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I rarely power any of these up. But I do have to at least once a year to apply new licenses.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: looking at my stack of vintage
and here I thought you were going to expound on your stash of naughty mags. 
modified 23-Feb-22 10:44am.
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Uh, hmmm... I have only one of those. I have the issue of Playboy from my birth month. 
It contains Ursula Andress. 
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Holding everything inside with cotton string
At the time I couldn't afford a mobile chassis for my work computer (literally a PC I take to work) so I asked in my school for any chassis that they had for recycling.
They gave me an old one that was not ATX compatible so I put some rubber feet on the back of the motherboard to avoid shorts, strapped it to the chassis using cotton string, put a smaller heatsink on the CPU (the chassis was thin), strapped the fan to the heatsink with more cotton string, drilled holes in four old CDs to mount the four laptop HDDs (using screws) and strapped that set with some more cotton string to the chassis.
Then, because this computer would suffer some vibrations from the travels, I strapped everything with even more cotton string forming a sort of web over the motherboard to prevent anything from moving.
To finalize the build, I wanted to add a "No cats allowed" sticker but couldn't get it to stick. The chassis was slippery 
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Two words: Oscar ton[^].
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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That is a little awkward to turn into a computer chassis . And looks oversized. I bet they would charge me an extra ticket to carry that on a public transport  .
If instead you are referring to trashing the computer, it was brand new. I just could not afford a mobile chassis. The cheapest one at the time was a few thousand euros.
Looking at your signature, if your are just reacting to my cat sticker, it was just a joke because of all the string inside the chassis . I love cats .
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You just reminded me that the HDDs in my MicroVAX are kinda/sorta/vaguely held in place with cable ties, because it didn't include the proper brackets. 
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I prefer the cotton string because it does not propagate vibrations as much as cable ties if the HDD is hanging in the air. The down side is that it deteriorates a lot faster.
Vibrations were the reason I used four laptop HDDs in RAID instead of a single desktop HDD.
Obviously, the situation I described was temporary and after some time I bought a proper chassis.
But, if it works in your case and the HDDs are not shutting down/parking heads/becoming corrupted you can let it be.
Anyway, I would recommend that you buy the brackets if you can and, if they are made of metal, they will help dissipate the heat from the HDDs. The HDDs will be healthier and live longer.
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I know the felling. My favorite computer that I have is a Compaq Contura Aero 4/25 and I used it so much the display melted (4bit gray scale 640x480). Can not find a compatible replacement anywhere 
Only once I saw a used display from a dead Contura but they wanted 400€
Nice computer you got there, by the way
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That keyboard brings back memories. Back in the day when I worked on a microVAX-II with a VT220 I had a little program that would set the "Do" key to emit a string. Very useful when doing an edit/compile/debug cycle.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Did you do an ohm meter test on the cotton string? I would be afraid of static transmission.
I thought silk was a better insulator. I vaguely remember some story about Ben Franklin flying a kite in a lightning storm with a silk string.
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If you want to go to so much detail...
No, I did not ohm tested.
But I anticipated that static electricity might build up so I kept the string away from any electronics, plastics, and other strings.
I added long screws to the usual mount points of the motherboard and the string strapped to those, on both sides of the motherboard to avoid bending due to too much tension on just one side. Used a similar setup for the HDDs.
Also connected those screws to the case of the PSU with copper wire (insulated obviously) to establish the connection they usually have in a normal ATX chassis. So, effectively, those connections were grounded. Tip: some motherboards fail to boot if those points are not properly grounded.
I approached the build as a suspended cable bridge project where the motherboard and the HDDs are part of the deck, floating in the air but at the same time secure and without excessive vibration (that in bridges can lead to collapses).
So, anticipating that the strings might come loose due to the vibrations (because cotton stretches more than metal) I stress tested a single string with the double of the maximum length I would need to find how many I would have to use per cable (one cable per mount point) so that stretching was imperceptible. Then I built braided cables with the double of that amount. I did not use plain string to secure things.
Those cables had a hole near the middle that could be used to twist them to increase the tension if they ever got loose and, anticipating moister, those holes were also used to hold desiccant bags.
On the points the string cables attached to the mount points I used electrical tape to prevent tearing on the screws threads. Also used electrical tape to bound the strings together and prevent the cables from unwinding.
That setup lasted two years and then laptops started to become cheap enough and powerful enough so I replaced this setup with a laptop.
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Got a desk with drawers on one side, and a box (closet?) on the other one. Box is four drawers high. Mounted a mini-PC motherboard in it. Passive cooling, very silent.
The current PC doesn't fit; a monster of a machine built by a gamer. I still miss that old mini-PC though. In terms of performance, it outran many full sized desktops.
Remember I said passive cooling? It burnt in a summer three years ago, scorched the desk.
I was proud of it, and consider it my "best" machine. The worst, could have burnt down the house.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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There are desks like that although most have the computer under a glass on the top and are made of metal. Search "computer desk case" and you may find something.
Passive cooling anything needs to be in a place that is naturally well ventilated, preferably with a very small draft (imperceptible by humans). That is the little information that manufacturers held back or most people would not buy them. If it is not in a naturally well ventilated place, it will eventually burn. In the best case scenario it just stops working.
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Enclosed in wood, it burns. And those desks expensive.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Quote: In terms of performance, it outran many full sized desktops.
It's not the size of the box, it's how you use it.
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Back when I was in high school, I had a woodworking class and had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about designing a desk where the desk itself would be the chassis. I never went through with it however (which is probably for the best).
The idea I had was that both front legs would essentially be enclosed cabinets with enough room to fit a motherboard and a bunch of peripherals; the back legs would've had power outlets running the full vertical length, essentially acting as extra-long power strips. Holes for fans, sliders for hot-swappable drives with front access...let your imagination run wild.
I figured it would've been a heat trap, so it would've had a ton of fans. Which of course means the whole thing would've been noisy. Again...probably a good thing it never progressed any farther than a thought in my mind...
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Yeah, I made that mistake and got scorchmarks in my desk to prove it.
You need ventilation and it'll work. No passive cooling if you use anything wood. My worst idea ever
Bastard Programmer from Hell
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Just the other day I was told of a friend's mishap: the power supply in his chassis was a bit bigger than expected and the motherboard wouldn't fit. He cut a corner of the motherboard to make it fit.
Quote: Don't force it, get a bigger hammer.
Arthur Bloch
Mircea
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honey the codewitch wrote: When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws.
I put a Commodore PET in a wooden box once. Not sure why, it was rather flimsy.
Also, I used to work on various ROM "extensions" for the PET, so I had this PCB where I plugged in the ROM's and wired up two external multi-position switches for the $A000 and $B000 (or something like that) ROM select lines.
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OK, not a computer chassis, but a hack nonetheless...
Way back in the mid 80's, I bought a new Korg synthesizer. It had inputs for 3 pedals:
0: Naturally, a sustain pedal
1: A switch to advance to the next programmed sound
2: A volume pedal
I couldn't afford the factory pedals, so I made my own with parts from Radio Shack, a few old pieces of wood, springs, some string, and a few girders and pulleys from my old childhood Erector set!
The sustain and program advance switches were easy, but the volume pedal took some engineering so that it would rotate a rheostat using the string.  It worked until I could afford better equipment!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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Not computer hack, but nevertheless worth mentioning:
A fellow student of mine bought a used car really cheap. One problem was that while driving, the shift box frequently slipped from the selected gear into neutral, disengaged, loosing all power.
So my friend bought a couple of neodymium magnets, gluing one to his shift stick, the other one to the dashboard. This was enough to keep the speed stick in position, keeping it from flipping back to neutral.
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To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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