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Retro 1980's PC Tower Case

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BolianAdmiral

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Apr 2, 2012
Hey, all...

I just joined this forum after finding a thread from here which I found during a Google search for something. The thread was the one below:

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=639938

Anyway, I am going to build my next PC on my own, rather than buy a pre-made one, mostly because of the fact that I absolutely dislike what I've seen of Windows 8, and have no intention of ever using it, and also because I want to run Windows XP HE on my PC. Don't try to suggest otherwise... XP is my favorite OS, and I love it, so that's what I'm going to be using.

Anyway, I was thinking about making a custom PC tower case modeled after the electronics of the 1980's... meaning a large box with faux wood grain and a bare metal front face with metal pushbuttons and small LED indicator lights. I absolutely love the look of late 70's - early 80's electronics with the faux wood grain look, and would like to try and do that with a PC tower case.

I was thinking that on the bottom half of the case's front face could be a door-like panel, behind which would be the row of USB outlets and the headphone and microphone jacks, like how some of the old wooden console TV's of the 80's had the color and picture setting controls behind a door panel. I'm still debating if I should have an LCD clock with red digital numbers on the front face or not.

I'm curious what you all think... has anyone here ever tried anything like this before? Do you think it could work? Please let me know!
 
You can get woodgrain vinyl sheet pretty inexpensively. I probably wouldn't start from scratch for this particular project. This feels like a nice fat proper MOD. I would start with a plane jane looking case and take it where your heading.
Front doors are awesome so if you can make one on your case thats functional and looks good I think you got a winner there.


You know XP only supports 3GB of RAM and there is nothing you can do about that right?
 
^

Thanks. Yeah, 3GB of RAM will be fine for what I'll be using the PC for. I just want to build my own so that one, I can have the OS that I want installed, and two, so that I have one that looks the way I want and is free from all the other pre-installed trial apps and stuff that come with so many new PC's.
 
Hmmmm, you could use Window Blinds to give the interface a very retro look too. Remember the old single color green or orange screens they used to sell back then for computer screens? I'm pretty sure there are themes for that.
 
I will be using the PC for general home computing... internet browsing, listening to music, writing, and some pretty heavy Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop work, along with some light gaming.

Please believe that I don't mean to sound rude, but please don't try to convince me to use an OS other than Windows XP. I have my reasons for preferring it to others, and it is the OS of choice for me... please respect that. I will not use any other OS, period.

I'd like to build my own PC for the reasons I listed above. I do a lot of pretty heavy graphics work with both Illustrator and Photoshop, and I have quite a large music and video library, but most of the video content I keep on a WD 2TB external HD. The only large library that would be on the PC proper would be the music library. I have a couple light PC games, but am planning to eventually get into Flight Simulator X.
 
XP is a great OS, probably the best windows has ever created. Win7 is a really tough runner up. Vista sucks. Lol. Mind you XP is not very future proof but is okay for what you're looking to do:D

Good luck on your build. Keep us updated. Just thought I'd mention it. Cs5 is compatible with XP SP3:)

-Modz
 
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^

I never said I use CS5, did I? You assumed that. I use CS2. In any case, you can tout other OS's and rail against XP until you're blue in the face, it won't change the fact that it's what I'll be using. But if it makes you feel better, go for it.
 
Guys, I'd prefer if we didn't go down the "XP vs everything" route, because BolianAdmiral has clearly stated that he wants to use XP.
 
Modz 4 Higher said:
Just thought I'd mention it. Cs5 is compatible with XP SP3:)

-Modz
Click to expand...

No worries there, but thanks for clarifying. The reason I only use CS2, and not a newer version, is twofold. One, the copy of CS2 I own I got with a substantial academic discount, because I was a college student at the time, so I didn't have to pay full price. I can't afford full price on any of the later versions, so I stick with CS2.

Besides, CS2 has and still does absolutely everything I need it to do, so as long as it suits my needs, I have no reason to blow half a grand or more on a newer version just to have a newer version.
 
^

It's going okay... I am working with a couple of ideas... one is the typical tower case, which stands upright. But the more I look at 80's electronics, the more I'm thinking I might try a horizontal box, like one of the early ginormous top-loading VHS VCR's, with faux wood grain and the metal front. I'll post a couple concept sketches here tomorrow for you all to see.
 
BolianAdmiral said:
^

It's going okay... I am working with a couple of ideas... one is the typical tower case, which stands upright. But the more I look at 80's electronics, the more I'm thinking I might try a horizontal box, like one of the early ginormous top-loading VHS VCR's, with faux wood grain and the metal front. I'll post a couple concept sketches here tomorrow for you all to see.
Click to expand...

Old Betamax player would be so much win... :D Yup; I rocked the Betamax way before VHS even came out. :chair:

169erl5.jpg

And if you could figure out a way to mod the tape handling mechanism to house your DVD drive it would make it 100 times better. :thup:
 
^

Yeah, that Betamax player is full of epic win! I'll seriously consider that. In the meantime, here are a couple quick sketches I did the other night... just considering directions I can go.

PCmod.gif


The horizontal case is partly based off of this old GE digital clock radio:

GE_7-4885_clock-radio_1a.jpg

I am a big USB user, so I want at least 6 USB ports in the front of the case, as well as a headphone and mike jack. I also have a lot of stuff on old ZIP disks that I'd like to still be able to use/access, so I'm considering putting in a ZIP drive, if I go with the tower, as well as possibly a blu ray drive, in addition to the general CD/DVD drive.
 
Niku-Sama, those are both great! Yeah, there's three types of dominant "looks" to 80's consumer tech... the first is the "residential tech" look of the very late 70's and early 80's, which uses lots of faux wood grain and LCD displays. Then there's the "corporate/OCP" look, which uses lots of brushed metal and dark gray or black plastic, but dominantly metal, with LCD displaysthis look was mostly used on the 80's CASIO calculators. Then you have the "consumer PC" look, which was a big frakkin' box of molded white plastic, with a black plastic face with the disk drives, like below:

z100x.jpg
 
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