the shape of computers

[JimS]

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.. :-)

[JimS]

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.