thanks for the answers that help cleared up some things. beside Ebay, does anyone know where I can get a at case at a decent price without paying a lot for shipping?

Best bet would be to find a new AT compatible ATX case. They are easier to find on ebay as well as cheap generic beige towers. Look for punch outs on the back of the case for Printer, COM and MIDI style ports. Then if you want to use an ATX psu as well you can make or buy one of those ATX to AT psu adapters.

RacoonRider wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

🤣, I remember having bought 512MB SDRAM and a couple weeks later some Taiwanese factory got flooded or something, SDRAM prices exploded and it took years before prices would fall below the level I bought my SDRAM for.

🤣 That happened to me too! I bought a Seagate 1TB HDD for 2000 Russian rubles, and two months later the forces of nature stroke some Taiwanese factories so hard that you could not buy any hard drive for that money. By the time things got back to normal, the ruble went down already and for the same money one could buy only the cheapest 250GB models.

Lol! This happened to me too, except that I had bought a 1TB Spinpoint 😁
Iirc harddrive kinda prices doubled and availability was poor 😵

cnpr wrote:

......... without paying a lot for shipping?

Had to say because this community is International and you don't show your location.

cnpr wrote:

.......... beside Ebay, does anyone know where I can get a at case at a decent price ........

The area I'm in has thrift stores galore and on a good day one can pick up several compete systems for the price of their cases.
Good days and bad days for that are hit and miss though. It's just luck.
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ODwilly wrote:

Best bet would be to find a new AT compatible ATX case. They are easier to find on ebay as well as cheap generic beige towers. Look for punch outs on the back of the case for Printer, COM and MIDI style ports. Then if you want to use an ATX psu as well you can make or buy one of those ATX to AT psu adapters.

I tried to look for one of those at compatible atx case, but I either couldn't find any or not typing the right words in. If I do get one of those cases, is it possible to find a at i/o shield for that. I am aware that at only don't have a face plate.

I do live in the us.

There used to be sources on Ebay, but I have not seen them around in a long time. You could buy a blank ATX i/o shield and cut out a hole for the AT plug using a Dremel 😀 as PCBONEZ said, it is mostly luck finding cases and parts. Be patient and you will hit a good deal.

ODwilly wrote:

You could buy a blank ATX i/o shield and cut out a hole for the AT plug using a Dremel 😀

Where can I get some of these blanc i/o shields?
I tried looking on ebay but my search skills are a bit rusty and I get thousands of sellers selling their 5 junk used i/o shields for inflated prices 😵 (Preferably a cheap one that can be bought in bulk, bonus points if the same seller also ships anti-static bags 😁)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-SuperMicro-MCP- … g8AAOxy4eJTOkYf I believe this may work

ODwilly wrote:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-SuperMicro-MCP- … g8AAOxy4eJTOkYf I believe this may work

Thanks! But my god, $15 each? 😲
I guess I'll just have to think of some DIY solution 😁

Tetrium wrote:

ODwilly wrote:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-SuperMicro-MCP- … g8AAOxy4eJTOkYf I believe this may work

Thanks! But my god, $15 each? 😲
I guess I'll just have to think of some DIY solution 😁

I've been looking for a good solution to this problem as well. I'm not paying 15 USD and another 15 USD in shipping. That's a ripoff.

Sorry that is all I could find. My home solution is to cut out a piece of cardboard, but making your own aluminum i/o shiled and drilling a hole or two then screwing it to your case would also be a good option I think.

Well, I actually have an AT/ATX case that has a proper AT-keyboard ATX Backplate. Maybe I can try to make a plastic mold of it or cast it?

Evert wrote:

Well, I actually have an AT/ATX case that has a proper AT-keyboard ATX Backplate. Maybe I can try to make a plastic mold of it or cast it?

That would be awesome, or a way to make a 3D printer version.

Well, I'll have to look for someone to help me with that, but that'll probably be better, then I can just upload the files.

vetz wrote:

Evert wrote:

Well, I actually have an AT/ATX case that has a proper AT-keyboard ATX Backplate. Maybe I can try to make a plastic mold of it or cast it?

That would be awesome, or a way to make a 3D printer version.

That's ingenious! 😁

..too bad I don't have a 3D printer. Don't know anyone who has one either 😵

Tetrium wrote:

vetz wrote:

Evert wrote:

Well, I actually have an AT/ATX case that has a proper AT-keyboard ATX Backplate. Maybe I can try to make a plastic mold of it or cast it?

That would be awesome, or a way to make a 3D printer version.

That's ingenious! 😁

..too bad I don't have a 3D printer. Don't know anyone who has one either 😵

I have some engineer friends who play around with 3D printers. I'll ask them and hear if they think it's doable.

vetz wrote:

I have some engineer friends who play around with 3D printers. I'll ask them and hear if they think it's doable.

The thing is that making a flat stiff surface with the keyboard hole in the right place is easy, but it's the 'clicky' mechanism that locks the i/o plate into the case that's hard to pull off when doing it DIY-style.

Theoretically the case is a Faraday cage to keep EMI out of your motherboard and so forth.
The main purpose of I/O shields is to complete the cage. - To not have a big hole in it that EMI can get through.
So cardboard and plastic I/O shields aren't a great idea. To EMI that is no different than having none at all.
That's why you don't see many (if any) manufactured in cardboard or plastic already.
.
Also why window cases are a bad idea.
.

> to keep EMI out of your motherboard and so forth.

It's the other way around: to keep the EMI inside. To not disturb aircraft radio and so on.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Theoretically the case is a Faraday cage to keep EMI out of your motherboard and so forth. The main purpose of I/O shields is to […]
Show full quote

Theoretically the case is a Faraday cage to keep EMI out of your motherboard and so forth.
The main purpose of I/O shields is to complete the cage. - To not have a big hole in it that EMI can get through.
So cardboard and plastic I/O shields aren't a great idea. To EMI that is no different than having none at all.
That's why you don't see many (if any) manufactured in cardboard or plastic already.
.
Also why window cases are a bad idea.
.

Aluminium foil was my idea, but that's just not stiff or strong enough to stay on it's place, so I was thinking cardboard with aluminium foil wrapped around it...something like that.

And I don't know if the i/o plate matters much, but I'd rather have one installed..if only for completeness