I wanted a dedicated little Amiga box and figured I'd grab a Raspberry Pi 5. But by the time I added the board, PSU, case, cooler, and a decent SD card, the build was pushing past what I actually wanted to spend on this.

Meanwhile, I had an Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13" (i7-5557U, 16GB) that fell off Apple's support list and was doing nothing in a drawer, plus a spare 64GB microSD. So I used what I had. (If you're wondering how "PiMiga" runs on a Mac: PiMiga 5 ships an x86 build alongside the Pi image, so it works on basically any PC that can boot from SD or USB.)

The "Cartridge" Concept

The whole thing runs off that single microSD in the built-in card slot (second photo). PiMiga 5 lives entirely on the card: root, kickstart partition, EFI, all of it. The internal 500GB SSD is completely untouched, with macOS still sitting there on APFS.

• Slot it in: it's an Amiga.
• Pop it out: it boots normally as a Mac.

Fully reversible. No dual-boot menus, nothing overwritten.

Performance

The i7 turns out to be a monster for this. It's a 3.4GHz Broadwell with far stronger IPC than the Pi 5's A76 cores, and single-thread performance is exactly what UAE's JIT lives on. It has tons of headroom even for the heavier 040/060 WHDLoad configs. I ended up with more machine than the Pi would've been, for less money, out of parts I already owned.

The Clean Setup

Getting it wire-free was the fun part. Final closed-clamshell result in the first photo:

• Video: HDMI straight out to the monitor.
• Peripherals: A single Logitech Bolt receiver. I roam this dongle between a couple of machines depending on where I'm sitting.
• Network: The Broadcom BCM43602 Wi-Fi needs a driver that isn't on the PiMiga image at first boot. I plugged in a USB ethernet adapter just long enough to pull firmware-brcm80211, then unplugged it. Wi-Fi has been rock solid since.
• Thermals: Running a 28W chip lid-closed sounds like a bad idea, but the real problem was that stock Linux wasn't driving the fans at all. Installing mbpfan fixed it. The fan now tracks the CPU temp properly via applesmc, and it sits happily in the 70s under load with plenty of margin.

The end result is exactly the vibe I was after: a laptop that stays tucked away and boots straight into Workbench with zero clutter. Turns out the cheapest retro rig was the hardware I'd already written off.

A friend was about to throw this desktop in the trash, so of course I took it. I added an old SSD and a sound card I already had, and got an Nvidia 750 Ti from Facebook Marketplace.

Most of the other parts were things I already had around, so this became a low-cost project: build an overkill but practical Windows XP machine without dedicating a whole separate retro desk to it.

The result is a triple-boot retro/workstation setup:

• MS-DOS on a small FAT16 partition
• Windows XP Professional SP3 for games, EAX, old dev tools, and period software
• Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing” for maintenance, file transfer, antivirus scanning, tape work, and general modern Linux use

Linux side:

Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing” 
Kernel: 6.17.0-35-generic 
Desktop: NsCDE

NsCDE is there mostly for the vibe. Ubuntu is obviously modern, but NsCDE gives it that retro UNIX/CDE workstation look, which fits the personality of the machine much better than a normal modern desktop environment.

Hardware:

Motherboard: ASUS P8H77-V LE
CPU: Intel Core i5-3330 @ 3.00 GHz
RAM: 28 GB DDR3-1600 installed
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2 GB
Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
Storage: Intel 180 GB SSD
Optical: Optiarc DVD-RW
Tape: HP Ultrium LTO-3 SCSI drive
Controller: Logitech F710
Network: Realtek gigabit Ethernet

The i5-3330 is obviously not exotic, but for Windows XP it is a monster. It is fast enough to make XP-era games feel effortless, and it is still perfectly fine under Linux for what I use this box for: maintenance, file management, tape work, antivirus scanning, and general utility tasks.

Partition layout:

/dev/sda1  FAT16   ~1.9 GB   MS-DOS 
/dev/sda5  NTFS    ~87 GB    Windows XP 
/dev/sda6  EXT4    ~77 GB    Ubuntu 25.10

I also fixed the SSD partition alignment from Linux, so the main XP partition is not stuck with the old misaligned 63-sector-style layout.

One deliberate choice: Ethernet is not configured in Windows XP.

XP has the GPU, sound, controller, games, and old software working, but I am keeping it off the internet. Ubuntu handles anything network-related. That gives me a modern, safer maintenance OS for downloads, LAN transfers, scanning, and backups without exposing XP directly.

I also use Linux-side antivirus scans against the XP partition. Some old installers and utilities throw false positives, which is expected with retro software, but I like having Linux as the “clean room” side of the machine.

Performance is very good for XP:

3DMark06: 22,745 
SM2.0:    9,009 
HDR/SM3:  11,225 
CPU:      5,792

F.E.A.R. at 1920×1080×32 with high/max settings and EAX enabled:
Minimum FPS: 68 
Average FPS: 101 
Maximum FPS: 121 
100% above 40 FPS

The sound setup is one of my favorite parts. I have an Edifier M60 pair connected by 3.5 mm analog directly to the Creative X-Fi. In Windows XP, F.E.A.R. can use hardware mixing, EAX 2.0, and EAX Advanced HD properly. That is one of the reasons I wanted real XP instead of just running everything on a modern Windows machine.

The machine is connected by DisplayPort to one of my normal home-office monitors, a Dell UltraSharp U2724DE. I use dual monitors already, so this retro box just shares one of them instead of needing its own dedicated CRT or LCD.

Same idea with keyboard and mouse: I use my normal Logitech MX Keys S and Logitech MX Master through a Logi Bolt USB dongle. That makes the machine easy to use without adding another keyboard and mouse to the desk. It is not the most period-correct setup, but it is much more convenient.

That is really the theme of the whole build:

Overkill XP machine, but convenient and space-conscious.

No dedicated CRT. No dedicated retro keyboard. No dedicated retro monitor. No separate desk. No XP internet exposure.

Just a rescued desktop, reused parts, one shared office monitor, one shared keyboard/mouse setup, real XP-compatible hardware, real X-Fi/EAX audio, MS-DOS when needed, and Ubuntu/NsCDE as the modern maintenance side with a retro UNIX look.

The desktop has a mix of old games and workstation software: F.E.A.R., Far Cry, GTA San Andreas, Half-Life / Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, UT2003/UT2004, NFS Underground 2, Visual Studio / VB6 / VC++6 / Delphi 7 / C++Builder, Photoshop 7, AutoCAD LT 2007, 3ds Max 2009, MATLAB, Encarta, Word 2003, and tape diagnostics.

It is not a strict 2003 museum build. It is more like an ultimate practical XP workstation: fast, offline, compact, easy to switch to, good audio, good display, and useful beyond just gaming.

The LTO-3 drive makes it feel even weirder, in a good way — less like just another retro gaming PC and more like a strange early-2000s/modern hybrid archive workstation.