How would you "mod" a 4 foot tall tower?

[RogueOpportunist]

So I picked up an IBM 9306-250 Server rack... :D


http://www.98-shop.com/images/p3280135.jpg
(One in the pic isn't mine, just googled this shot to save myself some time)

My new "system" is gonna be the size of a small refrigerator, I pretty much HAVE to do something with this now don't I? ;)

What would you do to something like this?

[SXRguyinMA]

build a mini-fridge into it? :D

[Airbozo]

...couple of monitors in the door for, uh, monitoring...

Slick paint job

Lots of bling lights

custom switches and the like...

[xr4man]

i'd have to figure out a way to drive leds from the signal lines of the hard drives so they are constantly randomly blinking. maybe put a smoke machine in it as well so when your friends are over you can turn it on and scare them by making them think it's about to go super-nova.

set up the sounds with a bunch of HAL sound clips.



or, hide all of the components so when you open it, it is completely empty inside.

[Airbozo]

i'd have to figure out a way to drive leds from the signal lines of the hard drives so they are constantly randomly blinking. maybe put a smoke machine in it as well so when your friends are over you can turn it on and scare them by making them think it's about to go super-nova.

set up the sounds with a bunch of HAL sound clips.



or, hide all of the components so when you open it, it is completely empty inside.

HA! I like this one... Smoke and mirrors FTW!

[RogueOpportunist]

Unless you got a supplier for invisible paint handy hiding all the stuff that's gonna go inside it is gonna be tough considering it will be almost full... What I should do is get a small fridge that is about the same size, mount the innards of the fridge inside the server rack and mount the servers inside the fridge... ;)

Or mount the fridge in the rack, the oven in the fridge and the servers in the oven...

[x88x]

or, hide all of the components so when you open it, it is completely empty inside.

hehehe, YES! :D

Seriously though, idk. If it were me, I would probably build all of my computers into it, stick it in a closet somewhere with dedicated A/C and soundproofing, and access everything remotely either over the network or purpose-run cables.

[msmrx57]

LOL!! Seriously LOL!

[xr4man]

i gots my vodka bottle sitting on the shelf.

OK lets drop the whole crystal skull thing, CJ

[SXRguyinMA]

Oh dear...

Ok lets drop the whole crystal skull thing. CJ

[diluzio91]

you could put a mini (micro?) fridge inside, then use the mini fridge for some phase change cooling, keep the parts outside the fridge, and run the radiators inside and keep the res inside....

[x88x]

lol, nice! I like it. :D

[RogueOpportunist]

Well as far as what I could do to it my options are somewhat limited in that the insides are going to be full of systems, battery backups, KVM's, etc, etc, etc and the systems in question will be designed for low power consumption which means low heat which makes water cooling a wasted effort so most if not all modifications would likely be cosmetic.

Part of me wants to do something to make it look less "server-ish" but the other part of me wants to make it look like some supercomputer out of a cheesy 80's sci-fi movie... Or find a dummy to stuff into the back section where there is some extra space and make it a "cage for cousin bilo"... Hmmmm...

[AmEv]

Get about 50 mITX MoBos, build a parallel processing dedicated folding station.


Hook the host as a file server at the same time.

[Munty]

you should totally stealth the build into the back of the case and then sit a 4 foot person in there for when you show friends :D Maybe give them an old-school operators connection board to give it a very Terry Pratchett feel of living technology lmao

[blueonblack]

I'm going to vote for 50's-era Doomsday Machine, something very dieselpunk and over the top. Switches, dials, gauges, lights, sinister-looking tubing and coils, the works. You've surely got the room and an excellent base for the work there.

[xr4man]

ooh, that sounds like an awesome idea. you don't see much dieselpunk stuff, but a lot of steampunk.

[blueonblack]

you don't see much dieselpunk stuff, but a lot of steampunk.

I know. Dieselpunk is *much* cooler in my opinion, and a hell of a lot harder to pull off well.

[The_Crippler]

Funny that I never really thought about it as "Dieselpunk," but I have a 4' tower I've been thinking of going the art deco and chrome route with.


Looking forward to seeing what you do with yours.

