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The socket (or rather inlet) is most definitely standard, it’s a IEC 60320 C14 inlet. The standard was published in 1970. C6 and C8 are commonly used for laptop power supplies and smaller audio equipment.
There are a number of reasons to use this arrangement on computer power supplies, monitors, audio equipment etc., including:
using a standard inlet with ...
48
Same as today - beige and light gray goes with every style, no matter if a business desk or your living room. They are a simple non-statement, the least offensive colours to most people, thus not keeping anyone from buying.
There have been endless attempts to sell stylish machinery thru all times, but looking back will reveal that the most stylish are ...
48
Disks take up space. At sub-gigabyte capacity you may want more than a couple. Add the CD-ROM drive, the 3.5" floppy, the 5.25" floppy, and you're into skyscraper territory.
You can't put the discs lower in the tower (over the motherboard) because they'd be in the way of the incoming airflow to the motherboard. Those beige things on the lower ...
41
I have that case sitting behind me. Actually, the air holes on the side look slightly different, and it lacks the SuperMicro branding, but everything else about it is the same. According to my PC construction page, it's an "Extra Series model 7890A (ATX full tower) w/300W power supply", and I put a 266MHz Pentium-II inside it.
Part of the reason ...
34
The choice of beige for the plastic cases used on popular 1980s retrocomputers was not arbitrary. As a color for a popular, mass-market, personal computer, it originated with the Apple ][, where it was specifically chosen by the designer, Jerry Manock.
In 1977, Steve Jobs hired Manock, a professional designer, to create the Apple II around Wozniak's ...
33
Cost, both in manufacturing and design. The basic metal cases are simply that -- basic. Even modern PC cases are pretty simplistic being a metal box, with a plastic facade.
For home computers of the time, they're essentially self contained unit with "no user serviceable parts inside". They were not designed to be opened by the consumer, instead having ...
25
According to the "Beige box" entry of Wikipedia,
many early personal computers and dedicated word processors [...] were usually beige or similar colors like off white or ecru. These colors were presumably chosen to allow the machines to blend inconspicuously into a variety of settings, especially among similarly colored cubicles and office equipment.
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Injection molding has a costly tooling cost but very low per-unit costs. This makes it cheaper to build a large number of cases.
Metal cases have a lower tooling cost but higher per-unit cost. This makes it cheaper to build a small number of cases.
19
In addition to just general ease of service & upgrades, motherboards used to be much bigger, particularly if you had a motherboard with lots of RAM and built-in ports. To the right of the motherboard, you can see several square holes that could hold additional standoffs for a larger motherboard. While ATX motherboards, as far as I know, were never that ...
answered Oct 13 '21 at 14:32
manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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17
Nostalgia Nerd produced a video on this very subject very recently. Most of the reasons he cites are already answered here. But one interesting find was that Germany and some other European countries went as far as to write it into their health and safety workplace laws that 'light-value' colors must be used in office computing equipment (7:00 into the video)...
17
A "full-length" ISA card could be over 13" from the mounting bracket to the end of the card:
This case gives you enough room to have a full complement of full-length cards on the motherboard, plus up to three full-height drives (the same width and depth as today's standard optical drives, but twice as tall)
up above. If it was shorter, the ...
15
(This is about motivation (the why) of defining and adding a standard socket to devices and ment as an addition to Stephen Kitt's great explanation of the technical side - at some point a merge might be useful)
Most home electrical appliances use a fixed power cord and have a on/off switch near the front.
That's due the fact that for appliances sold in ...
13
A thin plastic tape with strong adhesive on both sides is what I usually use for these types of applications. The tape I use is Scotch 665 double-coated tape; it's a bit hard to find but an electronics supplier (e.g. Digikey, quantity of 1 in various sizes) or industrial supply house (e.g. Grainger , in quantities of 36) should stock it. You could also try ...
13
I built a 486DX2/66 in one of those massive towers back in the day. The motherboards back then were full size, and some cards were 'full length' cards (like Vesa Local Bus, etc). Many times the I/O relied on an actual Multi-I/O card in addition to the motherboard (things weren't as integrated)... So it doesn't take long before Video, Multi-I/O, Audio and ...
12
I was designing computer housings back in "the day".
Plastic cases were comparatively cheap in volume, but challenging to bring to market. The technology of choice was structural foam. It was strong but thick, up to about 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick. In the basic form, it required painting, but there was a co-extrusion process that would inject at the ...
