MacCharlie - Apple M0110 with a PC extention

snuci · 09 Jun 2016, 02:28

I saw a Dayna MacCharlie recently on eBay and that reminded me about something you might like to see.

The Dayna MacCharlie is very rare add-on to the Macintosh 128k that allows the Mac to run MS-DOS. From the pictures below, you can see the main unit with the dual disk drives. This has an 8088 based motherboard in it and connects to the Macintosh via a serial cable. The Mac runs what is essentially terminal software that starts a session to the MacCharlie unit and runs DOS in a window. It's an early version of a physical virtual machine (if that makes sense).

The normal Apple M0110 keyboard doesn't have enough keys to work as a proper PC so Dayna added a keyboard enclosure that adds the extra keys. The M0110 plugs into this Dayna keyboard extension and the extension then plugs into the Mac. The construction of this enclosure is almost identical to the M0110 including the same Alps SKCC key switches. Anyway, here are some pics.

: MacCharlie - keyboard extention slightly removed; MacCharlie - keyboard extention slightly removed.JPG (233.15 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

: MacCharlie - keyboard complete; MacCharlie - keyboard complete.JPG (208.01 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

: MacCharlie - keyboard extention over Apple M0110 keyboard bottom; MacCharlie - keyboard extention over Apple M0110 keyboard bottom.JPG (229.26 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

: MacCharlie - keyboard extention key switches; MacCharlie - keyboard extention key switches.JPG (337.48 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

: MacCharlie - key caps almost the same as Apple; MacCharlie - key caps almost the same as Apple.JPG (243.02 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

: MacCharlie - complete unit; MacCharlie - complete unit.JPG (203.22 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

: MacCharlie - keyboard extention over Apple M0110 keyboard top; MacCharlie - keyboard extention over Apple M0110 keyboard top.JPG (236.57 KiB) Viewed 7459 times

Redmaus · 09 Jun 2016, 02:29

Mind = Blown

Muirium · 09 Jun 2016, 02:34

I've read about this one before, but only seen it in print ads. What a weird product! First time I've seen the keyboard photographed properly. Well done and thanks for that.

Does yours work? If so, care for a picture of the Mac running something in a DOS window? Some pictures of the MacCharlie keyboard by itself would be interesting, too. Shows just how weird it is.

snuci · 09 Jun 2016, 02:39

Muirium wrote: Does yours work? If so, care for a picture of the Mac running something in a DOS window?

Thanks. Yes, it works. I will have to remember how to hook it up but I'll try to take some more pics tomorrow once I have better light.

livingspeedbump · 09 Jun 2016, 03:20

Whoa. what a find.

I've never actually seen one of these things before.

LewisR · 09 Jun 2016, 05:09

Wow, cool! I too would love to see it in action!

seebart · 09 Jun 2016, 09:20

Talk about a functional idea! It's a TKL "adapter" done what 25 years ago? Brilliant. Looks good too.

Muirium wrote: Some pictures of the MacCharlie keyboard by itself would be interesting, too. Shows just how weird it is.

Yes please!

snuci wrote: Better get this in before Seebart does

deskthority-f17/post-your-deskthority-h ... ml#p313288

Chyros · 09 Jun 2016, 12:16

Wow, that's fantastic! Finally it becomes a normal keyboard!

derzemel · 09 Jun 2016, 12:20

so... a keyboard docked in a keyboard... I want a modern version

(60-65% for the go and the rest for the work

)

gcardinal · 09 Jun 2016, 13:45

Im here just to post 'wow'!... ok all, done!
ps: amazing find

ramnes · 09 Jun 2016, 14:58

Ahah, awesome!

Touch_It · 09 Jun 2016, 16:32

Giving the middle finger to 60% boards. LOVE IT!

Muirium · 09 Jun 2016, 17:00

More like the paper…

snuci · 09 Jun 2016, 23:41

Here's a couple of quick pics of the MacCharlie running. The first pic is the MacCharlie Macintosh boot disk. It has a MacCharlie application that you launch that communicates with the MacCharlie.

: MacCharlie - Mac boot disk; MacCharlie - Mac boot disk.JPG (199.29 KiB) Viewed 7253 times

Once the MacCharlie Mac application runs, it boots up the MacCharlie unit and you see the familiar Phoenix BIOS and memory count to 640k. After it does this twice, if loads MS-DOS 3.1 in this case and you are off to the races.

: MacCharlie - DOS prompt; MacCharlie - DOS prompt.JPG (248.02 KiB) Viewed 7253 times

Voila! A PC on your Macintosh! The menus in the MacCharlie application allow you to transfer Mac files to the PC and PC files to the Mac which was unheard of at the time. It is a pretty cool unit.

The name "MacCharlie" comes from a play on words. Charlie Chaplin was the spokesperson for the IBM PC so Dayna called it the "MacCharlie" whose logo showed the transformation of the Macintosh logo into a Charlie Chaplin hat like this:

: "About MacCharlie" dialog box; about_charlie.gif (4.16 KiB) Viewed 7253 times

More info on the MacCharlie (and where this last image came from) here: http://www.vintagemacworld.com/charlie.html

HzFaq · 09 Jun 2016, 23:46

Great find dude.

katushkin · 13 Jun 2016, 04:48

Incredible looking thing. Fantastic to see it's still working.

LewisR · 13 Jun 2016, 23:37

That's definitely the most interesting classic Mac setup I've seen.

ideus · 14 Jun 2016, 14:57

This is very cool, thank you for sharing.

snuci · 14 Jun 2016, 16:34

Thanks guys. This was going to be my Deskthority awards "Most awesome find" entry. I guess I was a little early

seebart · 14 Jun 2016, 17:03

snuci wrote: Thanks guys. This was going to be my Deskthority awards "Most awesome find" entry. I guess I was a little early

It's a very strong candidate for DTA6 I can tell you that.