Starting a New Blog

What started out as just a little side hobby has now become a huge part of my life—Kero’s Mac Mods. I never imagined it would grow this much, and I’m so thankful to all of you in the vintage computer community for your kindness and support.

Up until now I’d been using Japan’s Ameba Blog, but the ads have gotten out of hand. Since I finally launched a proper website, I’ve decided to move my blog here and make this my new “home base.”

I don’t usually want to get into politics, but ever since President Trump, tariffs have been changing so wildly that it’s affected economies all over the world—including mine. Shipping has become especially tricky: I can’t use UPS to the U.S. anymore, and Japan Post has been making a lot of changes too. Still, I’ll always do my best to adapt so customers don’t get caught up in the mess. If you ever feel unsure about ordering, just ask me—I’ll be happy to explain things.

The New Website

When I first put this site online, I pretty much ignored it and just focused on building products. But as time went on, I realized there were so many things that needed to be added—so I’ve finally made a proper Resources page.

Since this is "Kero’s Mac Mods", it’s all about modifications, not repairs. I want to talk about the parts I’ve created, why they exist, and how they make the Mac more usable... There are already plenty of great sites covering repairs, so I thought it would be fun to have a space that’s just for mods.

Honestly, after spending more than 30 years doing nothing but guitar repairs... I don’t have much drive left to push harder in that field. I’ve already devoted more than half my life to it. Now, as I get older, I’d rather focus on creating new things and pouring my energy into that.

Looking Ahead!

On the Mac side of things, I’m always revisiting the parts I’ve released—asking myself how to improve them, and how to make my kits easier for people to put together.

One project I’d love to polish up more is the ROM-inator. It would be nice if assembly could be simpler, but with so many sockets involved, the pin count just gets high. Some people ask me for a fully assembled version, but since you still need to solder to the CPU, there’s no way around it—you need soldering skills either way. To help a little, I’ve started pre-soldering the SOIC 74HCT02 before shipping kits.

And yes, even though I’ve said I’ve spent my life on guitar repair, I’m still at the bench every day with my hands dirty, and I take a lot of pride in that work too. But my hobby life doesn’t stop there—I’ve also spent plenty of time seriously customizing Porsches. And looking ahead, I think there’s still so much potential in using things like Raspberry Pi and Arduino for car projects. Maybe it’s time to dig deeper into that world too...