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Iris Indigo Case Mod
James Palmer writes: "I have always been enamored with SGI's
Iris Indigo. Recently I resurrected an old Iris Indigo by
retrofitting it with an ATX motherboard
and powersupply." Lots of gruntwork here for a very impressive result.
More like butchered.
It begs the question...
WHY?
I must be getting old...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
...so why would you do that? Even if the indigo had a bad motherboard or the like, well, that can be replaced... Why ruin a great machine by putting an x86 motherboard in it? I hate that like I hate the way people put other machines in NeXT cubes...it doesnt make any sense.
Maybe you should make Case Mods a seperate category of news. I mean, lately there have been about 1 a day. that should be enough, considering some categories come up RARELY (Amiga, MacOS, etc).
Just a suggestion.
-teldak
Case modding is for the same people
who paint flames on their cars.
Talk about following "tough acts"... that Frozen case earlier today makes this one look like my ass.
Thats what I want to see. All these case mods going around, why hasn't anybody made a lego pc case yet? Seems a natural fit. That would be really cool, if somebody else did it
I really feel that these case mod stories should be restricted to the extremely new or innovative. There are web sites for this type of thing.
I mean, if someone turned an old Volkswagon Beetle into a modded case, I'd be impressed. Beyond that, it's all just pretty bells and whistles to me.
This is a very poor hack job compared to other recent case mods.
who set fire to their cars? ;-)
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
okay, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but WHY IS EVERYONE SHOWING OFF THEIR MODS?? The mod where the guy built his own case with the laser cut logos, etc. was at least semi-innovative/creative. All this guy did was core out an old computer and stick new crap in it. C'mon, I want NEWS people, not Show-n-Tell.
please feel the need to give me a Troll rating.
Applefritter has some great lego-cased systems...even a powerbook!
You can get similarly shaped server cases from most hi end PC parts manufacturers, in a variety of colors.
What I'd really like to see is a case mod with an O2 case. There's lot of low end, sub 200Mhz ones that are salvageable from dotcom auctions.
This is more in the realm of "too much time on my hands" -- it reminds me of that time in college when we slapped together a machine using an empty case from Leinenkugals (we got to drink the beer, too, which was a hefty side benefit).
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Macs aren't obsolete
Macs look cool
Macs aren't x86
No, I'm sure someone is going to post that, but when you get down to it, SGI machines are pretty 31337.
Sure SGIs look good, but they perform pretty well too.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Heres a tip for all of you nay sayers: shut up. What a bunch of whiners in this thread.
On topic, I like the mod. Nifty.
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
Sloggos says Bloggos ate Mloggos
Where can I get a wife that will go dumpster-diving for computer hardware with me?
Do tell.
"Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."
Remember the guy who burnt the case? What I want is an computer with a burning case ;-)...
;-)
Would just putting an Athlon in without a heat-sink work?
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
I couldn't help but notice that he has only USB devices, which includes his CD-ROM. My second CD drive is a USB, and I find that it is way too slow to use frequently. I'm amazed that he can stand it, if he indeed can.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Are there site statistics for this fellas page too? In the last case-mod post, it was almost as fun to check out the case as watch his server get nailed.
forma3
I'm the proud (?) owner of an SQL Iris 4M. I can't get it to boot. It also needs a 20 Amp shop-style plugin. I've been debating turning it into a bar fridge or maybe a really oversized PC case. If anyone objects to this senseless butchering of a historical artifact, let me know and I might be willing to sell (shipping NOT included! And you can come pick it up, I put my back out last time I moved it).
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
Check it out!
SGI has a log history of cool mods.
While I was working there, folks pointed out the Espressigo.
'Dem was the dayz.
i hope he grounded the thing!
maybe i'm wrong... but wouldn't it be very bad to mount a motherboard on a piece of plexiglass?
On his page, he mentions that he took out the inner metal chassis and replaced it with plexiglas.
He no longer has any RF shielding...
My roommate and I have had one for months. Exact same case. Pretty easy mod, the hardest part was drilling the holes for motherboard standoffs. I put an ecs motherboard in it with a builtin cyrix 667, and 192 megs of ram. I wanted the cyrix's low power consumption since I am a starving college student who has to pay the bills. The ecs motherboard also had lan, audio and video on board. I put 120 gigs of storage in it, and have it running windows terminal services, so I can use the rdesktop program on my linux computers. It also serves some DNS and acts as an NT domain controller. Mainly it stores MP3's. The other thing about it that is neat is I added a crystalfontz lcd panel. Old SGI cases are hard to find though, so good luck repeating. How all I need to do is find someway to mod my sparc 5 *grin*
Doug
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
...
in a dumpster.
