Slashdot Mirror
Tool Box PC
Mr. Red Baron writes "A resident geek at Ars Technica has turned his toolbox into a nice little computer. Looks more portable than most LAN party designs I've seen." His webpage has a few more pictures.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
"Resident Geeks" didn't have web pages on AOL!
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
The yearly nude pinup calender for that complete workshop feel :D
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
I must say that this is the best LAN party mod I have seen in a long long time.
Well done.
-- now, if I could only do that with a Sun E10K
comment directly in my journal
I'd like to see that thing go through airport security.
Witness the Rebirth of ENRON!
tcd004
My only question is, he does point out (as the pictures show), that it's rather unbalanced (crowded)... I wonder how heavy the whole unit is... is it a pain to carry, or is it easy?
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
How about a beowulf cluster of these?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
I've seen a lot of "case mods", but this has to be by-far the most practical of them all. It's portable, it has a handle, and the insides are very easily accessible. Find a toolbox that has a bit more protection for ruggedness (rubber corners maybe?) and maybe a little deeper to provide room for cables, mouse, and a small keyboard and you have the perfect LAN party box :)
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Pretty cool, though he must've been really bored to bother. Now we need a server like that, the first Toolbox-mount server! I also want to see someone create a machine in a printer case.
So when does the combination USB Hard drive/screwdriver come out?
Looks like a quality mod, I'm wondering how the heat buildup in that works ... its not nearly as cool if you have to keep the lid open all the time ...
you have to admire that someone took the time to design and build this. Easy to carry, store, etc.
But this thing is just plain UGLY. It's cool that it's so portable and easy to lug around, but damn.
By the way, nice bottle of Jerkins on the desk. Sinner!
I have a Tachometer mounted in my PC.
Here is a Picture.
Looks like a very clean, well thought out mod. It looks like it would work as your normal computer, instead of just a toy box.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
My computer to say "Rubbermaid". Or how about filling it with the "Computer Turd" foam from last week "http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/29/05232 05&mode=thread" and see if it can sustain a fall from 35,000 feet.
From the first page referenced:
The machine has a Biostar M7VKQ motherboard with integrated sound, video and LAN, and a Duron 750 is the CPU
Date posted?
posted December 31, 1969 06:00 PM
Damn, there goes that 640k is enough thing if they had Durons back then...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
with his bottle of lotion next to his monitor, we all know what THAT's for, HaH!
Those toolboxes are rather cheap to buy. Pity they don't offer too much EMI protection as metal cases do. Those computers are rather noisy thingies what comes to radio frequencies..
Anyway, that case seems rather well built and easy to carry around. Optimum would be that everything including game controllers and flat screen display would fit into box.
This is much nicer solution than the urethane foam mess which was admired here a little time ago. (Hey, you can cast your computer in concrete and it still might work - it is not too smart though.)
That is the mark of a cool local computer store, just the type I like. :) I don't use CEX or Maplin unless I've got no choice.
And one other thing... Is that a bottle of hand cream by his monitor? Heh.
Ali
"Windows and Linux can co-exist on the same machine." - Microsoft Corporation.
didnt the doctor have one of those?
well.....his had a sonic screwdriver
This would make a pretty nice addition to my collection of toolboxen. I have a couple different tool sets configured for working on a different variety of things (boxes I take to my friends' houses when they have this kind of trouble or that...). Sometimes I end up taking along multiple boxes because I just don't feel like switching things around (and it's good to have more tools at your disposal anyway - you never know!) But someone with a computer problem - just throw this baby in the trunk and go!
Ok, well don't 'throw' it. If (not 'if' but 'when') I build one of these, I'll be sure to add some shock protection to the mobo and CD drive. A keyboard holder inside the unit would be pretty nice too. Carry it all in one go. Fit an inexpensive flatscreen inside the cover case you've no CRT to hook up to and you're good to go.
Dual 12V battery pack with inverter could go in there too...
its cool but i dont like tool boxes as much.
so i put mine in a brief case.
its for lan parties yes but as a dedicated cs-server and stats box.
one should always keep that lube bottle handy, just in case a pr0n pic shows up suddenly :)
It looks like a computer in a tool box.
Do you think has a place to hold a screwdriver in case the screws get loose?
Sorry. Seriously though, how well do screws hold in warm plastic?
