Tbh I don't give much thought to that. I look at the screen, not the machine, most of the time, and for the off hours anything that's unobtrusive is fine. Pretty much the only thing I actively try to avoid is having black drive bezels in beige cases, or vice versa. They're tools, not art pieces.

elszgensa wrote on 2023-02-05, 04:21:

They're tools, not art pieces.

They can be both. 😁

Hm. Hard to say. All of them, I guess. 🤷‍♂️

I'd like to keep some PCs in the state they existed back then, which isn't exactly period-correct.
Many people in the 80s/90s upgraded their beloved machines to something that wasn't considered standard.
And I haven't the heart undoing such modifications, I think.
Unless the system was in a very bad shape and the previous owner didn't care anymore.

On the other hand, I also keep systems in a state that's considered period-correct or more precisely mass-compatible (adheres to the collective memory).
It usually goes along fine witg the point of view of the simple user, rather than the programmer/professional.

Such hardware is used as reference, as an orientation how people think hardware was like then.
Sometimes helps troubleshooting hard-/software combinations.
Like, for example, the very picky PC GEOS.
It's not very fun to work with it, however. Too many limitations..

Then I do have a faible for everything acrylic/transparent. ^^
Since I'm from Europe, that's okay, I guess. We don't have transparent "prison tech" over here (not that I know of).
So you're not being considered a shady person or criminal if you like such things.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-05, 04:34:

elszgensa wrote on 2023-02-05, 04:21:

They're tools, not art pieces.

They can be both. 😁

The Schneider Tower ATs are kind of pretty.
The Sharp X68000, too.

The French had Goupil, a maker of stylish PCs.
Years before our black, German ESCOM PCs were a thing.
Or Colani Design.. 🥶

Just like you said Shponglefan.

CDrom drives are a bit compromise because many times there is that enormous speed rating "52x" to reveal my cheat.

When I started to go back and build a "retro" build I was very determined to learn to retrobright and try and restore everything to its absolute best, the clean beige case with the non yellowed CD-ROM and floppy drive, etc. That attitude made me learn a whole lot but I eventually relaxed and started to appreciate the yellowing in most cases and some marks of patina. If something arrives at my hands in a certain state it doesn't bother me at all and I just do what I can to clean it up and fix it, but if I know that I accidentally scuffed or marked it further in some way it's more difficult to accept.

I made several experiments and techniques with retrobright, and every single type of different plastics eventually re-yellowed between 6 months to a year and a half. It re-yellowed to a lighter shade but remained yellowed all the same. However it does work well to make the shade uniform all over when it's very uneven, and that's probably the only scenario where I would do it nowadays. The effort and money when measured against the eventual results just aren't worth it, imo.

As said here before I also realized that there's not much of a point to try and achieve absolute perfection especially with the build's case, I barely even see it or look at it and when I do it's in a half-light spot which actually hides the patina that I was fine with anyway. I used to re-spray paint the metal parts but they will get marks anyway as you fiddle around and the cables behind it sometimes touch the paint which makes a chemical reaction that leaves marks on the painted parts. Barring extreme cases I would never have painted them but oh well. I don't think I won't repaint them for a long time, it's all in areas that I would never see without going back there with a purpose.

I even have a dark grey HP CD writer with blue buttons that clashes with a beige case, but because that case also has buttons of that exact blue color I purchased a Pentium III Intel Inside metallic and blue sticker that ties everything together and I quite like it now. Barring extreme yellowed shades, I'm not that bothered by stuff in the front panel anymore. Of course having an LG CD/DVD drive on a 486 is not ideal, so I would try and go for one of those with a blank front plate. What I would never do is use Dell black/metallic case for anything pre-WinXP for example, that I do know I couldn't accept, even if a beige case would be yellowed in comparison.

All in all with a keyboard and mouse plus a CRT that are in good condition chances are one is visually satisfied in the day to day usage, but to each their own

At the moment I'm not going for factory fresh, more like all in one lump with no stray pieces hanging out. Just cleaning stuff down rather than refinishing. I don't mind a bit of yellowing, but there's one or two things around that have gone really obnoxious deep yellow that I might try to tame at some point. Bugs me most on light grey stuff, vs a "warm" beige that just got a bit warmer.

I mostly try to shuffle drives around so match is not that bad, but it won't ruin my life if I have to stick a white in a black to get the use of a certain kind of drive. Though yeah, I did just buy a particular lite-on DVD writer because I wanted to swap the front with a CDROM for a case where it's basically the top front and arched out, so sticking a regular drive there makes it look like there's a chunk missing. But the vibe of that build is "sleeper" and I more or less came across the drive by chance, rather than going out looking for it specifically. I guess it's a thing where if you have enough halfassed stuff lying around, you'll randomly find bits to fullass some of them.

I don't know if I can really generalise though, sometimes things just have that feel where you want to get the looks consistent, sometimes it's a "miracle it all works and all hangs together no matter what it looks like".

Even though Goteks are tremendously useful, they are not part of the "final" state of my builds for aesthetic reasons (also it would be quite expensive to get one Gotek per PC). I just use them to install all the software I need and then they get replaced with a real drive for looks and occasional use. My use of CF cards is mostly limited to testing, as I have plenty of old HDDs to use in my builds, but even if I used CFs I would keep them inside, never sticking out of a front bay for example.

With optical drives I usually stick to somewhat period-correct options for a few reasons: I have quite a few older (2x - 8x) drivers that are working perfectly (some of them I got NOS years ago but never used), the newer drives that proudly tout their outrageous speed with big "52X MAX" labels look kind of out of place and most importantly, the usual CD slowdown tools don't work in most of my modern drives for some reason, and the constant spin-up noises and stutter as the drive gets up to speed when playing games get really annoying.

Regarding yellowing, although I would prefer everything looking like new it's not realistic so I don't mind it that much except when it's so uneven that makes my OCD kick in or when the yellow is so intense that it's actually disgusting, as if the item had been used as a urinal. Same for color matching, I avoid black drives on beige fronts (or vice-versa), but I like how grey drives look on beige cases for example (incidentally that's what my first PC had, so it's "valid" in my books). All in all, I just wish PC hardware had all been black to start with. The beige color is something I disliked even back then, black electronics always looked much more "futuristic" to me.

fool wrote on 2023-02-05, 07:33:

Just like you said Shponglefan.

CDrom drives are a bit compromise because many times there is that enormous speed rating "52x" to reveal my cheat.

I've never been a fan of those silly CD-ROM speed logos so I've started stockpiling older 2x to 8x drives and use those in older systems.

Plus I prefer slower drives just for the quiet factor.

I try to match colours, but I'm not anal about it. I'm more interested in having working systems than pretty ones 😀

Like most it seems beige drives in a beige case, black drives in a black case. If you could get Gotek's in beige I'd pay a little bit more for it but the grey doesn't bother me that much.
I'll clean a case with soap and water when I build it up but few marks or scratch's are fine all part of it's history.

When using modern cases I do use LED fans. The P4 is red (as in red hot) the Purple Pentium Pro, Blue Dual P3 (just cause blue fans exist) but that's about as exiting as I get, no case lighting or RGB or anything like that