his patcher. that thing was an awesome daily driver for years and years, sorry for grammer really tired lol
This is the craziest thing I have ever seen, dedicated doesn't even come close
What is the reasoning behind filing the power rail in two and it still being functional despite the gap not being bridged? Does it loop around somewhere else? I wouldn't think PCBs usually have contingencies for physical damage.
Awesome video. We need more obscure hardware in our lives :)
I don't know why I've watched this. BUT now I know about the DTK. Thanks a lot 😊
After watching this , i have to wonder if you could install Mac OS on a iPad using DFU mode & if you could would the touch screen still work
I would love this
Maybe on very early stage prototype devices with factory protection fusing, definitely not on a production device.
@@bemorewantless so would a lot of Mac users including myself if it was possible I wouldn’t hesitate in trading my two MacBook Air laptops for an iPad Pro 13 inch fully loaded
Always good to see a person with a hobby.
This guy sounds like he is between the ages of 26 to 78 years old
😂
1/7/25 I enjoyed watching you fix a mac mini, it is amazing to see all the knowledge you must gain to understand the tech, the software, the hardware, and the parts to trouble shoot, repair, and test to a working knowledge. Was wondering what type of education and time to need to do understand and know what is needed to do what you do. I love the white wired clickity keyboard with 2 USB port and the Apple mouse, I am still using them to this day as my preferred keyboard and mouse, along with a non-Apple USB Wi-Fi with a scroll wheel. I have had Apple newer keyboards that have failed keys and just died on me where the Apple white wired keyboard has never failed me.
What are those 3 button cell holders for?
The three button cells are for the CMOS/PRAM memory because apple didn’t spend the time to optimize the power draw. Thus the three cells to keep it alive long enough for the time devs were using them
You are my hero. Never had anyone. Thank you so much for all the work you‘ve done!
Dude you’re a genius. Extremely interesting video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
Just coming along for the ride on this series , this ending was super satisfying. So I can only imagine what you feel. Good work
You ONLY get this type of content at dosdude! So interesting, so skilled and so off the wall! ❤
**cough** Northwest Repair **cough**
I dunno why I watched the whole video but I did. Respect for your retention of the know how to go about this type of eh stuff😊. I used to break apart components from tech stuff for gold and scrap. Thinking of making a short spoof video of what my attempt at a go for this would look like. Godspeed young man!
Definitely a cool Mac, a lot of work but it’s awesome to see one in action! Reminds me of the Intel transition “PowerMac” with a Pentium 4 inside. Great video!
You are great man, not a Mac fanboy, but watched through the full length just for you.😊
52:28 Wow! how did that boot so quickly?
Flash NAND. I just added to our 2011 mid 27" imac a Sata SSD and reinstalled with the latest unofficial(OCLP) Sonoma. The system boot in 10 second to the login screen.
@@talos86 frekin wow!
Made my ear lobes tingle with delight and joy! Bravo on an ineluctably magnificent piece of computer restoration and thank you for sharing! A think of beauty is a joy forever.
i bought one on ebay to reference for repairing damage to a different one (components torn off up by the ports and a hole drilled in it) and it has the same serial number and identical damage
neat
You probably bought this one, which I sold on eBay after filming this video.
@@dosdude1Says in the video he's wanted one of these for ages, gets one working, then immediately sells it after the video is done? Wat
@@dgwdgw I was able to get multiple of these from China... Not many, but a small number of them.
@@dosdude1 Why are you reselling them, though? I saw another comment talking about someone getting this board and using it for a legitimate purpose and I'm thinking how can that happened? Surely this guy isn't selling these. Low and behold, you are.
Also wear a mask. You're inhaling fiberglass.
Recognized your name from when I put El Capitan on my Mac pro 1,1 many years ago. Happy to see you pop up on my recommended!
You have the hands of a surgeon my friend and I have worked with a lot of surgeons. I started doing a little SMD work following you guys but nothing on this level. I am curious why Apple would destroy them. They are only worth scrap... or to collectors who would pay more than scrap price as is no warranty same as the scrap dealers. I am sure there is some business/legal reason but makes no sense to me.
Tax.
Bro, you never cease to amaze me. I wish I had the kind of skill that you had when it comes to this stuff because you have defied apples laws in so many different ways. It just goes to show that people like you are the people who actually own the future in tech, not these large corporations
Your back watching now my Mac book pro is still running great with your very old vids running Catalina
Not sure what I'm watching, but I'm amazed!
I feel like this would be one of those awesome items you write in your will to donate to a computer history museum
While not really practical compared to an M1 Mac, I feel like this hardware is more interesting than the intel transition dev kit
How Dosdude only has 94k subscribers??? Hes a bonifide genius. I must be a massive nerd cause I could watchhim all day long. Thanks colin!!
Fantastic to see you resurrecting history Collin
Try to use the Dremel wire extension you fix it the Dremel chuck. It is around one meter long and has a small handle that allows you can cut straight and use other grinder bits with.
Having a small rotory grinding pen is practical for cleaning and exposing traces.
Of course this legend is using Windows 7
I don't quite get why you needed to use a hand file in the drill at around 10:40
They make precision metal filing bits for a Dremel, and it seems like you'd have a much easier time keeping it steady that way as well...
Using windows 7
Legend
As always impressive video!
I think it's cool that you have the patience to fix that.
Amazing dedication and skilled work. But pls pls pls wear a mask when machining the PCB, that dust is glass fibre. You dont want that in your lungs.