I've done it with a briefcase....pictures to come as soon as I find my digital camera.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Every time I go to a site like this, I am bombarded with hundreds of giant images taking up all my bandwidth and RAM.
Have they never heard of thumbnails?
I believe I've seen this before...
Next thing you know, we're gonna hear about Cobalt suing this guy...
Where could i get one of those cases? They look very handy!
would be far easier and comes with a built in screen and batteries !!!
My Osbourne One did this a long time ago.
Unlike that dumb foam pc this is actually cool. I would want one of these. /. is finnally posting cool stuff again!
I think its pretty funny how he has the vasaline dispenser right beside his box. That's really descrete. Now he can carry his porn where ever he goes.
He should find (or build) some adequately sized speakers and attach them to the box. That would be really something :) ...
Anyway, nice idea. Might try to build one myself
Anyone else notice the large bottle of lotion? I wonder what THAT is used for...
If you're blind, it's here: http://members.aol.com/prophetm/toolbox/on2.jpg
Anyone else notice the bottle of lotion next to the monitor in the 5th picture? Is it any wonder he had time to make this thing? :)
Very cool idea/design. Me thinks I want to make one myself just for fun.
Just one computer in a tool box? Check out this.
Never again will I need to hunt for tools to work on my computer, now I can store them with the computer itself (and yet not have them lying around in a big pile).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Truly awesome. Thanks for the link. Blows away that little wimpy toolbox.(And no "hand lotion" either!)
slashdot sinks to new low! now slashdotting personal websites!
Liberty.
Now get your dirty minds out of the gutter.
-
(Note that you can get something similar in the lunchbox format (e.g., here and many other places).
Many keep bottles of hand cream around in convienent places for dry skin. I know many who carry some around in their purse.
-
Quick nuke'm all while they're up for air. Everyone whose one fixation was the lotion qualifies for the /. weenie nametag.
Before Disney bastardized Inspector Gadget the cartoon beckoned precocious hackers and this mod shows the imprint of a onetime Inspector Gadget fan. Rock on d00d. well done. I wanna do one in the bottom tray of my tackel box just to drive the final metal screw into the psyche of my fishing buddies who think I've gone cyborg.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I'm just going to glue boards to the wall and shove the powersupply halfway through the sheetrock. The hardrives will hang from the chandelier in the dining room. And I'll make the monitor watertight and mount it inside the fishtank.
Yes it's a nice job, and I'd love to have one myself. But I came over all sad and reminiscing when I looked at the pics. It's just that I can remember the days when a cool hardware hack was to build a computer from scratch. Nowdays it seems that if you just repackage some commerical product people will gush all over you.
.. shiny computer .. wow!!"
Is this where it's headed - "ooh look
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You asked for it.
I only looked at the pictures, but did the author say how much the finished product weight? :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Woooo! Apple needs to employ this guy to make the Macintosh ever LESS desirable! Is he a carpenter??? Nice Stanley tools! I stepped in dog poo today! This rawkz! Someone shove a .45 in my brain stem and pull the trigger! What a great idea! Wooo! News! I'm glad I stayed up late!
And people seriously wonder why Linux isn't competitive on the desktop? Try workin' on the *OS* instead of building half-assed PC boxes Bob Villa.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Very nice but i am seriously disapointed with slashdot on this. I am a diehard case moder and i have seen thousands upon thousands of this exact same mod done in the last few years. I assumed that slashdot readers would be more aware of the mod culture and thus aware of this feature which is becomeing more and more common. Check some out here
~~~~~~~~~~~ Who Supports Big Brother Now? -Tomj-
I've seen advertisements for that thing late at night. You know, the ones with that guy from "Home Improvement". You can use it to bring the power of the internet to your business. How cool is that?
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
What freaking Notebook computers are for?
- Young Guns II
, that other one!!Who mediates your information?
Thanks all; I'm glad so many of you like the box. And for those who think it's ugly: be glad I didn't use the yellow version of the toolbox. As I said on the page, it's meant for my daughter. If it was meant to be more high-performance I would have chosen a different mobo with more appropriate specs. Even now it would would do great for LAN parties if I dropped in a decent vid card.
;)
/. AOL for a little while!
About balance: yes, it is a little heavier on one side than the other, but not overly so. It's easy to carry from either direction, because the PSU is still fairly central.
