Well I don't know about you but personal I love Packard Bell's computers of the mid 90's.

This is my personal 1996 Packard Bell Platinum 55, this case design is called the "Designer Tower" and personally I think it's pretty sweet. 😁

The other really notable case from the mid 90's as far as I'm concerned is the Packard Bell "Corner PC":

I personally like the older 'plain looking' beige cases of the 80s and 90s. Actually many of the more simple looking cases when used today if they are clean and free of scratches and dents and with color matched drives can look really good. I believe we're living in a time when something like that displayed nicely no matter how plain and beige looking is so different than what's available now that it can draw attention and be considered kind of cool and unique even to a non - hipster! Lol.

With that said I think some of the ibm aptiva cases were pretty cool as well as some of the Packard Bell ones like king courdory mentions. Granted the ibm aptiva were a bit pricey but now you can find them for cheap just like any other retro pc if you look hard enough in the right places. I have seen many other unique and nice looking cases in the older eras of computing but it's difficult to tell what you would like...at the end of the day it's really based on personal taste.

I remember that corner PC! I believe I learned Visual Basic on win 3.11 on a 486 corner PC 😀

Also Fujitsu - Siemens had some nice small desktop cases in the late 90s/early 00s.

I like this case design so much I bought two of them. I had one a loooooong time ago branded as a Quantex that wound up getting squeezed (not my choice).

Internally it is pretty roomy and built like a tank.

Personally I like plain, simple and industrial design. Like IBM Ps/1 and Aptiva machines in the form of desktop models.
The more plain and industrial looking, the better. Especially if they look like a factory fachine.

For the generic homemade computer retro case, I much more prefer cases like A-Open HQ45 and HX45.

The early apple computers like the LC looked pretty cool imho.

mjkerpan wrote:

Were there any "aeethetic" cases on the market in the classic era?

Colani
Cute PC chassis
what hardware were you using in 1999?

The 'boring beige boxes' that I've kept have continued to grow on me. But I don't miss the ones I recycled. Most really were pretty awkward.
download/file.php?id=19382&mode=view

Anything with contrastingly black 5" bays.

leileilol wrote:

Anything with contrastingly black 5" bays.

Yup, I do kind of like the PC and XT designs. Actually, IBM industrial design was usually pretty good. Except for the PS/2 towers. Those were kind of fugly.

Not as retro as some, but here are some nice fujitsu-siemens desktops from around 10-15 years ago:

Wow, those are pretty cool. 😁

I would definitely want a computer in one of those boxes.

Functional design = universal and hence cheaper one. So you need to look for "Home PC" / "Multimedia PC" models, where people could agree to pay additional price for "cool looking".
One of examples from mid 1990s was Acer Aspire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly5dh5KgVW0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viUYUeaV894

tametick wrote:

Not as retro as some, but here are some nice fujitsu-siemens desktops from around 10-15 years ago: http://www.itinstock.com/ekmp […]
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Not as retro as some, but here are some nice fujitsu-siemens desktops from around 10-15 years ago:

download/file.php?id=18099&mode=view