Kahenraz wrote:

We meed someone to make us some 1/3 scale early PCs! 🤣

Well, I'm already working on that - but it will be a case for real harwdare, not emulator 😉 you can see the prototype and unfinished design of the front panel.

That's a nice case! But where will you put the PSU?

Also, I'd swap the floppy drive for one of those USB-floppy things.

The PSU will be mounted under CD-rom - it's a "pico-atx" style, with ATX to AT converter. It needs to be used with external 12 volt power supply - so basically that mini computer will be powered just like a laptop.

Well, you can replace that floppy drive, but honestly i like old-school 3,5" drives more, and it is not a problem to write a floppy disk because USB (real) floppy drives are easily available. And that computer also has a compact flash adapter so you can just put the data onto CF card and don't use floppies at all. The true purpose of that floppy drive is to move the center of mass to the bottom so that case won't flip over 😜

That is really cool, adalbert!

Yes, great idea. The biggest problem with retro computers is finding space to stow them when not in use.

adalbert wrote:

Kahenraz wrote:

We meed someone to make us some 1/3 scale early PCs! 🤣

Well, I'm already working on that - but it will be a case for real harwdare, not emulator 😉 you can see the prototype and unfinished design of the front panel.

This is super! 😁

I remember AT cases like these were actually made (I once found about 3 of them), they had metal U-shaped case panels just like regular AT towers of the time and it was about the size your case is. The width was just enough for an ISA slot and all I remember was it had those small soldered-on Cyrix 5x86's and no internal PSU, but instead of that it I think used an external PSU which connected to these mini towers with plugs that looked like those big keyboard connectors. I decided to not bring these home, as the proprietary PSUs weren't thrown away along with these cases, but I was really doubting at the time.

adalbert wrote:

Kahenraz wrote:

We meed someone to make us some 1/3 scale early PCs! 🤣

Well, I'm already working on that - but it will be a case for real harwdare, not emulator 😉 you can see the prototype and unfinished design of the front panel.

Absolutely love it!!

It combines modern components and design possibilities with that retro 'feeling' that we enjoy 😀. Really looking forward to see more 😀 😀

Mam I've been wanting to do something like this for years with my baby AT 486 board. Kudos!

The only issue I have with keeping floppy drives is that the disks themselves are will eventually become hard to find brand new. And used floppies may not be reliable.

adalbert wrote:

Kahenraz wrote:

We meed someone to make us some 1/3 scale early PCs! 🤣

Well, I'm already working on that - but it will be a case for real harwdare, not emulator 😉 you can see the prototype and unfinished design of the front panel.

how have you gone with the pico psu? I've considered them before but the +5v rating is so low.

486 with a 2d video card seemed like it would be ok but pentium with a semi reasonable video card seemed like it would be too much from my quick calculations.

I used it with Pentium 200 MMX + S3 Trio + Voodoo 1 and CF card without any problems. I also used that on ATX board with P3 coppermine (1 GHz), GeForce 3 Ti 200, ISA audio card, CF card and it worked, but the surface of power supply was getting hot (of course you can put it next to a fan). It doesn't have a -5V rail, so I made a converted and soldered it to that board (its that small square board, it uses a mc34063 chip converting +12V to -5V) - but it is not necessary, in fact I don't need it with my ESS sound cards, but some earlier ISA audio cards need that -5V rail (and nothing else requires -5V to work).

For overclocked Pentium 3 Tualatin 1.4GHz, GF 4 Ti 4200 and 2,5 inch HDD i used a bigger power supply (but still small) - that one aliexpress.com/item/X1-ATX-180-12V-Input-DC-DC-PC-Power-Supply-with-180-Watts-DC-ATX-Output/1947462351.html but I see that this one is no longer available and new ones got more expensive.

Remember to have adequate 12V power brick - for that 486, P1 and P3 a simple 12V 5A power supply is sufficient, but for the last setup it needs at least 8 amps.

adalbert wrote:

things

Awesome info thanks.

Ill definitely have to grab one for my p200mmx tiny pc. It will be way easier to mount than anything else

Adalbert,

Do you have any plans/schematics for your case? I was thinking about doing a similar homebrew case for a 286 I have. If that works out I'd like to move my other retro PCs to similar sized cases to cut down on storage space. Even a normal mid-size AT tower is too much bother when you have 6 of them.

Are you using some kind of acrylic for the case construction, or is it made of metal? Or is it a hybrid?

It is made of 3mm thick HIPS polystyrene boards. I ordered several cheap 30x20mm sheets and cut it using knife. The intention of that design is the possibility of easy manufacturing, without using special tools - elements are cut in straight angle. It also uses 3D printed elements (i built a 3d printer so it's not expensive to print them in home). The elements are glued using cyanoacrylate (super glue, it also creates really storng bond between 3d printed elements and HIPS), there are some reinforcements made of plastic L-beams (used in crafting models).

I didn't make plans intended for laser-cutting or milling yet, but I probably will. The width (i mean the width of mainboard) will be easily customizable, so wider mainboards will fit, but I don't want to make it taller. HIPS is pretty elastic so maybe the final version should use laser-cut acrylic, but when the mainboard is mounted and some PCI and ISA cards are installed it is stiff. I need to design mounting elemets for floppy disk, CD rom and power supply. I will update that thread when I add something new to that case.

The front panel is just an "artistic concept" for now, but I can show you how to make a basic open case which can hold expansion cards and the mainboard.

Here you can see the dimensions of elements I cut out of HIPS sheets.

Panels shown here should be carefully edge glued, using cyanoacrylate, and they can be reinforced with plastic L beams, like those

This is how the mainboard is mounted - 3d printed holder for a M3 nut, and it is glued to the side of case.

Mounting element for a bar holding expansion card brackets (you need to drill some holes). You can notice that it holds an additional M3 nut into which a bolt used to mount the side of case will be screwed. The entire element is glued to the base of the case. (those cylinders should be replaced with holes and screws)

And that's the frame of empty case, still some elements are missing, I need to think how to mount a fan, COM and LPT ports, etc., drill some additional holes used for mounting stuff and so on.

By the way here you can see a horizontal open-type ATX case I designed and made earlier. But honestly I think that it takes too much space and a mini-tower design is better.
Maybe I can add another side to it so it will be converted to tower - but it will be pretty wide.

Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

This is very clever, and I love your design. However I looked up prices for this material online, while it is not expensive the stuff is only sold in 4'x8' sheets and the manufacturer won't cut it (at least at the one plastics place I found it at). Where did you get yours from? I suppose I could use plywood, 1x2 and sheet metal as an alternative but I doubt it would look as nice.

I'm curious, what software did you use to design the case?