First post, by goldeng
- Rank
- Newbie
Hi everyone,
I'm a member on Vogons for quite a while and usually find here useful information for things I'm looking for. But on this specific matter I'm clueless and really appreciate some help from you guys. 😀 I hope that it's the right place the post this thread. But if not please direct me to one.
In short, I'm willing to build a retro PC but I would like to put it inside an old 286AT computer case that I used to have back in 1991. I'm looking to find someone who still own the same old computer case model, or perhaps to provide more details about it such as which vendor manufactured it etc so it could help me in my search. This is a picture of the case that I scanned from an old album:
Nowadays, many computer geeks take out their old PCs from the basement/attic/storeroom to bring those retro systems alive again, while restoring their look with chemicals to bring back their original white/beige color that turned yellow through the years. Unfortunately, I underestimated my old 286 computer back when I was a child, and when my parents decided to upgrade it to a newer model, all I could think about was the newer model, leaving the old computer aside, which eventually ended up thrown away. Therefore, I do not have it anymore for restoration.
Fortunately, eBay is well known with hardware of old used systems so I could still find and re-build a similar system like the one I used to have. But it would be great if I could find the exact chassis of my late 286AT. So I'd appreciate if anyone that knows something could provide more info about this case, such as which brand was it? Or perhaps if someone has it laying around and would like to sell it then I'd be happy to know too.
It was a 286AT computer (x3 5.25" in height) with 1MB (1024k) of RAM, occupied with dual 5.25" beige TEAC FD-55 floppy drives with green LED, and a bay for optional 3.5" 1.44 drive vertically on the right which wasn't occupied at the time.
The BIOS screen looked like this:
At the front from right to left were the Power, Turbo and Reset switches. Left to them was the old lock that was for locking the input from the keyboard, and left to it was the old fashion mega-hertz screen which showed the current clock speed in green numbers. If I remember correctly I think that in turbo it showed 25Mhz, and when turbo was off it showed 10Mhz which was ideal for older games that run ridiculous fast when the turbo was on.
The logo on the case as you can see from the picture had the 'M' letter on a dark grey rectangle surface. But it didn't help in searching for this case over the internet as the 'M' probably stands for something which I do not know. But just recently I found on eBay some old AT keyboards which was manufactured by a vendor named 'Mtek', and the 'M' in their logo looks very similar to the one on my old case (see picture below). However, I didn't find anything in google search to verify if 'Mtek' used to manufacture computer cases at all. So it's just an assumption of the case vendor.
I remember that the motherboard didn't have slots for upgrading the RAM as when we upgraded with 'SoundBlaster 16' in 1995 we've been told that we need to upgrade the RAM to 4MB, but there were no memory slots on the motherboard for this upgrade. So we had to upgrade from 286 to 386. Not sure if it was Intel 80386 or a compatible Am386 but that's as far as I remember.
Fortunately, I just found someone on eBay that sells x2 of these TEAC FD-55GFR drives in a BRAND NEW condition!
I was so surprised to find 2 of these in such condition and decided to purchase them both right away. They should arrive soon. 😀 So regarding the drives I'm all set! But I still need some help to finding this old chasis. That's if any of it still exists.
Thank you so much for looking. Hope someone here could be of any help on this.
P.S: If someone recognizes the monitor in my picture and can provide more details about it too then I'd be happy to know. I think that it has the writing SAMSUNG on the top left, and VGA on the bottom left. Could be a 14" monitor but I'm not sure. It didn't have any adjustable knobs in front, Just a long turning pole at its back, just like the one that old cars dashboard has to reset the trip KM counter. The power switch has the writing 'Power' embossed on it.