The Worlds Smallest Mac G4 Battery Portable!!**

Why the Mac Mini Portable?

Well, in short I wanted a machine that was really dinky to just pop in my rucksack, and while the PowerBooks/iBooks are pretty small, they still take up a fair amount of space. I wanted something with a very small screen that was more or less hand-held, and mac just don't do that [yet].

I didn't need a completely fluid response of the controllers or a crystal clear screen as the MMP [MacMini Portable] would only be used in it's portable sense to quickly integrate into someone else's system, the rest of the time it'd have it's own dedicated screen, mouse & full sized keyboard being used in the traditional 'Mini' design.
Therefore, a microkeyboard was perfectly acceptable, I was prepared to accept a naff mouse - but managed to get an old pc laptop trackpad which I actually got working very well.

So, there was nothing for it - I had to build my own!!!

I had some prerequisites that would otherwise make the project not worthwhile,
firstly, it had to cost substantially less than a 12" iBook, otherwise I should just go out and buy one of them!

Enter MacMini stage right..

Shopping list;
1) cheap mini - £269
2) ebay 8" TFT - £75
3) Ebay battery - £11
4) Ebay trackpad 99p
5) Ebuyer USB-PS/2 convertor - £1.50
6) Micro keyboard - £21
7) Ebay DC-DC convertor - £7.50
8) Aluminium sheeting - free!
9) USB hub - old stock canabalised
Current running total; £385.99

I thought about trimming down the TFT screen and removing the TV tuner and the composite video inputs, but I decided it was a very handy feature.
The Mini actually makes a rather nice plinth to sit a TV on anyway!

Because of this I popped in a secondary hardware switch [which should really be replaced by something a lot smaller and slicker] to give me the option to power the TV from it's built in power socket.

However, it seems to work just fine from the mini's 18V supply, so this might in the future be removed.

Apple Mac Mini 1.2Ghz

Footprint just 8.5" x 6.5" [21.8cm x16cm]
less than half the size of PowerBook 15"

256Mb ram [upgrade soon to 1Gb]

Li-on battery @5880mAH 14.8V

8" TFT LCD TV @ 1024 x 768

[near] QWERTY micro USB keyboard

Trackpad from pc laptop running via PS/2-USB convertor

4 port USB hub [2 ports used for trackpad & keyboard]

2A 12V regulator for TFT

DC-DC convertor 15V output for battery management - input range 8-18V

TV, video monitor and portable DVD player capability