Macintosh Portable case mod is bulky, fantastic

Itching to do something with that dead Macintosh Portable in your closet? Then maybe you will be inspired by this video of a mod, spotted by Engadget, that brings OS X to this late '80s machine.

This DIY project is as great on the outside as it is on the inside. For starters, the casing of the Portable houses a Toshiba NB100 netbook running OS X. The original keyboard is painstakingly rewired using 300 individual soldering points that connect it to a USB controller pulled from a Dell.

There's also an optical USB mouse that replaces the ball mouse. Though upgraded, the mouse still connects to the back of the computer using the original cable. A cordless drill battery provides power to the machine, which now has some modern features such as WiFi connectivity.

It's an impressive reuse of a classic computer that the maker says is "a great café computer." You can check out the modded machine in the video below.