Fit all of that into an Indy, then I'll be impressed.
Mods are cool and all, but I can get more than I care for here, among other places.
this is crazy. exchanging the best of all sgi machines for crappy pc hardware, damn, the world is rolling to it's end.
I just don't get it. This is the RiceBoy syndrome (www.riceboys.com) applied to computers. Performance is exactly the same, but "it looks fast."
Go ahead, moderators. Troll this. But you know as well as I, it's the truth.
--
Spaz!
(For those unfamiliar with RBS, or unwilling to follow the link, Riceing a car means one adds a bunch of stickers, a big coffee-can muffler and wheels that stick out past the fenders to a (usually foreign-made) car. While the owner thinks it looks cool, everyone past puberty thinks it's stupid.
You would have seen that these systems were stripped and thrown in a dumpster.
But yeah an R3k is basically a playstation 1 with a hard drive.
link is here...
http://home.nexvs.net/~ggeros/captainchest.htm
To me this is better than gutting "just another case" and plopping an x86 in it.
Making the computer not look like THE COMPUTER is a much more worth use of time.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You would never know it's not a real Iris Indigo.
With all the metal removed and a plexiglass frame replacing it the FCC could probably tell its not a real Indigo from the EMF radiation.
I think though that I might be inspired to do a case mod now using a Sun 411 enclosure. Given the past two days bigger cases seem to be better, perhaps I can mount my Handspring inside it.
'Same speed C but faster'
But it wasn't great. I much prefer the case mod that the guy made out of an old IBM 5150. Now that was a mod. This case mod, while it did require a cut or two, is basically just taking out the SGI motherboard and putting an Intel one in instead. The Indigo case doesn't even look that cool.
Call the FCC!
Geeze the used computer store near my house has 2 Iris Indigos for $299 each with no keyboard, mouse or monitor. Not to mention NO ELAN graphics.
Its a freakin ripoff. Yet they were selling Sun Ultra 1 Creator 3D systems for 300 with 256mb ram and 9 gig HD.
but it begs the question: What is the most ludicrous case mod out there, in terms of effort and aesthetic of the result? Anyone?
D
stuff |
I wish the case-mod insdustry and the sex-toy industry would join forces in an onholy alliance that would present to the world the ultimate geek product. A hot, lifelike girl that dual booted and had room for 5 drives, a couple gigs of ram and had usb, firewire and biological "ports". Until that happens I just don't see the point. :)
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
In an attempt to get hits on his website and a story on /., Joe Bloggs ripped the guts out of his new iMac and managed to hammer in an x86 system. He claimed this has been the most adventurous case mod yet. Others are not convinced.
"This isn't a case mod, sure he had to cut some holes and stuff, but basically he just ruined a perfectly good iMac. Shouldn't he be shot?" said one reader.
Another reader pointed out that throwing a 350 Chev into a Ford is not really modifying the look of the Ford. He did say however, "It would shock the pants of people when it actually displays some grunt, that is until the suspension goes."
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
I have a complete AS/400 sitting in my basement (510 series, no joke, inherited from a friends business) that could hold several computers and all their components...
;)
Can anyone say "wow, imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!"... (ba-da-bing)
But seriously, I guess it would be pretty neat to make a self-contained cluster computer inside a 400lb (that's where the AS/400 comes from) slick black case... I'll have to get out the torch and give it a try someday.
Unless someone wants the thing... U-haul/pay shipping of course
Wow! This must be a PERSONAL letter, just for me!
Jeez. I wish I could say things like that. (/me pats his p166 fondly)
This picture says it all. We are all doomed. He could use some more grit and mass around his jiggly elbows. Why don't people build muscle anymore? For crying out loud.
Maybe someone could've convinced the spineless graphics artist to lift the computercase 200 times a day instead of burning it.
HERCULES! HERCULES! HERCULES! uhm isn't Sam Lantinga's linuxgames.com account named "hercules" or something like that?
I just received my black YeongYang Cube case (No, not Cube as in Apple, just Cube), and it looks a lot like this case. The case is twice as wide as a normal case, with the motherboard on one side and the drives on the other. They are made for servers: 2 external 3 1/2, 6 external 5 1/4, 8 internal 3 1/2. More space than a full tower, and half as high.
