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Creative Uses for 5.25" Drive Bays?
ZeLonewolf asks: "Like I'm sure many slashdot readers, my computer has a number of free 5.25" drive bays free. After the requisite burner, DVD drive, maybe a tape drive, there's invariably a few slots free. Do any slashdot readers have any creative suggestions for filling the gap?"
One can never have enough fans in a case. 'Nuff said.
1. LCD Panel from CrystalFontz, Matrix Orbital, or make your own.
2. I/O panel such as a FrontX. These are great.
you put your weed in there.
Every computer needs a lighter!
I'd suggest cement - that gap is way to big for normal fillers.
:
The "Standard Mix"
4 parts sand
2 parts gravel
1 part cement.
Mix with water until it's a smooth paste, and trowel it on in. 'Float' your trowel over the surface a few times to get a smooth finish.
Leave it a few days to cure and you're ready to go.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I've filled a couple of slots with 'mobile rack' (why do they call them that?) removable IDE caddies.
/james
They're basically a plastic caddy into which you put a hard disk, and a 5.25" size bay with a flip-down cover on the front. You wire your IDE ribbons to the connector on the back of the bay, which stays fixed in the PC, and you can swap the drives in and out to your heart's content (erh.. when the computer is switched off...)
I use them for carrying stuff to friends' houses, and also recently when I had to run windows for a while I just swapped in a new hard disk rather than messing with my partitions.
... fufme.
Click here for the Icky Badness, or hit http://www.fu-fme.com.
Real geeks have a 5.25" floppy drive in there just in case. Also, you need an 8" floppy drive on your desk.
Well I like the idea of keeping some of your most commonly used CDs handy in those extra bays with one of these CD holders.
-> Fritz
Spooooon!!!!!
I'm not aware of anyone porting the drivers to Linux or Windows however.
Ever since I saw a mod long ago when a man fit a dismantled Furby into his case, I have wanted to do something similar.
With a bit of hacking and some knowledge of electronics and device communication, I think one might be able to design one hell of a fun gimmick.
Tear apart the Furby, leaving it's eyes and mouth and whatever sensors it needs, stuff em into a flat face plate for the 5.25. Add in a seperate mic and digital camera.
If you have the programming capabilities, hook the Furby's 'on' switch into a screensaver, as well as giving network access to the camera and microphone, maybe even the Furby's speaker.
When your computer goes idle, your Furby will turn on and start talking to the people walking by, people who will hopefully start talking back, all of which you can watch, interact with, and/or record from another computer on the network. Every once in a while have the Furby say "Satan" in a deep voice just to get a rise out of em...
It could work...
It might be a good idea to check the final picture at the bottom of the page first to see what the author's goal is.
6 types of memory cards, 2 front USB ports, a firewire port, and audio in/out
Everything we do echoes in eternity...
Delicious pudding. Mmm...
--Dan
howabout any ports you want? frontx lets you "roll your own" front panel ports with a reconfigurable system for adding usb, 1394, key/mouse, audio, and just about whatever else into the front of your pc by way of a 5.25" drive bay face plate.
--didn't we have a story here about a complete PC that would fit in one of those size bays? That would seem a good thing to add. Like jello,there's always room for more! A "spare" PC could be used for any number of purposes, perhaps for your router or any other dedicated purpose you might not want to do constantly with the main mobo, etc.
Think a mini home rack system, or microrack.
One I was working on with my junk,one that is still sitting uncompleted of course with my other unfinished projects, would be some way to have a vcr in there, the slot appears just large enough to accept a VHS cartridge. I actually would like something like that. It looks easy enough if you cut the case and had it load out the side, I wanted it to be normal front slot loading, just like the cd and floppy. I was limited by only one spare vcr I would contemplate cannabilizing,and it just isn't designed correctly for the task, so I skipped that really, put it on hold for now, but maybe if you were to look around hard at used vcrs and find a different designed one that might fit better. The VCRs that come as a combo unit with the 12 VDC TVs look a lot more promising in initial design for that. We have one like that here, and when my girlfriend caught me eyeballing it and when I started mumbling about doing a project like that she goes NO YOU DON'T because it's sorta kinda technically her TV she watches, so.....
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I installed a USB hub that lives in the 5.25" bay. Makes it much easier than reaching around back....not to mention that my PCI USB 2.0 card has a header on the PCB allowing me to hook up an extension seamlessly....it is a fantastic use of a bay.
...they were right about you...
A tape transport ripped from a car radio could easily fit into a 5in drive bay, the audio in/out spliced into the soundcard.
Advanced project: implement an interface to the Play/Reverse/Stop/Rew/FF via Parallel, serial or USB port and its corresponding MCI driver or IOCTL block device.
With two open drive bays and some careful plexiglass work, it's the perfect place for a Siamese fighting fish (betta). Add some lighting; I'm sure fellow geeks would appreciate the "betta tester."
Since it'll be nice and warm, you could instead use it as a terrarium...and keep a small tarantula in there. You will have 100% guaranteed that no one will ever feel tempted to mess with your computer again, especially if they are female.
Another idea, that preserves ventilation: use two sheets of plexiglass and make an ant farm. Be sure to back light with red LED's or cold cathode.
How about a Q job? Any international spy...uhm, geek, could use a computer with hidden access to a handgun, or perhaps an emergency Mountain Dew. The right key combination send a command to the drive bay doors, and the top one swivels up, the bottom swivels down.... Voice recognition, "HAL, open the pod bay doors!" I once wrote an application that used a voice recognition SDK, I had several commands programmed in there and ST:TNG computer acknowledgement sounds, so I could walk into the room and: "Computer," "Current time!" . Despite all that, I'm not as geeky as one might think.
If my extra bays weren't being used for cooling, I'd probably just install a Cardbus/CompactFlash/Firewire/video access panel, but you asked for something creative....
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