VOGONS


First post, by devius

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I'm trying to build a 486 but I only have the internal chassis of an AT case, so dust would be a problem. After a few weeks of looking around I finally found a guy who is selling AT cases, and he seems to have at least 10 of them. Judging from the few pictures I've seen the cases are in acceptable to good condition, with some a bit yellowed and others a bit rusty, and most lacking all the plastic panels needed to cover unused external drive slots.

Here's an example if what types of cases he's got:

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These seem to be all late 486 and Pentium cases, and I don't see a sound card in any of them. He says he also has more "old stuff", so it's possible I might find a gem amongst the junk, although I'm not expecting any GUS Max or even AWE32, but maybe an ET4000/w32p isn't totally out of the question. He also has motherboards and CPUs, which I guess range from 486 to Pentium. At least one of the cases has a sticker that says "486 DX2-66", and a few others seem to have the "Intel inside Pentium processor" sticker (hard to tell exactly due to blurry and low res pictures).

And then there's this:

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strange back panel
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I've never seen that kind of back panel before. It seems to be some sort of transitional case/motherboard between AT and ATX, or maybe it's a custom brand PC? Any ideas if it may be worth getting?

Well anyway, I'm only interested in maybe some 4 of these cases, so if anyone might be interested I could buy a few a more, or even be on the lookout for other type of hardware like motherboards, CPUs, graphics cards, etc. He seems to have at least enough motherboards, CPUs and graphics cards to go with each case, but probably more.

Reply 1 of 7, by Tetrium

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"Any ideas if it may be worth getting?"
Depends, if it's not standard, it might prove problematic repairing it in case it ever fails.

Personally I'd ask if I could open them up before actually buying them (also depends on his asking price) and taking the more useful parts.

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My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
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Reply 2 of 7, by nforce4max

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If the price is low and you got the space for them why not get several or the whole lot. AT cases don't exactly grow like grass anymore and good condition high quality cases are getting only harder to find.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 3 of 7, by snorg

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Yes, for sure, if you've got the space and the price is right, take them all. I can't find a baby AT tower to save my life. The one on the left in your picture is what I'm looking for, too bad you're in Portugal or I'd buy it off you 🤣.

Reply 4 of 7, by Skyscraper

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Buy them all!

I had so many AT cases until the day I decided that everything that isnt ATX/PCI must go...
Lucky enough I never got to throwing away all old hardware but most cases and lots of motherboards, video cards and other cards got trashed and that is sad enough.
I have nothing pre Pentium left and I had ALOT of stuff I looted from the dumpsters at the company I worked for 1999 - 2003.

Now its hard to find an AT case at all.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 5 of 7, by devius

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Tetrium wrote:

"Any ideas if it may be worth getting?"
Depends, if it's not standard, it might prove problematic repairing it in case it ever fails.

Personally I'd ask if I could open them up before actually buying them (also depends on his asking price) and taking the more useful parts.

I did just that. It appeared to be a Unisys server based on off-the-shelf components, except for the case and motherboard. It's a Pentium based system in a sort of AT form factor, but the keyboard and mouse connectors are PS/2 (as can be seen in the photo) and the distance between these and the first slot is not standard. Apart from that it has the typical 7 expansion slots. In the front it had what appeared to be a very old tape drive (without any tape) in 5,25" form. Given that he didn't knew if it was working or not and it didn't had a standard form-factor I didn't get it, since it would have been very problematic to find a replacement motherboard, and no standard boards would fit in the case.

He also had another interesting computer, but that one was even weirder. It was a Unisys B39, which is a completely custom 386 with SCSI HDD that runs a proprietary OS called CTOS. That one in working condition. I only saw photos since it was a bit big for him to bring it with him.

Reply 6 of 7, by devius

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snorg wrote:

The one on the left in your picture is what I'm looking for, too bad you're in Portugal or I'd buy it off you 🤣.

That was actually the case I wanted most out of the lot, so it's not for sale in any case 😁 It's a beautiful case in great condition and very well built as well, heavier than most of the other bigger cases. You have good eyes 😀 That one will be my main 486 case, although it has Pentium innards now. Coincidentally it has a sticker on the back that says "486DX4-100" so it did start its life as a 486 case.

Skyscraper wrote:

I had so many AT cases until the day I decided that everything that isnt ATX/PCI must go...

Ouch!

I feel your pain. I also decided a few years ago that I wasn't ever going to need any system that wasn't small enough to attach to my monitor, so I got rid of a lot of my computing stuff, including my first, second and third PCs (486, Pentium II and Athlon XP). 😢 Luckily I kept some smaller components, like the CPU and some RAM from my first PC, so it wasn't all bad.

Skyscraper wrote:

Now its hard to find an AT case at all.

I know. I couldn't believe it when I asked this guy that was selling "computer cases" if he had any AT ones, and he said he had "a few". Just one or two would be nice, but I wasn't expecting these much. I think I hit retro-computing nerd gold 😎

He also said he has a "box full of SIMMs", so that will probably be my next purchase from him.

Reply 7 of 7, by ODwilly

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As far as the case with the weird back panel is concerned: My Pentium Acer has the same setup. Dual ps/2 ports instead of a single DIN with the punchouts for the motherboard expansions (serial, parallel, that kind of thing) It is AT with a twist! It has been a pain as far as jumpers are concerned buy I really like it.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1