About the size of the box: I would have loved to get a toolbox big enough for peripherals, but I just couldn't find one. I looked all over town and this was the best I could do. Virtually every toolbox I found was too narrow to hold a motherboard. There were plenty wider and taller, but most toolboxes were less than 8" deep, front to back.
As for why the page is hosted on AOL; I've explained it before when I catch flak at Ars about my AOL-ness, but I won't go into it all. Suffice it to say that my main connection is cable. I pay $0 for the AOL, so why not use it?
Yes, I am a lowly user of Win98. It does what I want it to do. My wife is OK with it, too. Sorry if it bugs you.
As for the Jergens... take a look at the pic. Wolf mousepad, turtles and wolves on top of the monitor. What does it add up to? I'll tell you: it's my wife's desk in the living room. It was much easier to plug it all in there since her machine was already down with a bad mobo.
Frankly, anyone who could recognize that bottle as Jergens specifically, must have some of their own...
Congrats to you all: you even managed to
There's just one problem here...
what's he gonna put all his tools??
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
pump up the volume... i really liked that one.
-- john
from the creator's webpage:
A local computer shop gave me a spare backplane for all the ports when I came in looking for one.
The creator could at least have mentioned the name (or a link?) of the generous store... That's the problem with kids nowadays; damn ungrateful rats!
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
... that 'visible butt crack' will become a stereotype for lan-geeks?
Heh I can't wait to start trying on overalls to compliment my new toolbox PC!
"Derp de derp."
Carry it on a plane past security.
Nice job.
I really like it, it just doesn't seem all that practical.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Just like the loser who made it... a fucking toolbox.
I guess without playing around with it, I can't be sure, but I have to wonder if the hard drives are going to overheat. From what I can see, he's got the bottom of the power supply (HOT!) right next to the hard drives (HOT!). Not a good combination.
Perhaps the hard drives could have gone under the CDROM -- or does that throw the weight off too much? Maybe the hard drives above the power supply instead of below.
Just a thought...
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Yup. Pretty cool. Nicely done. And a lot cheaper than thesecomputers with handles. Though I still lust for one of their ruggedized laptops. Can't justify the price.
The last time I checked you can't marry a blow up doll.
I'll take your word for it. Maybe you have need to look into that sort of thing, but *I've* never had occassion to check.
how do you know that's not just a really good windows-looking ui theme?
On page 4 of his website, there is a picture of his computer setup.
Next to the moniter is the grossest bottle of lotion. Oh my God.
Jeez, another slashdot story about COMPUTER CASES, surely the dullest topic possible.
If we're not being subjected to intriguing tales of small-footprint Intel boxes (yawn), it's yet another lateral-thinking genius who's fitted a beowulf cluster up a rhino's arse.
Yes, we get it. Computers are indeed small. Move along. Move along.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
The tachometer is the gayest thing I have ever seen.
... I'd just like to virtually shake your hand, and say, what you did not only shows that you're a real geek (and I mean that in the best possible way), but also that it's really fucking cool!
:)
Cheers,
Akky
But is it practical? He didn't put any radiation shielding in there, and the toolbox has a plastic lid. That means that the toolbox computer will be leaking radiation like buggery, interfering with other electrical and electronic equipment nearby.
And why is this box better than say a small desktop machine? He must have spent hours building it, so it would have been cheaper to just spend a few hundred dollars to get a cheap machine.
...
...it's called a PowerBook G4, is a HELL of a lot more compact than that, has a 667MHz G4, a gig of RAM, a 60 gig drive, gigabit ethernet, wireless, and a RADEON Mobility video subsystem with 16MB DDR...
Wow! You are so correct! One could construct this such that either a normal powersupply (one you connect to the wall) OR a battery based power source (wired into the original supply as you state) could power the thing. You could also quite easily build a regulator circut and employ the use of some switchers and or linear devices (free samples at National Semiconductor) to provide all your voltages from 12 or 24V. Not bad.... Just put as many battery packs in there as you can fit/cary and wire them in parallel! Construct a charger circuit that tops off the batteries whenever you're plugged into the wall! ... bingo!
Yes you are very correct. 12vDC->120vAC then back again, all within the same box - bad. 12vDC -> directly to the board, with some regulators to produce your +-5v, etc. - good.
