Going "Old School" with a PC

Celebrate the historical heritage of the modern Personal Computer..the way it should have been.

While charming in its reticence, the buzzing beige rectangle under a desk hardly seems a fitting aesthetic legacy for what is inarguably the most important invention of the last 100 years.

With a little creative anachronism, this project aims to retrocentrically create a false historical heritage for the modern computer.

To the left is a very rough sketch of the frame. This design is revised about twice a week, and is bound to change considerably before the project’s end.
Due to both the lack of all creativity in most of the technically inclined, and refinements in plastic forming and mass production, the home computer was denied what I feel to be the proudest time in the life of any technological device. It was robbed of the fleeting, wonderful period right after invention, where it is celebrated and honored by the finest craftsman and creative minds, and given a structure befitting its potential and greatness. It was essentially denied a “novelty period”.

When the steam train roared onto history, hissing smoke and howling into the night, it was an awesome beast, adorned in the finest woods, ivory, gold, and intricate inlays, like some Serpent King on a sacred tapestry. The automobiles of the 20’s to 60’s, each was a work of art. The television and radio affected the world in more ways that can be imagined, changing the entire dynamic of human social structure and communication. They were both appropriately gifted with the most lavish of hand tooled, wooden scrolled cabinetry, housings which borrowed architectural details from the grandest schools, churches and banks.

Sadly, the personal computer, which has impacted the world more profoundly than probably all of the previously mentioned inventions put together, never recieved the same kind treatment. It went from a buzzing beige cube, to a buzzing white one, to the garish space-eggs you see nowadays. The train is a chain of linked rectangles, the automobiles have devolved into these crappy little automobubble spheres, and TVs/radios are about as lavish and attractive as a 2 X 4. But that’s another rant. what im trying to do is retroactively create a false period of greatness in computing. The “Golden Days” of the PC, so to speak. I’m building a blazing-fast, modern computer into antique fine cabinetry. I’ve been stalking Ebay for about a year now, and I’ve finally gathered just about everything I need. It took me a long time, because I had to find pieces of broken or useless antiques to modify. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy anything good. I figure, if it survived this long, who am I to destroy it? Also, the old hardware has a soul to it that the new crap doesn’t, so I’d almost feel like I was killing it. But I digress….as always.

[Datamancer.net]

OK I love computer mods… but this took so much work, it’s a shame they didn’t finish the job. ie. the created such a wonderful piece, but didn’t embed the computer itself inside it. Plus they didn’t tweak the default install of windows to look/feel a bit more antique to match the persona it’s trying to match.

The work done was nice though, and I’ll give them props on that.

Tags: Hardware, Interesting, Modding, Oddities, Photographs