Rebooting an Apple Developer Transition Equipment

In late 2020 Apple made a giant shift, switching from the tried-and-true Intel processors that they’d been utilizing for years to their very own silicon design with the M1 chips. This transition was greater than only a recent coat of paint. These new processors had been Arm-based, which meant that software program developed for Intel CPUs wouldn’t immediately run on them. And naturally, that meant a whole lot of work for software program engineers that needed their purposes to run on Apple’s newest computer systems.

To ease this preliminary transition, Apple launched {hardware} referred to as Developer Transition Kits. These boards got here outfitted with the brand new silicon designs, permitting builders to have a platform on which to construct and take a look at their software program. These kits had been all speculated to be returned to Apple after a interval of six months or so, after which most had been despatched to China to be recycled. Poof! No extra Developer Transition Kits.

Or are there? YouTuber dosdude1 discovered that these “recycled” kits may very well be bought from China for principally the value of scrap. However apparently, lots of them are nonetheless largely intact, which implies that they’re virtually totally practical computer systems. After buying one such package, with an A12Z-based SoC, dosdude1 got down to restore it and get it up and operating as soon as once more.

There have been a couple of issues with the package that had been instantly apparent. The NAND chips, that are used for long-term storage, had been eliminated (in addition to a couple of resistors and capacitors that function assist chips). Moreover, and way more concerningly, the PCB itself had been reduce — most probably deliberately. In any case, the reduce precipitated the internal layers of this densely-packed eight to 12 layer (the precise depend just isn’t identified) PCB to quick collectively.

Whereas the reduce was regarding, it didn’t show to be deadly. There have been no traces operating via this space, so dosdude1 got here up with an strategy that concerned widening the reduce within the board, earlier than sanding it with quite a lot of information. By constantly monitoring {the electrical} continuity between layers with a multimeter, it was doable to file the board down till the shorts had been eradicated, after which cease earlier than any additional work was completed — going too far might render the board nearly ineffective.

As for the lacking NAND chips and supporting parts, the repair was a lot simpler. These parts had been merely scavenged from different donor boards and soldered in place. Earlier than soldering it down, the NAND chip needed to be formatted to be used with the pc. Lastly, MacOS was put in on the event package by placing it into System Firmware Replace (DFU) mode and operating the installer.

At this stage, it sort of labored. However for the reason that unique NAND chip, which saved the machine’s serial quantity and MAC addresses, was gone the OS activation course of failed. Happily, there are manufacturing facility knowledge restoration servers that one can entry to get well this info, which is precisely what dosdude1 did. After updating the NAND chips accordingly, then reinstalling the OS, the developer package lastly got here totally again to life.

To finish the construct, dosdude1 match the board right into a Mac Mini case, related the antennas, warmth sink, entrance panel buttons, and so forth. The ultimate end result was a fairly good Mac Mini that was bought for the value of scrap supplies. Not a foul deal in case you ask me. Even if in case you have little interest in attempting to construct your personal four-year-old FrankenMac, the video remains to be properly value a look ahead to the troubleshooting ideas provided up by dosdude1.