The Minimum Macintosh: 68K Hardware for AppleBridge over Open Transport, MacTCP, and Serial

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:36:48 +0200

The widening-impact note ended on a “footprint ceiling”: MacTCP and serial unlock lower-end machines in theory, but the daemon’s RAM appetite gates them in practice. This piece makes that concrete — the minimum 68K hardware to host AppleBridge over each of the three transports, Open Transport, MacTCP, and Serial — and then decomposes the daemon’s memory footprint to show exactly where (and how little) the transport choice moves it. The short answer is that the transport you pick barely moves the floor; the toolchain sets it. Captured as a design note on branch AppleBridge_mcp; not implemented.

Hardware on Defender TD5

The Minimum Macintosh: 68K Hardware for AppleBridge over Open Transport, MacTCP, and Serial