Computer Case Fashion School

[Blumf]

Lets get all arty with our number crunchers. What computers have tickled your eyes over the years? What have made them cry tears of poop? We're being shallow here so no bitching about specs or what have, just how good looking they are...

I'll start with some 8-bit retro, seeing as the 80s are all hip and that at the moment:



48K Speccy!! Cute as a button and rubbery for your protection.

Something more modern:



The ThinkPad range of laptops, I like the colour scheme and the sharp lines.



The 701C here, with it's fancy folding keyboard, ended up in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, so neer.

And to close, we drift away from the personal, to the super:



The iconic Cray 1, back when super computers looked super, instead of large arrays of boring racks.

[I accept the terms of the]

Every computer should come with a seating area.

The ZX Spectrum was pretty awesome looking. By the time I had one they were looking like this, though:



Baron Alan Sugar has less appreciation for aesthetics than Sir Clive.

[Blumf]

Baron Alan Sugar has less appreciation for aesthetics than Sir Clive.

Like this seamless integration of formlessness and functionless:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC

[Blumf]

Apple Mac Color Classic, nice clean front.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic



Thinking Machine's range of Connection Machine systems, they planned on killing you in a cool movie spy style.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine

[Zetetic]

Something more modern:

They've barely added any horrible stickers or redundant pointing devices which is a nice touch.
Also, in case you forgot where it was they've recoloured the largest button on the keyboard. It's the Enter button in case you haven't found it yet. If you're having trouble finding it, it's the biggest one.

[Blumf]

redundant pointing devices which is a nice touch.

W700, with trackpad, nipple and digitizer pad (no touch-screen though). Also two (2) purple enter keys.

[Famous Mortimer]

I quite fancy an unusual coloured / shaped keyboard. Anyone ever had a weird one, with the buttons in odd places or decorated like Victoria times or something?

[waste of chops]

I quite fancy an unusual coloured / shaped keyboard. Anyone ever had a weird one, with the buttons in odd places or decorated like Victoria times or something?

It's a keyboard with wing mirrors. WING MIRRORS.

[I accept the terms of the]

People really stopped giving a shit about ergonomic keyboards with split key arrangements by around 2001, didn't they?

[samadriel]

Where on earth's the spacebar?  Probably made it a foot-pedal or something.

[The Boston Crab]

I laughed several times at this thread.

You know who you are.

[mobias]

I always quite liked Apple's Cube. It looked a bit like a cross between a radio and a futuristic toaster.

[I accept the terms of the]

The Acorn Phoebe (named after the Friends character) was pretty distinctive. I wonder if we would have seen lots of these yellow shitters if it had made it to market.



It wouldn't look out of place in a construction site.

[Ginyard]

The iconic Cray 1, back when super computers looked super, instead of large arrays of boring racks.

Wow, never seen that before. Was it designed to be sat on in a hotel lobby as well?

Reels are awesome:


Eyes Wide Shut Batman

[I accept the terms of the]

I always quite liked Apple's Cube.

The NeXTcube trounces it.



It looks like a desk-sized classic-era supercomputer.

Wow, never seen that before.

There's one in the London Science Museum. I was quite awed by it!

[Ginyard]

Shit, I was there just a few weeks ago. How did I miss it? That's what happens when you spend most of the time with your kids, pissing about with water and gravity 'experiments' (sponge balls that they throw at you from cuboids) in the basement.

[I accept the terms of the]

Maybe it's gone, I saw it around 2007. Pretty much right at the back of one of the sections.

[Blumf]

Wow, never seen that before. Was it designed to be sat on in a hotel lobby as well?

The seats actually house the cooling system and other bits, but a bit of padding never hurt.

Also, the case was a 'C' shape not because of it being a Cray, but to shorten the length the data lines had to travel between modules (would have been a hollow sphere if it was practical)



Cray 2 with it's cascading liquid cooling tower in the background.

[Blumf]

The NeXTcube trounces it.



It looks like a desk-sized classic-era supercomputer.

Also the system the first web server ran on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It looks like it concertinas in the middle so you can add more memory and such.

[mobias]

That Cray 2 looks like it probably shouldn't be fucked with, in a dystopian future where we're all ruled over by machines kind of way. I pity the poor soul who has to turn it off each night. 

Incidentally my spell checker didn't recognise the word dystopian back then and helpfully suggested I use the word dustpan instead. Is my computer being ironic or is it just giving me a little clue as to mankind's future? 

[MojoJojo]

People really stopped giving a shit about ergonomic keyboards with split key arrangements by around 2001, didn't they?

One of my mates anecdotes about "people who aren't going to fit in at work" involves someone who the first thing they did when shown to their workstation was to take all the keys off the keyboard and put them back in a Dvorak layout. They then discovered they didn't actually know how to change the layout in Windows.

[I accept the terms of the]

Did they call it Micro$oft Windoze?

[Blumf]

Pah! A real Dvorak user wouldn't need to mess with the physical keys, they'd just swap layout setting and never look at the keyboard.

Always fancied giving a chorded keyboard a go

[Big Jack McBastard]

Cray 2 with it's cascading liquid cooling tower in the background.

That Cray 2 looks like it probably shouldn't be fucked with, in a dystopian future where we're all ruled over by machines kind of way. I pity the poor soul who has to turn it off each night.

It reminded me of something you'd find stashed in the basement of one of the factions in Deus Ex 1.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I always quite liked Apple's Cube. It looked a bit like a cross between a radio and a futuristic toaster.

That was a goodun. Jobs clearly liked his computers cubic and it is indeed a nice shape, even if your standard rectangular cases are probably more practical. I may need to replace my computer soon, and these cases have caught my eye;


Annoyingly though, the top one is too small, and the other is ridiculouslyly expensive.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Looks like a fucking shredder.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

You shouldn't fuck a shredder.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Unless you want a cock that looks like Cheestrings.

[Consignia]

Looks like a fucking shredder.

Of course, for the pun to work properly, you need to google image search "shredder turtles rule 34". Out of courtesy, a respect for childhood innocence, and most importantly site rules, I'm obviously not posting those results.