gar4o555 wrote on 2019-01-18, 10:54:

Hi everyone. I am looking for more info on this case, pic attached. It might as well be a clone, or just a cheap old case, but […]
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Hi everyone.
I am looking for more info on this case, pic attached.
It might as well be a clone, or just a cheap old case, but my first ever PC was in a case, with a front like this, so it has some santimental value to me. I am looking forward to rebuilding my first ever PC so I am actively looking to buy one like this.

Has anyone ever seen a case like this?
Webp.net-compress-image (1).jpg

Hi, I know that your post is oldish, was there no reply?
Did you ever find out the brand of that case?
I have one (pic attached), and was looking for info online and couldn't find much. Brand could be "ACS Computer", according to a similar front panel I found on eBay.

I'm also looking for a chassis name. I saw this on Twitter (posted by Jesse Petrilla)recently and I'm pretty sure it's the model of chassis I had growing up. I'd love to get one again, but it would be helpful to know the manufacturer... maybe, hah.

I have recently been able to determine that CTI with US operations in Dallas and CTI Europe were major distributors of that style of case. However, since almost nobody knows this, very few of them are listed as CTI cases.

Thank you very much! That doesn't surprise me that no one knows the makes of most of these old chassis, but at least it's one extra bit of info I can try searching with.

Has anyone ever seen this case before? It showed up on eBay today and I instantly fell in love with it, but I waited too long and someone else quickly bought it. I've never seen this model before in my life and there doesn't seem to be any other pictures of one on the entire internet (until today) so I'm guessing it's extremely rare. Really bummed about losing out on this one, it's so beautiful!

I can only find sign of two "Comtrade" computers for sale, this was one of the two :] only findable by misspelling the name and counting on Google doing OCR on all images - if you image search "coNtrade pc commputer" google shows same picture linking to ebay vintage section 😀
Other one "COMTRADE Express Desktop" is listed in US so it might have been small US company from ~286 era. Case looks full vendor custom.
Afaik nothing to do with Kosowo company established in 1992.

I am wondering if it's another iteration of CTI, because they started out in the 70s as Computer Time Inc, selling dial in time on mainframes, then by late 80s had pivoted into the case market with a line of the [IIII] front cases, and although at time of those cases I can't find out what they were calling themselves but their numbers and address were same as 70s. But then by 90s there was a Computer Traders Inc in same general Dallas area, also abbreviating to CTI but I can't link them that closely to the previous CTI... anyway Computer Traders Inc would also shorten to Comtrade.

Nothing specific on the case but Comtrade go back to the 286 era (plenty of hits on Google Books - ads, pics & system reviews). Also...

https://web.archive.org/web/19971008121040/ht … //comtrade.com/

https://web.archive.org/web/19970703162442/ht … omtrade-pc.com/

arncht wrote on 2019-01-10, 16:36:

January 1995 https://i.imgur.com/jrXBF2x.jpg […]
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January 1995

Anybody know who made the case in the middle of the January 1995 picture? It was my first PC tower case. I built my first machine in it, which may have been a 486 DX4/100. I can't remember that far back.
But the case has meaning to me, and I kick myself for getting rid of the one I had.

If anyone knows which company made it I might be able to do a search. Thanks

vintageGuy81 wrote on 2024-05-15, 00:50:

Anybody know who made the case in the middle of the January 1995 picture? It was my first PC tower case. I built my first mach […]
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arncht wrote on 2019-01-10, 16:36:

January 1995 https://i.imgur.com/jrXBF2x.jpg […]
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January 1995

Anybody know who made the case in the middle of the January 1995 picture? It was my first PC tower case. I built my first machine in it, which may have been a 486 DX4/100. I can't remember that far back.
But the case has meaning to me, and I kick myself for getting rid of the one I had.

If anyone knows which company made it I might be able to do a search. Thanks

That looks very similar to the one I posted just a few posts above. If the same company made it, then the best guess is that they were distributed by CTI, but no one really knows that or posts listings with it labelled that way... your best bet is to watch eBay and Craigslist for vintage/retro computer postings and hope you get lucky. 🙁

I need help identifying the case model. It should be an Enlight case; DTK always used it. I have personal memories of it from a summer student job I had in 1996, where we built DTK Pentium PCs for the local university. We used exactly the same case.

Based on this… https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ … erfect_for_mid/

Enlight Exacta EN6552 (~1996-97)

Somebody has another idea? Pdfs etc?

arncht wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:11:

Based on this… https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ … erfect_for_mid/

Enlight Exacta EN6552 (~1996-97)

Somebody has another idea? Pdfs etc?

https://web.archive.org/web/19980703015926/ht … ducts/6552z.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/19980703014055/ht … ts/6552mini.htm

arncht wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:02:

I need help identifying the case model. It should be an Enlight case; DTK always used it. I have personal memories of it from a summer student job I had in 1996, where we built DTK Pentium PCs for the local university. We used exactly the same case.

I had a desktop version of it back in the day for my first VLB system. VLB finally made me ditch my low profile case with the ISA riser board that I used 1990-1993

I found that the same metal case came out with different front panels. The two cases in this picture that are the same height are nearly identical except for the plastic front:
Re: PC tower cases by year

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-05-29, 11:56:

arncht wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:11:

Based on this… https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/ … erfect_for_mid/

Enlight Exacta EN6552 (~1996-97)

Somebody has another idea? Pdfs etc?

https://web.archive.org/web/19980703015926/ht … ducts/6552z.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/19980703014055/ht … ts/6552mini.htm

Thanks for the confirmation. It seems that 1996 was an early date when I encountered it. In Western countries, ATX cases were already being used, but it was more popular in Eastern European areas. I plan to use it for a 1997 MMX build.

douglar wrote on 2024-05-29, 13:33:

I had a desktop version of it back in the day for my first VLB system. VLB finally made me ditch my low profile case with the I […]
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arncht wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:02:

I need help identifying the case model. It should be an Enlight case; DTK always used it. I have personal memories of it from a summer student job I had in 1996, where we built DTK Pentium PCs for the local university. We used exactly the same case.

I had a desktop version of it back in the day for my first VLB system. VLB finally made me ditch my low profile case with the ISA riser board that I used 1990-1993

I found that the same metal case came out with different front panels. The two cases in this picture that are the same height are nearly identical except for the plastic front:
Re: PC tower cases by year

Oh yeah... I have seen this front, for example, on PCs around 1995, and I have also seen this style on the bigger models in PC magazines. These two cases should be of a similar age. I guess you are talking about a slightly different, more angular version. I saw the more angular version around 1993-94 in my high school as DX2 builds (again, DTK). It had a mini tower version too, which looked very similar to what I showed before.

I found it... So, the more angular version was around 1993-94 (486 builds), and the more rounded version was from 1996-98 (Pentium builds).

Angular was also available in 1992 as mid tower:
https://books.google.at/books?id=X4152M1DLygC … e&q=Dtk&f=false

Low profile desktop of the rounded version in 1995, there are the bigger brothers of the banded mini tower:
https://books.google.at/books?id=FTbctntiaHgC … e&q=Dtk&f=false

How i see… dtk used:
* angular version 92~96
* linear version 95~97
* rounded 95~97