Project: Hello, bbbbbbuck

[poptones]

Hello everyone. I've been a lurker for a long time but just joined the site to share with you my project. This will be sort of a place to organize my thoughts, so please feel free to provide comments - I consider this more of a watercolor than an architecture project, which means the design will be fluid and may change dramatically...

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/images_pic-original-29161-Turbin_and_Couches.jpg
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/images_pic-original-29158-Generator_and_pressure_tank.jpg
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/339167572_972df45088_o.jpg

The idea is to come up with something that would be at home in these settings. I love deco and have a huge collection of what I laughingly refer to as "furniture porn."

I like the looks of the CM690 case. I feel Coolermaster had something like this in mind when they designed it, but couldnt quite take it all the way due to marketability concerns. I do find it to be a pretty well built case, so that will be the basis for the design - not that this will be the end in itself. Actually I had originally planned to do a wooden case with lots of marquetry, but I like the CM690 so much I decided to use it as a sort of launching point.

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/42_1.JPG

I love this chair. I want the machine to look at home sitting next to it.

influences.
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_0398.jpg
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_0378.jpg
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/artdecosidetable33.jpg

I had actually put a bid on the side table thinking I might use that. You might not believe how much it went for - too rich for my blood. It's not like they were rare - didn't every home in America have one of these in, like, 1950?

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/keyslo.png

Keyboard template. Because I want to paint my keyboard. We'll see how that part turns out later...

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_1992.JPG

Because I want the case to have a retro industrial look to it, I decided on a hammertone finish for the inside. It's actually much darker than this, the flash lit things up quite a bit. This is rustoleum hammertone black. It's a nice finish and VERY durable I think, but it's not like most paint you might be used to. In order to get an actual hammertone finish it has to be applied REALLY thick - like you would expect it to run and pool. And actually it does, sort of - but the end result is a very thick finish that isn't easily marred. It's not exactly like the old hammertone finish one finds on old shop equipment, but that's ok because I didn't want it exactly like that.

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2078.JPG

16GB boot raid. I haven't touched windows in years so I have no idea how one would do this in widnows, but in linux this $100.00 raid0 delivers 75MB/sec sustained read bandwidth and 40MB/sec sustained write - and zero access time. Yep, its mad fast - and very cool having a machine that is silent most of the time. When the machine is booted off this the only time you hear the drives (another raid - a raid5 of 4x500GB WDs) is when they are being accessed. You should see how quick gimp and open office start...

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/toobz-800.png
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2169-800.png

What I have working so far. These will display - well, whatever. Right now I am thinking they will do very well as cpu core load indicators and network i/o bandwidth usage.

More later. Paint Another coat tomorrow, then I can start putting things together.

[b4i7]

first off, welcome! glad you decided to take the step over from lurker to poster :)

second....looks like some promising ideas for a mod...cant wait to see what you come up with!

[p0Pe]

that usb raid thingie looks interesting:D...

[IndyRacer27]

Hmmmmm.....
This looks interesting, I'll be watching this one.

[Helix666]

I quite like the idea of the USB RAID...
and are those some sort of vacuum tube?
(They would be *very* cool as CPU load/IO usage indicators... )

+rep for a promising start...

[poptones]

The bar graphs are neon filled tubes from russia. Apparently they made a lot fo them because you can still buy them surplus, but the funny thing is I have never, ever found a picture of a piece of equipment that used them. Now, that's not to say they're not useful - they would be fantastic in an amplifier, for example, as a handy aid for setting cathode current in the output stage. It would also look cool... still, I've never seen a piece of gear that uses them except of modern vintage (like the vu meter in this youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLzXueWH8qo&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/).

My plan is to make the circuitry far simpler and let software do all the heavy lifting. I only plan to have four right now, though the controller I am working on could run up to 16. I also have a couple other displays I am pondering...

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2193.JPG

And one of these. Still don't know if I can bring myself to tear into mine, but I bought it with that intent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kvvNtdkXXM

5kvvNtdkXXM
The other alternative I am considering is a small amber monochrome monitor from an old brother typewriter. These were very cool, being small widescreen monitors. If I can work out the power supply issues that may be the way I end up going, although the P70 will still end up being cannibalized - I bought it with the intention of putting a widescreen monitor and a modern cpu board in it. I really don't care about having a laptop but I always wanted one of those things - and I sure couldn't afford them when they were new.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Love this idea! You've got some fantastic parts for it; really looking forward to the construction.