Hey, add some speakers to each side, attached with some PVC pipe or something so that they can swivel. Run the keyboard connector to the front, the same with a USB port, better yet, just have a USB keyboard/mouse combo, so that you don't have cords running everywhere.... also include a headphone jack on the front so that you can use your headphones instead of your speakers when in a large gaming environment. Add a 15-17" LCD screen and you have a prime gaming solution. You could even build a pvc enclosure for your LCD screen so that it could be integrated and folded in for protection to the screen. You might want to make the screen detachable too.... just in case for some reason you have to have the PC on the floor and the screen on a table or something.... You might also want to think about using earbud headphones, you could integrate a set of headpones that rolled up inside the case on a spool/spring thing..... that would rock... cant forget the lighting... get some of those cool light strips from thinkgeek.... you could run them on the outside and inside of the box so that it could be uber ;). Put a wireless PCI nic in the box so you could connect to 802.11b networks... thats one less cord. Another thing that I thought about the inside of your case at least.... is there any way you can run the ribbon cables underneath the motherboard.... or maybe that black bottom on the case (if its a false bottom).... that would make the case even sweater.... also you could find some plastic heat shrink tubeing and use that for the cables that run for the power switch / reset button etc...
;). (the power supply is external)
;).
Dude these are just suggestions.... the case is sweet as is.
I am planning a new case mod at the moment. I am building a case entirely out of glass. Yes thats right, plain old glass. It is requiring a good deal more work than I thought it would, but I have a friend that blows glass, and has tools to grind glass. I am planning to have this thing in my living room acting as something like a TIVO... as well as my dvd/divx/mp3 player. I have purchased several blue lighting strips from think geek and a couple of monochrome backlit LCD screens to act as special effects displays. I have to admit though, the hardware that is going into the box is a bit dated, 750mhz slot a athlon, 2xDVD-ROM drive, onboard sound/video/ethernet 256mb ram but two 100g hard drives
At the moment I just have the metal insides completed.... and both of the side pannels (glass).
Anyways, I'll post information somewhere on slashdot when I get it all together sometime close to the end of april or beginning of may
Maybe this is the prototype for XBox 2? =)
If you're on the subject of weird pc cases, then check out the toilet pc, its got to be seen to be believed.
This guy bought a childs 'training toilet and turned it into one weird looking Pc.
Personally, I think it would be inconvenient to make one yourself.
After all that trouble to make a customised case, it would only take one drunken guy to 'christen' the pc case....
http://www.acl.lanl.gov/linuxbios/clusters/bento/i ndex.html
Check out the other LinuxBIOS stuff while you're there.
I have been building shoebox computers for years for our machine tools. They are small, compact, rugged, although a bit more expensive than a standard computer (case+motherboard ~ $500 - $550).
Something like this at Axiom or Lanner
Add a little handle and they would be just great as a luggable computer for LAN parties
I have had a toolbox pc cince the 386 days (In fact I just recently shoehorned in a socket 7 board with a P233mmx) that has an orange plasma screen built onto it and the keyboard snaps over the display to protect it during travel.
you can buy these all over the net... although they are nastily priced as they now have TFT lcd screens.
do a search for toolbox pc or lunchbox pc. and you'll get a self contained pc that will whoop-ass at the next lan-party (I saw one that had a geforce3 in it about 3 months ago.. now if the LCD would keep up it woulr rock.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For those who think metric.
Or weighs as much as:
almost eight litre cartons of orange juice
or 13 pints of beer
A little angry at the world, AC? What happened to you, did your mommy not love you enough?
/.
Give the guy a break, today is (apparently) his first day on
. . .but how well would it survive being whacked with a sledgehammer?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Me and my friend were going to make a PC out of a toolbox. We first thought of buying a case that held thirteen fans in it off of Ebay for 18 bucks, that includes shipping, then we decided to make our own case. The toolbox actually would cost more than the case, but we figured that it would be MUCH cooler than using a regular case. I guess I'm not original anymore...nuts.
Given the amount of plastic and lack of sheilding, I wonder if this thing is a ticking-static-timebomb?!
Although his workmanship may have been a little better in creating the box, mine is much cooler looking! And it is running Linux. Heh.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
(BTW, mine is pretty cool too.)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
don't try to get on a plane with one of these! ;)
KDE 2.2's Konqueror doesn't like the InfoPop JavaScript. Konqueror 3 displays the proper date.
... here.
The idea of the Toolbox is nice but the not the best case i have seen. The Craftmanship doesn't satisfy me. At least he could have cleaned up the mess inside the case (cables etc.).
keep it simple.