This Vintage Macintosh Was Saved from the Trash (Sort Of)

Over a decade ago Nathan Pryor was able to score some old and broken Mac computers from a school surplus sale. He knew he wanted to build something out of them, but he didn’t know what. He just didn’t want them to end up in the trash. Many years later, and with some irony, he’s turned one of them into something useful: a trash bin.

“[The computers] sat in my attic until I had to move. Then, when I saw them stacked in my office waiting for a new location in which to gather dust, it struck me that they looked like a trash bin — the kind with the swinging door on the top. So that’s what it had to be” Pryor said, explaining the inspiration behind the project. Pryor posted a little bit about his process on reddit, and added a more detailed posting on his personal website.

The computer itself is the classic Macintosh Plus from the 80s. Pryor opened up the case and replaced the screen with a hinged piece of acrylic that he oven formed to fit the curved bezel. To get trash to actually go into the bin meant cutting out the bottom out of the computer, which ended up being the hardest part of the project. “I drilled, I attacked it with the router, a coping saw, a jigsaw… I finally melted my way around it with a cut-off bit in the Dremel,” Pryor explained. The bin he made himself, constructing it from ½” plywood and painted to complement the computer.

While this project hasn’t been on the internet for long, it’s already gotten a lot of views and a lot of suggestions for improvement:

I love some of the ideas people have shared, like adding lines, vents, or even a logo to the bin so it looks more like an original accessory. Someone else suggested adding a switch and audio player to play the “empty trash” sound from the original machine whenever the door opened. Another idea suggested was a paper shredder behind the disk drive slot.

At the suggestion of one redditor, Pryor also created this gif to represent that feel when you’re throwing your money at the screen.