Hmmm stumbled upon a place called Lake Michigan Computers, they seem to have a number of partially equipped beige boxes, one of them might be near enough AT, couple might be ATX but rest are LPX and proprietary. I know nothing about the place though, use payment method you can raise a dispute with to be safe. Site is a pain in the butt though, nothing in right categories, seems to give you everything in some of them, and just have to eyeball through it.

I found this one:

Kate & McKenzie 1380

Was thinking of maybe using it for my 3/486 build, but would need to use low profile cards, which are hard to find, but not as hard as a nice case…
and still considering to get a NuXT and put it in this case. There is a low profile sound card available on tindie (well out of stock now) which can make use of the sound on the front panel.
I will probably just put a nice sticker over the USB ports.

ramon wrote on 2023-03-22, 08:12:

I found this one: […]
Show full quote

I found this one:

Kate & McKenzie 1380

Was thinking of maybe using it for my 3/486 build, but would need to use low profile cards, which are hard to find, but not as hard as a nice case…
and still considering to get a NuXT and put it in this case. There is a low profile sound card available on tindie (well out of stock now) which can make use of the sound on the front panel.
I will probably just put a nice sticker over the USB ports.

That's a nice case for an small NuXT build. Still it's a low profile mATX case, not an AT case.

Yeah, need to be very creative to mod the case for a Baby AT (if it fits)

Neat idea but you're going to have a ton of work ahead of you with that one. Remember, if an AT board fits in an ATX case at all, the keyboard port will be aligned to the bottom of the io shield. Since the case is mATX this leaves no room for the bottom of the motherboard. Moving the board up farther and creating new mounting holes could work but you'd lose access to most of the Isa slots. So you'll likely have to cut the entire back of the case off and fabricate a new one unless you're okay with being limited to the last few slots. Though finding low profile ISA cards will likely be the biggest hurdle.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider a case like this as moddable for an AT system.

There's a lot of Trident 8900 and 9000 boards that would be low profile with the bracket off, ALS100+ soundcards too, also seen some opti and ESS in lower profile, ISA i/o cards can be found lower profile. I know going through my stash I could easily find some sets of cards.

This is somewhat confusing.. When I started collecting old PC/AT parts many moons ago, it never occurred to me that the old AT cases would be sought after in the future.
I guess I just assumed that people would build their own cases from scratch, if needed. And now AT cases are collector's items. This is so weird to me. 😅

Edit: In fact, the current situation makes me feel a bit uncomfortable using my few AT cases here. Maybe I better just leave them the way they are. As reference "hardware" so to say.
In case other people need pictures or measurements of them in the future. For my own needs, I'll rather modify modern PC chassis then.

Yah, it probably takes a week of labor, or month of free time to do a good job on a one off case, then buying sheet metal in small quantities probably gives you an $80 materials bill and another $20 for all the little bits. $20 in painting materials (Though you probably get enough to do three) so ~$120 plus $200 in labor if you pay yourself $5 an hour. Then apartment dwellers probably haven't got anywhere to do it, maybe have to pay something for makerspace facilities if available.

Shortcuts/cheapskates look at scrap appliances with metal case you can take all but 8" off the sides... larger microwaves seem most likely to me... but some older VCRs are tall enough too.... heck you could even trim down a clothes dryer into "full AT" 5170 desktop size. There used to be a lot of obsolete satellite boxes around, look for larger footprint ones you can put in a 6" band around, add material instead of removing. Basically if something is "about right" in 2 dimensions it's less work to adjust the third than build from scratch. ... another example of that... there's a landline phone I have reserved for a future project... it's a nice wedge shape... I am planning it for a "computer in a keyboard" project, like an Amiga, AtariST or Tandy.... basic plan is to saw it in half front to back, or take a strip out of it, and use the pieces as "end cheeks" for top, bottom, front and back flat pieces. Can't really think of much that fits that kind of expand sideways idea for cases, or expand upwards if you want a tower... Maybe UPS units.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-22, 15:00:

There's a lot of Trident 8900 and 9000 boards that would be low profile with the bracket off, ALS100+ soundcards too, also seen some opti and ESS in lower profile, ISA i/o cards can be found lower profile. I know going through my stash I could easily find some sets of cards.

Right, but they never have low profile brackets, I have personally never handled or had an opportunity to purchase an ISA card with a low profile bracket attached, out of probably tens of thousands of cards I've either had or looked at. Searching for low profile ISA on ebay turns up a single Acumos AVGA2 512K ISA VGA card with a low profile bracket (for $300), and a single ISDN adapter. Nothing else has a low profile bracket.

A thread about low profile sound cards still has no mention of low profile brackets:
Any low profile ISA/EISA sound card out there.

And even if you're okay going without a bracket or making your own, the card selection is very limited. I would not want to go through all the work needed to adapt a low profile mATX case to fit an AT board, only to have such a limited selection of low profile cards to choose from. And then, you end up with very plain VGA\sound solutions that are pretty much the same as what many OEM systems had integrated onto the motherboard.

Not saying it can't be done... just that the possibilities of a low profile mATX case converted to an AT system are quite limited without an ISA riser and the investment of time and money will be quite high.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-03-22, 15:08:

This is somewhat confusing.. When I started collecting old PC/AT parts many moons ago, it never occurred to me that the old AT c […]
Show full quote

This is somewhat confusing.. When I started collecting old PC/AT parts many moons ago, it never occurred to me that the old AT cases would be sought after in the future.
I guess I just assumed that people would build their own cases from scratch, if needed. And now AT cases are collector's items. This is so weird to me. 😅

Edit: In fact, the current situation makes me feel a bit uncomfortable using my few AT cases here. Maybe I better just leave them the way they are. As reference "hardware" so to say.
In case other people need pictures or measurements of them in the future. For my own needs, I'll rather modify modern PC chassis then.

I can build and repair computers all day, but precise metal fabrication is not something that I or most other people have the space, tools, skills or materials to do.

..I mean, a 19" rack can be used as a nice PC chassis, too. There also are/were AT or ATX compatible server chassis (example).
The weird monitor LGR has shown in one of his videos was likely to be installed in a rack chassis' drive bay.

I think it's just strange that people have such a need for old gray AT chassis. I still have nightmares of beige Colani PCs. 🤣
- Back in the 90s, it were the black ESCOM PCs with 486/VLB boards that everyone was after (in my place).

I've been saving electronics parts for years, because I worried they would be extinct in the near future and because I thought they can't be re-built easily (can't homebrew a 4 layer Baby AT board on a kitchen table).
By contrast, a PC chassis is "just" a physical shell. Like that of a car. Or the card box for cornflakes. Or a piece of furniture. It's nice to have, but it can be substituted anytime. Or so I thought.

Edit: Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say old chassis aren't interesting/worthy. I'm just a bit confused by the trend as such, not just by this topic. I notice this happening about everywhere. 😅
Hm. Maybe the old PC chassis can be re-made with card board first, then the card board can be used as a template for metal/wood etc ?
Old CD-ROM drives could be used as a reference for making drive bays, maybe.

Edit: I'm just thinking out loud.

I am just frustrated I cannot assist in shiping and shopping .... no market here . So even If I could access vintage stuff there is no $ in for me if I have nowhere to send-sell. & I hate ebay they deleted my accounts.