If you miss the days when laptops had really cool form factors like the Toshiba T1000, you’re going to love this Raspberry Pi project put together by maker and developer Nilseuropa. Using our favorite SBC, he’s brought an old Toshiba T1000 machine back to life by using a Raspberry Pi as the main board and has upgraded the system to include support for modern peripherals.
Don’t worry—no working T1000s were harmed to create this project. According to Nilseuropa, he’s spent time repairing at least 5 of them so far and this project was created using leftover pieces. Restoring old hardware doesn’t come without sacrifice and it’s not always possible to keep everything. Some hardware becomes donors of “parts boards”. That’s where the Raspberry Pi comes in, supplementing the gaps left behind by previous repairs.
One of the coolest aspects of a project like this is all of the new additions you can add to a retro piece of tech. You still get the thrill of retro computing but with the added bonus of modern support. For example, the original floppy drive space has been upgraded with a port bay that includes a USB port, SD card slots and a couple of compact flash ports. Nilseuropa also added a 3.5mm jack for connecting external audio peripherals.
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The main board he chose for this project is a Raspberry Pi 4. It’s connected to an 8.8-inch Waveshare widescreen that features a capacitive touchscreen interface. The Pi is connected to a few port extenders so the peripherals can attach to the outside of the case, along with the keyboard which features some snazzy, colorful keycaps. The unit is also made portable thanks to an included 10,000 mAh battery.
Software-wise, you’re limited really by just your imagination. A good starting point would be to run Raspberry Pi OS so you could take advantage of standard computing functions. That said, you could also game on a rig like this pretty easily because of the Pi 4 which adds Bluetooth support—ideal for connecting wireless controllers.
If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project in action, check out the original project thread shared to Reddit by Nilseuropa and be sure to follow him for more cool projects as well as any future updates to this one.