Its hard to find a good old case with mhz display and turbo button. Happens to me too. All the old cases from 486 - pentium1 era are either destroyed, or yellow as cheddar cheese.

Where you must do the "retrobright" process to bring them back to life, just like in old SNES and NES consoles, in order for the plastic to look good.

The only case i have saved in my house in the garage well preserved is the Thermaltake Xaser III all aluminum case i saved from the athlon xp era, i will never sell that case because it was pure 3D gaming hardware love era. But 486 i can´t find anything at all.

jamesbeat wrote:

Hi guys, I'm new here, and I'm trying to find parts for my 'new' build. […]
Show full quote

Hi guys, I'm new here, and I'm trying to find parts for my 'new' build.

I have everything I need except for the case. I've been looking for some time now for a beige desktop case (ie horizontal, not a tower) with no luck.

I've bought a couple of full size beige towers that still have some PII and PIII guts in them, and also a couple of beige Dells from about the turn of the century that are very nice mini towers.

I'm leaning towards one of the Dells because they are quite nice, but I really want a horizontal desktop style.

I've combed all the local thrift stores, and even driven around on garbage night quite a few times, but no luck.

Where do you guys get your vintage cases?

There's a seller in California on eBay that sells new old stock cases. They are a little expensive but are not found anywhere else that I know of, I just got mine from them and it was as the seller listed. Just search AT Computer Case and most their listings come up.

50 dollars for an AT case! wow.
next time i see a used one i will just grab it for a couple bucks

BLockOUT wrote:

50 dollars for an AT case! wow.
next time i see a used one i will just grab it for a couple bucks

Yea the shipping is what makes it even more expensive but it is a big box so 😒

There used to be a store here in DFW that had tons of old computer parts but they're out of business 😢

Ouch! Those are expensive!
They are way out of my price range for sure.
I'm hoping to 'get lucky', but I feel like I'm being unlucky because I'm not looking in the right places.
I don't care about cases with locks, turbo buttons, MHz displays etc, I'd be happy with something a bit newer as long as it's beige and horizontal.
I actually only need one 3.5" external drive bay, so almost anything I find should work.
I would have thought offices in the 90's would have been crawling with these things, but all the ones I find are towers.

The only source i had was ebay, but luckily some free cases i got local.

My laser XT/3 i got it local, and for my other XT i had to buy the parts from ebay.

A fellow member from Vogons are selling AT cases on Amibay.
They are a bit cheaper than eBay.

Is trading allowed on this site?
I have a couple of goodies that someone might trade for a case, but I don't see a B/S/T section. Don't want to break any rules.

Nope... Trading not allowed.

RIP.

I wish there were more places like freegeek, but the Canucks have that privilege.

I guess I can just sell the stuff on eBay and then buy a case.
I just hate the idea of spending so much money on a case - I don't believe I've ever actually paid for one before so I'm having trouble adjusting 🤣.

I might have missed it... But what case are you looking for - AT or ATX?

It doesn't matter - the system I'm building is based on a raspberry pi zero 😁

Before anybody faints, I won't be making any modifications to the case.
I'm breaking out the ports into expansion slots, and I have modified the metal shell of an old PSU to provide a power port and on/off switch.

I am mounting the various parts of the system onto an aluminum plate, so the only difference AT vs ATX will make is where I drill the holes in the plate to screw it to the standoffs.

I'm going to be running emulators for the following machines:

BBC Micro
ZX Spectrum
Amstrad CPC
C64
Atari ST
And of course DOSbox

Interesting project 😀

Take a look at my Amibay link in the signature. There are some desktop AT cases.

I have had the same idea, but I intend to 3d-print a smallish Tandy 1000 RPi case...

That's a good idea 😀

I've decided to use a full sized case so that it feels like a real PC. I figured I'm saving so much room having all these systems in one that a full sized case will be fine.
It's very liberating using a large case for a Pi - once you have all the extras like psu, powered hub and all the cables, the 'small' Pi system ends up being quite large and unwieldy.

With a regular PC case, I can fit it all inside, even including the hacked gamepad I'm using as an Atari compatible joystick adapter.
All the ports will be broken out to the outside of the case, and the power switch will work as intended, although I will have to replace it with a latching one if I end up with an ATX case.

I'm hoping I can even use the floppy drive with a usb adapter, but I haven't done any research on this yet.

Keenerb, thanks for the link. I took a look at the cases and you have a few good ones, but I'm concerned that shipping to the States would be prohibitive.
I know from my list of machines that I appear to be in the UK, but I moved here to the States eight years ago.

jamesbeat wrote:

It doesn't matter - the system I'm building is based on a raspberry pi zero 😁

Hmmm.... In that case!
You might even want to consider building you'r own case. You know...
Build one of them all in one machines, like those of AtariST/Amiga/C64's
If I had to do it, I would think of using wood and so on.
Grooves/ribbons/ribs as on the Atari2600 and other oldschool devices.

Unfortunately, there's no USB to floppy adapter that just makes it show up as a regular drive. They all require special Windows software and are really only intended for archiving old disks.

brostenen wrote:

Hmmm.... In that case! You might even want to consider building you'r own case. You know... Build one of them all in one machine […]
Show full quote

jamesbeat wrote:

It doesn't matter - the system I'm building is based on a raspberry pi zero 😁

Hmmm.... In that case!
You might even want to consider building you'r own case. You know...
Build one of them all in one machines, like those of AtariST/Amiga/C64's
If I had to do it, I would think of using wood and so on.
Grooves/ribbons/ribs as on the Atari2600 and other oldschool devices.

Nice idea, but not really the direction I want to go in.
I don't want it to LOOK like a Raspberry Pi project, in fact I'm going to great lengths to hide the fact that it contains a Pi.
I'm using the Pi because of Retropie - its the best solution for my needs.
You can actually install Retropie on a PC, and this was my original intention.
Then I realized that older cases don't have the cooling necessary for a PC capable of running Retropie, so I decided to buy a Zero and put it in a PC case.