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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Will-i-am on April 17, 2006, 07:57:38 PM
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Since I am having various problems getting my a3000, one of my a4000s and a couple of a2000s working to my standards I starting poking around another project I have going: the retro-puter. I have an old radio case about 3' high, maybe from the 40's and I am going to modify the wooden box to accept the a3000 mobo and then rig up an LCD screen in an art deco frame to hang above the cabinet. I intend to use European hinges so the keyboard can come down in front of the cabinet without otherwise showing the place where it hides to the casual viewer. Get the idea? Like a 1940 comic booc hero's secret weapon sort of thing. Like early Batman maybe. I figure the a3000 is a good choice as it will not need a flicker fixer. Assuming I can ever get the damn thing to boot at all.
But remember the Walker? and a couple of other things like that? Even the early games boxes like the Sega Saturn didn't have a pewter colored square ended box as a case. I wonder how hard it would be to build a mobo in a different shape in order to insert it into a less-than-square case? Like something organic. I recall seing articles on computers that would be made in layers rather than sheets so that the computational mechanism would be quite small and so the case itself could be almost any shape at all... like the stuffed toys we buy our kids. Is it possible, you think, for a person to build a computer... say an Amiga... in more organic forms so as to fit a more user friendly case, like sculpted into a sphere or torus? Seems like with those laser manufacturing machines that build up plastic forms by firing into a vat of chemicals you ought to be able to build a non-cartesian computer. Wouldn't that be fun? Anybody want to run with this idea?
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You can use the case as the motherboard now if you dont mind single layer setups, they put a copper layer on the case and etch off the bits they dont want, and it can follow curves and everything. No good for a motherboard yet though.
You can also get flexiable sheets that are circuitboards, kind of like the ribbon that connects the A1200's keyboard to the motherboard but with chips on them.
the big thing though is to make cheap computers, and cheap computers mean standard technology, so you wont be seeing any super special boards unless a very good use comes around.
As for just designing a circuitboard into a circle or something, yeah thats easy but the little extra space you have gained isnt normally worth the trouble so a smaller square one is used anyway.
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The iMac G4 had a circular motherboard to fit the case. There's no reason computers have to be square / rectangular except, I suppose, practicality.
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Will-i-am wrote:
Since I am having various problems getting my a3000, one of my a4000s and a couple of a2000s working to my standards I starting poking around another project I have going: the retro-puter. I have an old radio case about 3' high, maybe from the 40's and I am going to modify the wooden box to accept the a3000 mobo and then rig up an LCD screen in an art deco frame to hang above the cabinet.
Interesting idea. GMTA. :-) I like to listen to old radio shows off the internet, and thought it would be cool to listen to them on an 'old radio'. I couldn't bring myself to actually gut a real antique radio to put a computer into it, so I figured on building one. There are also some fair replicas on the market that have such cheap guts that they should be gutted. :-) But I'm gonna roll my own, in spite of my cheesy woodworking skils.
The basic plan is to make a front panel that holds the dial (with a 2-line backlit lcd panel), a couple knobs, and some pushbuttons. The knobs will actually each be on one axis of a gutted mouse. The pushbuttons are taken from an old pc keyboard, and will be wired to the keyboard encoder. One knob will select a directory, the other a show, sort of like tuning & bandspread. The buttons will activate playlists and control winamp. (forgot to mention I'm not gutting an Amiga for this either.) I figure if I need to use a real mouse & keyboard for maintenance, I can just unplug the front panel & plug in the real things. There's also a plan to mount a small lcd panel under a flip-up lid on the top, if I can find one I like. I'm also planning a LED version of the old magic-eye tuning indicator.
Normally, I'd want to use a mini-itx board for this, but I can't afford one right now, so I'm using an old compaq I found on trash day. Recycle, eh.. :-)
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I notice that we get these 'old time' looking radios from time to time and that started me thinking about the merging of old time cases with modern computer technology. Since in my sad little brain the Amiga is the best computer ever made I thought of taking one of mine for the project. I found a local junk store that has a fair number of old wooden cases of radios from the 1940's. The one I have need some veneer work but otherwise is in good shape. I could build one from scratch like you suggest but I'm going to try rebuilding one first.
Re the round mobo etc... what about sculpting a series of boards to form a new shape? Like those lamps with a half dozen boards that come together to form a star or globe-like shape? Ya know what I mean? Why stick to 'cheap' shapes like squares and rectangles when a computer doesn't care and a robot manufacturing machine doesn't care if it moves in a line or an arc? Back when it was band saws and soldering irons it made sense, but if you are making a custom computer, why not do it in an unusual form? I guess because most computer techies aren't sculptors... certainly I'm not a computer techy, but I do sculpt. I think it's an interesting idea to try out.
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I once planned on using a spare Amiga, but I figure they're to large & underpowered for what I wanted, at least without a lot of sofware & hardware hacks. Mp3 decoding (hardware, or faster CPU) and large HD support would all require $$ that I don't have. So it's recycle for me. :-)
I do have a semi-working modern reproduction of a Philco cathederal radio.. It's 3/4 scale, but I think a mini-itx would fit, either peecee or whatever.. uA1, troika?
As for using a series of boards... well, maybe using something like PCI-e to interconnect the boards, otherwise it's going to be a mess. All those wires connecting the boards would be a killer on the signals. Timing is very critical these days.