Kevin Noki Brings Harmut Esslinger's Never-Launched Apple "FlatMac" Tablet to Life

Designer Kevin Noki has brought a piece of Apple's portable computing history back to life, building a functional replica of the never-released Apple FlatMac design prototype by Hartmut Esslinger — a device that would eventually become the modern iPad.

"This project has been a dream come true," Noki says of the project, which delves deep into Apple's history. "As a designer, I've always been inspired by groundbreaking concepts, and this time, I challenged myself to recreate one of the most iconic and unrealized prototypes: Hartmut Esslinger’s Apple FlatMac."

Esslinger, as part of German design consultancy Frog Design, was a driving force for Apple's design language from the Apple IIc onwards — and while Esslinger wasn't behind the design of the original Macintosh, his design language would be used for the Macintosh SE and successive devices through to Steve Jobs' departure and the founding of next for which Esslinger would also provide the industrial design.

These, however, are all devices which actually launched — but the gadget that has caught Noki's eye is something that never hit shop shelves: the so-called "FlatMac" design prototype. "Designed by Harmut in 1984," Noki explains, "it was essentially the initial vision for what became the iPad. Unfortunately, it remained a concept — and only a few non-functional models were produced."

Noki set himself the challenge of building his own FlatMac, but went one step further than Esslinger and colleagues by deciding it should be functional — though powered by a modern Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer running a Macintosh emulator and connected to a USB floppy drive rather than period-appropriate hardware.

The exterior casing of the FlatMac reproduction is 3D-printed, with a custom keyboard PCB designed in KiCad mimicking the layout of Esslinger's non-functional prototype. An off-the-shelf multi-voltage power bank, shucked from its housing, provides power for on-the-go use, and the similarly-modified USB floppy disk is positioned exactly where the original would have been. A Teensy microcontroller running the TMK firmware links the keyboard PCB to the Raspberry Pi, and the a touchscreen display uses parts salvaged, appropriately enough, from an iPad tablet.

Powered on, the replica FlatMac boots straight into the Macintosh emulator, loading software from local storage or the floppy drive and even supporting an external ADB mouse — while the color touchscreen display provides a modern twist, even supporting a stylus as an input device, and the upgraded input/output capabilities extends to supporting an external HDMI display.

The full build process is documented in the video above and on Noki's YouTube channel; a partial bill of materials is included, but Noki has not released design files.