By the way, YeongYang is not the only manufacturer of this type of cases: I know Chenbro has a similar line.
I dunno.... Looking at the pictures it looks like there's an awful lot of unshielded plastic. The reason PCs go into metal boxes is so that you don't wreck your next door neighbor's TV reception (or worse).
Don't think i could live with my self if i turned the computer ( even if it's out of fashion) i grew up dreaming about into a generic x86.
have some respect
So he takes the Indigo case and puts that Zip drive on top? Oh dear, the clashing, it hurts my eyes so, it is so utterly *minging*, darling.
To use an SGI for ordinary graphic design would be a totl waste. It's for high-end 3D CGI effects and animation, among other things.
The Geforce card you speak of is current technology, the O2 (I have one) is 6 year-old technology. In its time SGI was the ONLY way to do the 3D rendered stuff. PCs have only recently surpassed them.
You sound really ignorant in your post.
I haven't understood the point of case mods. Wouldn't you be better served upgrading the hardware? That's what makes your machine run, after all.
To post those gutted Indigo cases on Ebay ;)
I found a before picture for those of you that are curious. more before pics here The next case I buy will probably be a Lian Li PC-60 and I do like the case mod articles on /. but it may be a good idea to make a seperate topic for hardware mods.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I took a Sun SparcIPX case and stuck my old K62/400 system inside. It was a fun little project with the eventual goal of turning it into a Linux broadband router+firewall. If anyone is interested one of these days I'll post the pics for all to enjoy. Next project is to put a PC into a Sparc 5 case.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
My first case mod was a TRS-80 model IV, I needed to be able to get to the board with a soldering gun so I just used a sawsall on the case and cut a square-ish pattern on the back. My next case mod was for my CB radio, I needed the 12VDC for my "kicker" so I tore up a few old IMB's (the old ones that have the dual 8 1/2" floppys) and stuffed a few giant capacitors in there. WOrked great except for the 60HZ buzz....
Maybe for my next magical trick I will take my 80186 XEROX tower(nicknamed "Those little brown boxes") and gut it and make it into a little 486 33MHz firewall. All I'd have to do is completely destroy it. It even has an external 5 1/2 floppy that sits on top!
Wait. Na..
Here's a great link for doing a similar case mod.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I see there are many comments about "No RF shielding!" because of the use of plexiglas. I know that the steel that was ripped out would have provide shielding. My question is, would Aluminum provide RF shielding? Steel would be difficult to shape but either simple heavy duty aluminum foil or even the thick aluminum sticky tape (used for heating duct) would be easy to wrap around the plexiglas.
You should read sgi's CURRENT webpage and then tell me I'm ignorant. They sell it as an all-in-one digital editing machine including video. A 'feature' is firewire. Digital audio is extra. Analog comes with. They also have a webcam for capturing those office antics. You are bitter for spending so much. I don't blame you. SGI is bitter that they haven't innovated. WHY are they so overpriced and so far behind. I'll tell you why Mr.COBOL, because they suck.
And they were designed for ripping the guts out
and replacing with a PC?
Maybe if the case was bigger, then you could squeeze a CDROM in.
-don
My name is Indigo Montoya. You stole my RF shielding. Prepare to die!
*ducks*
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Slashdot is the next [H]ardOCP, eh?
but hey, so am i...
I used to play with Indigo's in college - used Open Inventor...ahh those were the days!
Bob
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
Anybody seen any nice cases that aren't just boxes? ie, spheres, disks, pyramids, that sort of thing. Non-parallel sides. Art school stuff. Stuff inspired by cool architecture like Le Corbusier (sp) and Frank Gehry, etc?
Just curious as the boxen with radioactive green on black or aluminum with blue LEDs is a little old. They all look like electrified trash compactors.
Also I agree with others: if /. is going to start showing hardware hacks all the time it needs its own category!
That case doesn't match the iomega casing.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Well.. putting a regular machine into a fancy machine's box is kind of like cheating. Of course, your guests are going to be impressed for a second but the disappointment will be bigger. :-)
I've seen a Sun Ultra being put in an old XT case. Now pointing to this XT case and saying 'well, this is our server' was much cooler IMHO
When men used to be men
Thank you, good AC.
The aluminum cube mentioned a day ago, however, was a case that was breathtaking. It's one thing to take a case and strip it down to what you need (or add things like lights/fans), and a completely different thing to build the case from scratch, using your own designs.