+rep to start you off.

[tinker]

Wow!
Looks like it's going to be a cool build.
I love the nixie tube.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Looks like a cool idea. can't wait to see how it goes.

[|NQ|Squelsh]

Wow! Those tubes are awesome! How can you control the amplitude? Simply over the voltage? It's surely analogue or does it have some kind of segments?

Looking forward to see more (:

[gntlkilr]

this is pretty nice idea. I'm so digging the USB RAID idea for a good Media Center since I only use it as a player for my network shares.

When I first saw the name, I honestly thought this was going to be a Buck Rodgers theme. LOL. Showing my age.

[poptones]

If you're looking at a media center pc and already have a wired network, you don't even need the usb. It's way easy to rigt up new motherboards to boot over the net.

Yeah, it sorta is buck rogers.. sorta. Buck was all deco in the beginning with chrome toasters on strings with sparklers out the tail and stuff. I like that. I also think Metropolis is still one of the best special fx movies ever made, but there's no way I'm doing yet another overt "Metropolis" spinoff.

Well, maybe not. And don't worry about showing your age, I'm the one who came up with the twiggy greeting, after all.

[poptones]

Whee! My "vintage" p70 arrived and I couldnt wait to fire it up.

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2238.JPG

But after looking inside I am uncertain if I can ever figure out how to recycle the display from it. I had wanted to make a small desktop terminal, but the motherboard and video card are huge and I cannot find anywhere the signal specifications. Oh well.

So I put the old machine away for the time being and did some experimenting.

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2293.JPG

Warning: don't make a habit of this. In the old days plenty of people were exposed to broken valves and they didnt die from it, but valves contain lead, mercury, strontium, arsenic - lots of really bad stuff. And they're made from GLASS which can cut you really easy and thereby providing a direct path to your bloodstream for all these nasty metals.

Anyway, I have... ideas. I mostly wanted to see how easy it would be to cut the glass where I want to cut it (hint: not very) and if the active devices for the holovacuum memory device would be able to perform their function while preserving that "vintage" feel.

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2303.JPG

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_2322.JPG

Results were positive and encouraging. But I think I would prefer to have four active devices with only a single "plate." And it would be nice if they had a bit more... personality. So I think now my quest must lead to something more like this....

http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/2407949767_830c1347a7.jpg

The trick is finding old ones that no longer work. Modern versions of these don't look nearly as nice, and vintage tubes that work are rare enough that even if I COULD afford to destroy four working devices for this project I'd probably be haunted throughout the rest of eternity by the ghost of Harvey Rosenberg (http://www.audioweb.com/Column/HRosenberg/VivaLaRevolution.asp) for my terrible sin.

I love tubes. I love the smell that gets in the air from the high voltage. I love the heat and the thrill of sticking my hand near a circuit carrying 400V or more. I love the styling of stuff made in the thirties and they way things back then had to be MADE. If you bought something it wasn't cranked out by a machine, it was assembled by one or more fairly skilled workers. And isnt this why people mod their machines today?

I also love the way you could take these simple building blocks and connect them with other giant things sort of like electronic legos. And, thinking about this made me realize that we have almost come back to that. Everything is really complicated now and sort of twitchy, but I can buy a high speed USB hub off ebay for like 4 bucks direct from singapore, a few high density memory devices, some cables and just plug it all together and it (usually) works. USB widgets and memory sticks have replaced resistors and capacitors as the commodity item. Rather than buy a single storage tube or counting tube, we buy a few Billion cells assembled to a connector board. Amazing.

[Fuganater]

Idk if this can help you at all but... I've seen decent sized tubes in older Amps. Like guitar amps that you find in a pawn shop. Here in my home town you can pick them up for under $50 (idk your budget) but if you want some more tubes that might be a cheap(er) way to go.

Hope I helped... somewhat.
-Fuga

[The boy 4rm oz]

Nice idea with the USB sticks.

[tinker]

I would suggest an electronics surplus store. I have one about 30 minutes away from me (Cleveland). And they have all kinds of cool old crappy parts. It seems like if you look hard enough pretty much any good sized city is bound to have at least one.

BTW, it's looking really good!