Only in my Mac's

HanJammer wrote on 2020-03-27, 16:24:

Found another one. I will move my current 430HX w/ 233MMX build into this case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAX_4xAQtBQ

Wow! That looks amazing.

It's the quest for the "All-in-One" secure computer.
Like a Macintosh.

This is one way to keep people from taking your speakers.

Tangent built some desktop cases with built-in speakers, some even had a built in amp that sat under the drive bays, that was their MediaStar series. I have one in the garage, will try to dig it out and post a few good pics.

South African here with a bit of a necro - I had case #1 around 1998/99 housing a Pentium 100MHz (eventually overclocked to 120), 4MB Ram (later upgraded to 8MB), a 500MB hard drive and a CD-Rom.
I remember the speakers in that case being pretty good with a small driver circuit board running the show - the speakers themselves had magnetic shielding.
My CDs would occasionally skip if I turned the volume up too high. 😀

Much like @Ciderman I'd kill to find that case today. It would make a brilliant retro build.

compaq-presario-desktop-2200-restoration

I got this one yesterday... It will need some work to make it shine again as there are some rust spots, plastic is a bit yellowed, front panel sticker is missing and so on...

Dhigan wrote on 2020-08-06, 15:13:

https://cristarta.com/assets/images/posts/2016-10-31-compaq-presario-desktop-2200/galleries/after/2017-06-10-14-53-10-8019.jpg c […]
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compaq-presario-desktop-2200-restoration

Oh slick.

These must have not been very popular in Silicon Valley because i sure did not see very many of these around. In fact I dont even think I have seen one even in computer component stores.

Mini tower cases were very popular in Silicon Valley and still are.

Most computers in Silicon Valley only use the tiny speaker inside the case as to NOT make too much noise.

A room full of these Multimedia computer cases with built in speakers must have been very noisy.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-08-10, 11:20:

(...)
Most computers in Silicon Valley only use the tiny speaker inside the case as to NOT make too much noise.

A room full of these Multimedia computer cases with built in speakers must have been very noisy.

But you realize, that those speakers are not (usually) a replacement for a PC speaker (beeper) which is still present internally, but are just for connecting them to a sound card, and work just like your ordinary computer speakers and they have also provisions for hooking up your headphones? 😀

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-08-10, 11:20:

These must have not been very popular in Silicon Valley because i sure did not see very many of these around. In fact I dont eve […]
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These must have not been very popular in Silicon Valley because i sure did not see very many of these around. In fact I dont even think I have seen one even in computer component stores.

Mini tower cases were very popular in Silicon Valley and still are.

Most computers in Silicon Valley only use the tiny speaker inside the case as to NOT make too much noise.

A room full of these Multimedia computer cases with built in speakers must have been very noisy.

Those tiny speakers were not tiny so as to not make too much noise, they just started with a small speaker in the IBM and put it in the clones. I took a lot of my toys apart as a kid and would often see the same speaker inside, and they were plenty noisy. In PCs those tiny speakers were usually very audible, and as they were hooked up as the PC speaker the range of what they could do (unless you wanted to use a lot of CPU cycles to PWM PCM audio) was limited. Stereo computer speakers were attached to the sound card, and while some computers can and did pass the PC speaker output through the sound card, most did not. A lab full of computers from this era would have been noisy regardless because of the sounds of cooling fans, spinning hard drive platters, and spinning floppy disks, and is the users were playing games without sound cards and just using the PC speaker it would have been (imo) a cacophony of awful tones.

I am not sure what silicon valley has to do with much of anything here - I think these cases didn’t do the best for several reasons:

- often the stereo speakers you could buy for your PC were a better option
- not all stereo speakers mounted in cases like this were shielded to protect your disks.
- the tower form factor case (and full towers, often not destined for a server but for those looking to coax their ego) became the fad and the desktop form factor as we knew it started to dwindle away shortly after the age of the MPC2 PC(around 1995 I guess).

I started this thread because I love desktop cases, and I really love the look and experience of standard AT or ATX desktops with built in stereo speakers. I’m glad people still update this thread when they find one. 😀

HanJammer wrote on 2020-08-10, 09:07:

I got this one yesterday... It will need some work to make it shine again as there are some rust spots, plastic is a bit yellowed, front panel sticker is missing and so on...

Awesome. With a good cleaning and pushing out the grille on the left speaker a little this could probably my be good as new!

furan wrote on 2020-08-12, 01:15:

HanJammer wrote on 2020-08-10, 09:07:

I got this one yesterday... It will need some work to make it shine again as there are some rust spots, plastic is a bit yellowed, front panel sticker is missing and so on...

Awesome. With a good cleaning and pushing out the grille on the left speaker a little this could probably my be good as new!

I finished restoring the case to (almost) factory spec 😀
I couldn't find exact (or at least close enough) potentiometer knobs, so I choosed aluminum ones instead. I also repainted speaker mesh covers, replaced old potentiometers and made a new panel sticker thanks to the picture posted by @zlee12 above (I also made black variant in case I grow bored with the beige one which I don't really like). Top cover has some minor rust spots, but for now I havn't painted it, it won't be visible anyway...

So that's how it looks now... I guess it's time for yet another multimedia build. This one it will be 386DX made mostly of uncommon/rare parts.

HanJammer wrote on 2020-09-04, 15:02:

So that's how it looks now... I guess it's time for yet another multimedia build. This one it will be 386DX made mostly of uncommon/rare parts.

Looks great!

HanJammer wrote on 2020-09-04, 15:02:

I finished restoring the case to (almost) factory spec 😀
I couldn't find exact (or at least close enough) potentiometer knobs, so I choosed aluminum ones instead. I also repainted speaker mesh covers, replaced old potentiometers and made a new panel sticker thanks to the picture posted by @zlee12 above (I also made black variant in case I grow bored with the beige one which I don't really like). Top cover has some minor rust spots, but for now I havn't painted it, it won't be visible anyway...

So that's how it looks now... I guess it's time for yet another multimedia build. This one it will be 386DX made mostly of uncommon/rare parts.

Looks great !

Dhigan wrote on 2020-08-06, 15:13:

compaq-presario-desktop-2200-restoration

Pretty cool but this thread is meant for AT cases only - not custom/AIO cases. 😀

Hi everyone!

During this month I was able to buy next 3 cases and still waiting for one more (case4.png).
Sorry for the quality of the photo. I will upload more detailed photos after cleaning procedures.

slimblin wrote on 2020-10-27, 17:54:

Hi everyone!

During this month I was able to buy next 3 cases and still waiting for one more (case4.png).
Sorry for the quality of the photo. I will upload more detailed photos after cleaning procedures.

Wow! Your collection rivals mine! Nice. Yes, please post photos and if you can, let us know where you found these. Thanks!

Just bought new one. Now I have both models with and without amp.

slimblin wrote on 2020-10-29, 07:57:

Just bought new one. Now I have both models with and without amp.

Cool! Those seem to be the most common cases with built-in speakers, although I rarely see the one without built-in amp.