12
Amigas work fine without their metal shields, and even the big-box machines' innards can be taken out of their case and run open on the desk. I never noticed any instability on my old A500 with the shield removed, although I might have done were I a radio amateur running a powerful transmitter nearby.
As to the Amiga's emissions, FCC rules forbade Commodore ...
10
To add to other answers, you have to consider how changing connections have shifted the mind-set over the last three decades.
Connections to external devices have improved tremendously; we now have really good, standard, well-supported connections (physical connections such as USB3/USB C and Thunderbolt; and wireless ones such as wifi and Bluetooth), so ...
9
The tower form factor was well known in the 1980's, even IBM was using it at that time (the IBM RT 6150 was available in both desktop and tower cabinets, and IBM even had a tower stand option for the PC AT 5170). And it wasn't unusual to stand a desktop cabinet on its side; this practice was common in office environments when the system unit and monitor ...
9
The key to understanding the use-case for such a tall tower is thinking of what it allows at full occupancy that a shorter case wouldn't.
Most importantly, those horizontal ribs on the housings for the two fans at the bottom on the two fan housings at the bottom are supports for the ends of full-length expansion cards to slide into.
I don't know if I've ever ...
9
Can never have too many bays, you need them for your:
Simple storage drawer
Stowable third monitor
Ciggy lighter and cup holder
Easy-bake oven
Toaster
while not strictly drive bay, the extra space has been used for a coffee machine:
Although I suspect many of these came after someone looked at their empty drive bays and tried to make something "...
8
Early PC towers often used such a design, if only because they were basically desktop PCs on their side. Some systems even had a rotatable drive bay (a bay containing two full-height 5.25” emplacements is as high as it is wide).
There were some systems specifically designed along the lines you mention; Apple’s Quadra 950 and PowerMac 8100 spring to mind, ...
8
The case of the Amiga 3000T was actually modified from the Commodore PC-60 III (their top-range PC). I doubt, however, that this makes it an easier find. Those monsters are sought after as well, apparently.
Commodore was still fully functional when the PC-60 and 3000T were produced, so it is very unlikely a generic stock item from a third-party supplier.
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Measurements of my IBM Model 5150 indicate the badge itself is 1 in. square, equivalent to 25 mm. But there is an additional approximately 1/32 in. added for the indent area, thus allowing the badge to completely reside within the indent.
For "clones", I suppose the ones deemed "100% PC Compatible" would need to match this size, precisely.
7
There is very little information online about this, so I have scraped around and put this together:
The screws on the Amiga 500 and 500+ were often Phillips (requiring a #2 Phillips head screwdriver[1]), but hex-socket (Allen key) screws were also used[4].
trall measured the external case screws on an A500 case that appear to be original. They are Torx T9, ...
7
The tower is neither an invention of the 90s nor was it done by IBM.
For example NCR sold their PC8 series in tower form factor since (at least) 1986 with 286 CPUs.
IBM hat the PS/2 Model 60 in 1988
Many companies put x86 PCs into tower cases, already with 8088 CPUs
Not to mention stands that where available to turn an IBM PC into a tower
I bet with some ...
7
I find this website helpful for similar questions: https://thistothat.com/
"We are here to help you choose the right glue for your bonding requirements"
Rubber to Metal
For the strongest bond, we recommend:
Household Goop
Not as strong but good for a large area is:
3M 80
6
There are several revisions of the C-64 board (see, e.g., here , or here), with two major form factors: the old "long board" and the new "short board". The long board (which I happen to have on my bench right now) is approximately 39cm wide and 18cm long, the short board is just as wide, but a little, well, shorter.
If you need exact dimensions and drill ...
6
I believe you are referring to one of these:
This one is actually an 11-piece. But same basic stuff.
I've used & lost quite a few of these over the years.
According to the specs:
Includes Nut driver 1/4 inch / Nut driver 3/16 inch
Which sounds about right. I was sure one was 1/4". And I was sure they were US sizes rather than metric sizes. The ...
answered Jun 11 '20 at 5:24
manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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6
I have actually used superglue (cyanoacrylate) for this without ill effects. It's not solvent-based and doesn't dissolve rubber (even natural rubber, which this probably isn't). The downside is it's brittle, but for feet that's OK unless you make a habit of dragging the case around. Some "rubber" materials don't bond well, but adhesive companies ...
6
Technical advantage? Not really. Practical advantage? Perhaps.
On the technical side, it isn't really an advantage it is creating more empty space which is being warmed by the components and probably multiple "dead air space" which is not helping cooling. Of course, you could install multiple fans in such a box but you're still not optimizing ...
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