001 · PROJECT
Apple Macintosh
A 1984 MACINTOSH 128K, BUILT ENTIRELY IN CODE. AND IT ACTUALLY WORKS
CLICK THE SCREEN. IT TURNS ON.
OVERVIEW
A Macintosh 128K sitting on a desk with its keyboard and mouse, except there is no 3D model file anywhere in the project. Every part of the machine is procedural Three.js sculpted from reference photographs: the moulded shell and its soft chamfers, the proud M0110 keycaps with their printed legends, the coiled keyboard cable, the rainbow Apple badge, the floppy slit. The camera is a simple two-state ride: scroll out to see the whole computer from the front, click the screen to glide back in.
The screen is the trick. The CRT is a live 512×342 canvas running a little System 1.0 Finder: real menus, draggable windows and icons, a Trash that actually collects files. It boots the way a Mac should: the tube sits dark until you click it, then a period-correct hello video plays, live-thresholded to 1-bit with a progress bar, before dropping you on the desktop.
The desk apps are real, not props. MacPaint draws, the 15-Puzzle is always solvable, the Calculator calculates, the Guestbook is typed on the 3D keyboard (the physical keycaps press as you type) and persists between visits. Music is a 1-bit Spotify player: track list, transport, seek bar and Atkinson-dithered album art on the CRT, with actual audio driven by a hidden Spotify embed.
HIGHLIGHTS
- 100% procedural hardware, no imported meshes; extruded rounded profiles, bevelled keycaps, tube-geometry coil cable, all placed from a JSON sculpt spec
- Live 1-bit Finder on the CRT: menu bar, windows, draggable desktop icons, double-click to launch, drag-to-Trash with Empty Trash
- Click-to-power-on boot: an original hello video thresholded frame-by-frame to the UI's ink-and-paper palette, with a progress bar
- Five working desk apps: MacPaint, 15-Puzzle, Calculator, persistent Guestbook, About
- A Spotify player drawn entirely in 1-bit: oEmbed metadata, Atkinson-dithered cover art, real playback through the hidden iFrame API
- Typing on your real keyboard presses the matching 3D keycaps; clicking the 3D mouse button clicks the Finder cursor
STACK
Three.js · TypeScript · Vite · Canvas 2D (1-bit UI) · Spotify iFrame API · Figma · Claude Code · Vercel
CREDITS
Modelled on Apple's original Macintosh 128K (1984) and the System 1.0 Finder, rebuilt from reference renders as a non-commercial tribute. Apple and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Inc.; this is a personal study with no affiliation.