Which brings me to the question: when the hell are we going to see mainstream cases that don't resemble current towers? Are there cases that are, by default, modded in the fashion common nowadays (status lcds, excess fans, useless-yet-pretty lights)? I'd really like to see less case mods and more completely custom cases, but I don't think that would happen until the souped-up cases people do now are no longer seen as modded cases, and are instead seen as mainstream. I'm assuming the main reason people mod cases is for the "hey look at my nifty case" factor; if everyone had nifty cases, then hopefully more people would consider building a custom case from scratch in order to distinguish themselves.
Maybe then we'll finally see those dodecahedron cases that the G5 is rumored to reside in :D
This is a cool idea, I've been wondering for a while how feasible it is......especially since I have 9 indigos + keyboards/mice + 19" monitors filling up a closet.....hmmmmm.....I could use some more ideas though...
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Why on earth would I tear my Indigo^2 apart to make a boring, normal PC out of it? It's still perfectly useful; an Iris Indigo would've been, too.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
hook...
line...
sinker...
'Toss er back Jim, this one's over.'
Thanks for the troll, it's been fun.
-This troll compliments of your friendly neighbourhood poo-beard.
You may want to take a look at the URL below. This would be great for those people who are interested in building PC cases entirely out of plexiglass while still preserving the integrity of their TV reception.
http://www.lessemf.com/plastic.html
Don't understand why he even bothered to rip out the metal shielding... didn't look like it really would've been tough to cut and leave there so the thing was shielded still.
"Look Ma! I've made a neat purple TV interference box!"
EspressigoBy day.
CappuccinoBy night.
I am thinking in the exact opposite manner of most case modders. I am currently looking for the oldest moldiest tan/beige case that I can find, something from the early 1980's maybe. Then I plan to throw a dual proc mobo and a gig or two of ram in it. That seems like it would be way cooler than all the cheesy mods that I am seeing lately with their neon-lights and plexiglass windows, feh...
Or you can just get one of these!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
And they were designed for ripping the guts out and replacing with a PC?
Actually, sadly, the outside part was designed as a skin for the computer inside. I can't believe he destroyed a nice and probably working piece of equipment just to have the skin.
(Of course, I can't understand why people hunt endangered animals to hang on their walls, either.)
He could have removed the skin without damaging the computer. You can find Indigo skins for sale by checking Google... it's an item that new owners sometimes replace because it's scratched...
Get off my launchpad!
Hmmm...let's bury this were no one will see it.
Here's an idea. Building a distributed computer system that looks like those high-end sound systems people put in their cars. The amps for example would hold a P4 nicely with more than adaquate cooling
The front end could be a modified PDA. Periphials? Well lets see. CD players already come in a "car" form factor, complete with a nice control panel.
Keyboard? A happy hackers keyboard, or a chord keyboard perhaps. Printer? Well they already come in the "small" catagory, and some do look decent.
Talking with the outside world, dialup,etc?
Some creative is possible her. Maybe using an old "consumer" appliance (VCR case,stereo) with a modified backplate. Modify the front (let your imagination go here,informative displays).
Of course someone with mad hardware as well as software skills would be needed.
Remember think "not everything in the same box".
Best slashdot post EVER
Ah, those were the days. Contrast with the latest PC case I just bought. The metal was so thin that when I put my fingers into the expension slots to pull it into place under my desk, I ended up with multiple deep incisions in my fingers, like the world's worst paper cuts. Ick.
The only case I've ever seen that's more solid that an Indigo was an IBM PC from about 1985, made in Greenock, Scotland, a famous shipbuilding town. I reckon that the fab had just swapped over from making plates for ships, and decided to re-use the last few, complete with water-tight bulkheads. ;-)
But SGI's are amazingly robust (and heavy) as well. A workmate just bought an Indigo (the desktop orientation) on eBay. The seller noted that he'd package it up to his usual high standard, although there wasn't really any need. When it arrived, we saw what he meant. If the Indigo was a car, it would be a Mercedes. But not an ordinary Mercedes. It would be one of the "Diplomatic Specials", the ones that sneer at small arms, and give you a fair change against an RPG. It's that sort of construction. It's not just the thickness of the box, it's the redundant internal bracing, and that the components have multiple fixings, or are in snug caddys. You could probably go over Niagra Falls in one of these babies. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
... especially because the Indigo (like many SGI systems) was built like a mini rack... there was a backplane at the rear of the case, and all the boards slid in on rails and latched in. Drives were also sled-mounted (which is a royal PITA for SGI retroheads like myself, always scrounging for sleds!).
