By disemboweling an M1 Mac mini and putting everything inside an old iMac, a YouTube creator has put together what he calls the world’s first Apple Silicon iMac – with big caveats.
Miani notes that the Mac mini’s motherboard is so small that it can comfortably fit in the iMac’s case without any modifications. Using an HDMI video adapter from the Mac mini motherboard to the custom video connector on the Apple iMac was the vast majority of the work on the project.
Essentially, the Mac mini is running unmodified inside the iMac’s chassis and using it as a display with the help of this adapter circuit. This, however, comes with several limitations.
Mac mini is fastened with a screw inside the iMac
First, iMac 2011 has a very low resolution by today’s standards. Its 27-inch pre-Retina 2560 by 1440 display is not the ideal way to use macOS. Second, the “computer” part of this configuration is the Mac mini, inside the chassis of the iMac. With the current construction, all doors – and the on / off button – are inside the chassis and completely inaccessible from the outside without removing the screen.
Finally, the Bluetooth and Wifi radios were optimized by a set of three antennas used on the Mac mini, but one of these antennas was integrated into the chassis of the Mac mini. He overcame this limitation by connecting the extra antenna to the iMac’s antenna wiring harness.
Although the project was successful, Miani says that the configuration is not recommended, despite being simple to carry out. He does, however, say that turning the iMac into a screen for the Mac mini is worthwhile if you have one around.