Stunning, Classic Computer Console, from 1958?

Predicta Lover writes "It's widely believed that the late-50s Predicta series was the swansong for Philco. After its introduction, RCA's president David Sarnoff is quoted as having said "Philco has reinvented the industry and made TV more exciting again." Somehow, I can't imagine Bill reacting that way to an Apple product launch, at least not publicly. Years later, Philco's phenomenally-designed but questionably-engineered and over-priced TV sets are an icon of modern television design, and are even made in a stunning reproduction form. Maybe Philco would still be in business if they'd thought to shoehorn a contemporary computer into the box and put a high-resolution LCD up top (ahh, I guess that would've been tough...oh, the cruelties of history). At any rate, the researchers and designers at Onomy Labs did just that, 45 years later, and the result is an absolutely lust-worthy piece of computing hardware. Built to eventually house an experimental computer being produced by Sun Labs, the supercharged piece made its debut at their recent Open House held at the Computer History Museum.The Pedestal model that's used here was originally penned by Philco's Catherine Winkler, and is variously described as being inspired by the ideal female form and looking like a gas pump (I am not even going to touch that one). The perpetrators of this project have been mildly vilified by classic TV collectors (fearing imitators) and highly praised by most everyone else...some are calling it the 'best casemod ever'. I don't know about that, but it's definitely a beautiful object."

Comments

back in my day

[thexdane]

i remember back in my day we had punch cards all lined up in order and we would see who could feed them through the fastest and we liked it

It's got /. on the display!

[Compholio]

Check out the display! It has /. on it!

http://www.onomy.com/blue/images/headshotf.jpg

too much text

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not reading all that shit! This is /., give me the condensed form and link the rest so I can ignore it and make assinine comments.

Re:No, actually, they're being vilified because...

[krymsin01]

C'mon. My antique egyptian mummy case mod is the leetnes.

Ewww

[Itstoearly]

That thing must be a black hole for feng shui. You'll need to pay some chinese guy thousands of dollars to remove it from your home.

And don't forget Atari, SCO, Napster...

[BitwizeGHC]

Nowadays it seems that the trend of wearing the skin of a deceased beloved company like a corporate Ed Gein is increasing in today's post-dot-com business climate.