I know this is older, on the Dremel step third-party vendors make fiberglass reinforced discs that are larger in diameter which will make cutting into the side of the board easier. Also you may want to put some acrylic nail polish or some conformal coating on where you did the grinding to protect the exposed surfaces.
You have such amazing patience and character. Really enjoyable watch. Thank you.
Wow. I’m so impressed. I fix electronics but I would have seen that cut and called it dead. Kudos to you honestly.
How does MacOS run? Is it a fluid experience with no lag? If so basically proves Apple is gatekeeping iPads from MacOS so they don't cannibalize sales
It runs absolutely great. In fact I am likely going to daily drive one as my main machine it's so nice.
"Apple is gatekeeping iPads from MacOS so they don't cannibalize sales"
I mean the latest iPad has an M4 that is faster than the processors in most Macs, so the power was never the question.
I'm not deep into current apple lore. Do they have any hardware they ship w/ MacOS that supports a touch screen interface out of the box? Maybe MacOS w/ touch isn't exactly ready for prime time yet? But yeah, it also wouldn't make very much sense from a SKU marketing perspective, both from the sales cannibalism vantage point, and from the consumer confusion vantage point. The latest M4 iPad pro is at the very border of sanity in that regard.
Also, Macs can run whatever software you like, whereas iPads can only get software via the App Store - from which Apple get a cut.
You couldve done this without removing and adding the NAND chip twice but you did it just to show us the problem of non matching serial numbers and its solution. Thats dedication.
I'm surprised it's still working after seeing the damaged PCB 😅
What even runs through the deleted area? I thought I was going to see some little jumper cables or something to bridge the gap, so I'm confused why it just works with nothing there.
The reason is the area damaged wasn't very critical, at least not such a small slice of it. Think of the power connections as multiple sheets of aluminum foil alternated with fiberglass covered in glue. There is enough power layer left elsewhere to handle delivering power, and cutting a small piece out of it won't have much of an effect. They ended up cutting it in the one kind of place that's easily repairable. Data line connections, however, use lots of tiny lines and ribbons of foil and repairing those is not feasible usually. If it was drilled, say next to or through the SoC or NAND slot.... good luck fixing that.
Using an iPad chip in a Macintosh and having it run full macOS in its unrestricted glory means that iPadOS needs not be so locked down at all, and that the SoC supports free form window management….
I´m always so confused by comments like this. If you want a laptop get a laptop. Nobody who uses an iPad actually wants a window manager.
@@JonGretarB I use an iPad Pro and would love a much better window manager… I’m so sick of dismissive comments like yours i.e., “because I don’t do something means everyone thinks just like me!” Apple put the name “Pro” in iPad, they also gave it the Mac chip when they didn’t have to… they gave us proper mouse support, which once upon a time did not exist, in the m4 generation they moved the camera to the top of the screen like on a MacBook, they also gave us an excellent keyboard with function keys like a MacBook… it’s clear from the hardware perspective, iPad Pro pro is much more Mac like than ever before. Apple also gave us thunderbolt (with pcie tunneling), and the ability to connect to a monitor (with DisplayPort tunneling). These are Mac like hardware features.
But the software is too limiting. Apple should bring macOS lite (with the traffic lights 🚥) and free form window management, possibly the ability to run Mac apps, the ability to use more than one audio source simultaneously. The files app should have the ability to unmount media and format media with no partitions (give us APFS, HFS, exFAT … just like on Mac). The hardware is already more than capable… the software needs its training wheels taken off and let power users tap in to the hardware. And just like stage manager, if you want to turn off the free form window manager and go back to ‘regular iPad OS’ then give us that option as well. I think Apple needs to stop presuming that only it knows best what the user shall be able to do with the hardware, and instead empower users to be able to use the hardware in a more open manner, similar to how it is on the Macintosh. The Macintosh is a great paradigm for what an Apple operating system can be.
@@JonGretarBsays nobody
Wow so much work for a mini and yet didn't clean up the flux nor added solder mask to the filed area on the pcb nor mention why and what you will do with it?
So strange seeing it with 3 battery slots 😆 I wonder why
Basically the circuitry that is responsible for the real time clock? Or nvram? Not really sure is not optimized at all and uses "a lot" of power when the system is off. So the quick fix was to tack on multiple batteries because it's a prototype after all and was designed to be returned after a few months. I read somewhere that even with the three batteries installed it drains them in a few months lol.
The SoC was designed for use in an iPad, which has a gigantic battery at its disposal to run the SMC/RTC coprocessor off of when the device is off. In that instance, the amount of power it draws is not an issue. The DTK doesn't have that, of course, so instead they added multiple coin cell batteries... Which even then, still die after 6 months.
@@dosdude1Ah that makes a lot of sense. it was such a joy seeing you bring this back to life. Seeing that restoring software bar move along after all the trouble you went through... I am so glad this unique piece of hardware made it into the right hands. Thank you for persisting and saving it. And thanks for the reply too. That's hilarious that even with the added capacity of 3 batteries that it still only lasts 6 months 😆
Idk if you know this but they also sell the angle kit for dremel and also flexible extender cord to make it easier to access somewhere the tools can’t initially
Please use CTRL+C and CTRL+V on windows when copying and pasting, its much faster
I know nothing about tech but I had to subscribe because someone on Tiktok said you upgraded iPhone storage. Big ups to you.