Please, PLEASE take the time to insert the html for your links. It makes reading user posts much, much nicer...
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I have my old 1992 Sparc 10 chassis hanging around for just this purpose. The onboard SCSI sontroller went, re-empting boot, so I rehosted memory and CPU to a Sparc 20, got a new SCA disk, and went about my life.
But I would really like to use the SS10 case for a linux box. Now, has anyone re-used the Sun 145W PS, or do you get a new ATX PS from a company that builds 1U cases and use that?
I have a dreamel, and a parts pile of microATX mobos.
This is all very interesting, but I do a bit of woodworking and would like to know if anyone out there has built a wooden case that looks like fine furniture? Veneer the whole thing with birds eye maple, add some plinth molding, raised panel CD-ROM drawer, french polish finish, claw feet (or perhaps tapered legs), brass drawer pull for a power button...
The admin of the First Class BBS, Gamma Quadrant has taken a couple of rev a iMacs with dead CRT's and shoved the guts into this piece of hardware which lets you rackmount your iMac innards. Has extensions for all the necessities, VGA port, usb, etc.
To be fair to the moderators, you were doing a little trolling. /. and moderators are trying to minimize it as much as they can. I would suggest waiting until you can read the article, someone mirrors it or you find the google cache of the page that you refrain from posting judgements about the article.
1. You post offtopic without reading article
2. Complain that you can't read article
3. Speculate and then complain about what the guy in the article might have done.
These kinds of things are used to start arguements all the time here on
(Back Ontopic)
I don't own an SGI box but I was on ebay looking for one right before the article was posted. I would love to have one up and running but would settle for a gutted Indigo with an athlon in it over an athlon in a beige box.
I have a couple Powermac 8600s that have been stripped of memory and hd. I'm thinking about putting a ATA100 controller and a hd and running LinuxPPC on them to replace my boring P3 450 box.
Unfair.
1. My original post was completely on topic.
2. I didn't complain that I couldn't read the article, I defended myself when someone accussed me of it.
3. I didn't speculate what he had done, so much as speculate where the rest of the SGI went.
If people want to argue, they'll argue about anything. Using that as a justifcation to shut me up is weak.
(Back Ontopic)
You're much better off reading comp.sys.sgi.marketplace. Sure, there are too many dealers there wanting retail prices for stuff that doesn't deserve wholesale... but every once in awhile there is a gem. My luck is that every time one of these comes along, I'm flat broke. I'm serious too, we're talking full Indigo 2 systems in the $150 range, not some beat up, half the parts are missing Personal Iris. Honest to god, with vintage hardware, if it doesn't have the mouse and keyboard, and every other proprietary piece, you're better off waiting. My DECstation is still wanting the puck mouse and a copy of Ultrix 4.3 (this is also valid for SGI... if the drives are pulled, forget it, IRIX media costs up to $150, or even higher).
And please. Don't ever butcher vintage hardware. Ever. So what if it was only the case... someone out there might have had just the motherboard. And he's just ruined it. As a guy that has waited along time to find some parts to complete systems, this really does make me sad.
Take a look at the PowerLeap Renaissance/370S. That could be an easy way to put modern hardware in an old or unusual case.
even if you can't get ahold of (semi-) proprietary peripherals, these are "real machines" after all, and can be run from a serial port. I've got a stack of SGI challenge Ss in my basement that run this way.
if you don't dig ultrix, (or can't get it,) NetBSD has been running on DECStations now for years. my main machine (DNS, HTTP, SMTP, SSH plus a handful of users) at home is a 5000/240 running NetBSD 1.4.3A and I have nothing but praise for its reliability. the hardware is easily capable of five-nines uptime and is very well engineered. even the smaller 2100s and 3100s can make reliable light servers.
The horror! :~( to think that perfectly functional machines still capable of useful work are getting destroyed and scrapped around the world everyday is bad enough, but if people start scrapping machines to cool cases? no respect.
visit thepoofygoof orphanarium for obsolete unix boxes
NetBSD: the cathedral vs the bizzare.
Is the big news that someone put a computer inside a computer case???? Ok its not the computer that it was designed for but not really that impressive. Slashdot needs to have seperate sections for real news and hey look at this! types of stories.
If anything, I'd say, "Anything Goes"
http://www.bit-tech.com/ and http://www.virtual-hideout.net/ have some AMAZING tricks.
Esp. the windowed HD - OMG...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?