Love Hultén has created a beautiful replica of the original 128k Macintosh made almost entirely out of American walnut. Known for his craftsmanship in building replicas and concepts of gaming consoles among other gadgets, Hultén has taken that love and applied it to one of Apple’s most beloved products to date. He calls it the Golden Apple.
What’s even more impressive is that the replica works, though not the way you might expect. Hultén actually built the wooden housing around a functional Mac mini. The additional optical disc drive is in perfect alignment with where the floppy disk drive was on the original Macintosh. Judging by the UI on the display, the Mac appears to be running either OS X Leopard or OS X Snow Leopard.
The keyboard is also made out of walnut and “uses blue cherry MX tactile switches which are covered by gold plated key caps made from zink.” It’s designed to resemble the original Macintosh keyboard as well.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to buy this stunning creation, since Hultén really just makes these creations to show off but ultimately keep for himself. You can certainly browse through the gallery of photos and check out his very charming demo video on YouTube. Yes, I know, it’s not the same, but a drool-worthy tribute such as this deserves to be cherished even if just through the Internet.