[blueonblack]

Funny that I never really thought about it as "Dieselpunk," but I have a 4' tower I've been thinking of going the art deco and chrome route with.

Art Deco plays a huge part in dieselpunk I think, but the best work I've seen in that style has always been dark. No chrome and very little color. Having said that, I suppose it could be done with shiny bits, but it would make it a lot harder. I think the lower-key and industrial aspects are one of the defining characteristics of the style.

[xr4man]

whenever i think of deiselpunk, i think mad max or sky captain.

[blueonblack]

whenever i think of deiselpunk, i think mad max or sky captain.

Definitely Sky Captain, that and the Fallout games are the best examples I can think of.

[RogueOpportunist]

Making that small airflow mod to those 2 rack chassis has got me looking at the rack doing one of these :think: again... I love the dieselpunk idea but I'm not sure how I would pull it off, or for that matter what is "actually" classified as dieselpunk since there seems to be this rift between the styling of your post apocalyptic dieselpunk and your 50's era "sci-fi" dieselpunk.

I think if I was to try and go the dieselpunk route I'd aim for kind of a mix between Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Final Fantasy... Not sure if you would classify either of those as dieselpunk though... Hmmmmm.

I was also thinking of making a borg/aliens kind of green, glowing, somewhat organic but not quite natural kind of look which in my mind would be much easier to pull off but at the same time seems kind of done to death... I dunno, I really like the dieselpunk idea, I'm just not 100% sure if what I'm thinking dieselpunk is is what dieselpunk is... you know? :D

[xr4man]

well, skycaptain is more of a combo of dieselpunk and steam punk. it's styling is very seampunkish, but nothing is steam powered it's all liquid fuel powered which makes it dieselpunk.

[blueonblack]

I've never read a formal definition, but I always took Sky Captain to be pure dieselpunk. I guess I always associated it with 40's and 50's era sci-fi. As with anything there are categories within categories, but Sky Captain struck me as the perfect example.

[RogueOpportunist]

Well Wikipedia has this to say on the matter...


Dieselpunk is based on the aesthetics of the interbellum period through World War II (c. 1920-1945). This sub-genre is sometimes named Decopunk, referring to the Art Deco art style (including its Streamline Moderne variant). The genre combines the artistic and genre influences of the period (including pulp magazines, serial films, film noir, art deco, and wartime pinups) with postmodern technology and sensibilities. First coined in 2001 as a marketing term by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his role-playing game Children of the Sun,[15] dieselpunk has grown to describe a distinct style of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering. Examples include Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Dark City, and the BioShock series.[16] A 1986 William Gibson short story in the "Burning Chrome collection describes this genre as "The Gernsback Continuum", after the works of contemporary writer Hugo Gernsback



That's pretty much dead on to what I have in my mind when I think Dieselpunk. The post apocalyptic Mad Max styling strikes me as being part of another genre entirely... Either way the cogs in my head are spinning full speed and there's smoke comin' out my ears now. :devious:

[blueonblack]

The Bioshock reference is a great example of a different category in the style. It seems less streamlined and more primitive than the stuff in Sky Captain for some reason.

I love it, don't get me wrong, but I like the Sky Captain style better.

[RogueOpportunist]

Yeah, the way I kind of interpreted the BioShock artistic direction was that it was more of a "decayed" dieselpunk... The basic concept of dieselpunk/deco was there but it was far grungier which made sense for the setting, I mean from a real-world context you can walk into a building from any period that hasn't been restored and while you might be able to recognize the artistic era the building came from it's still not going to look like a true representation of that era's artistic form.

I think I would want to hold true to the more original clean line, unpolished metal, sci-fi industrial look though, as much as I loved the look of BioShock I just don't think "computer" when I think BioShock and considering the nature of this little project I'd want something with a bit more diesel and a bit less steam.

[raistnox]

you should turn it into a dalek from doctor who lol

[RogueOpportunist]

I was thinking about a Dalek actually, when I saw the rack enclosure that was the first thing that came to mind since it was already big and black.

http://www.rogueopportunist.com/images/THERACK/1.JPG

http://www.doctorwhogear.co.uk/images/CutOutDalekSec.jpg

I can see the resemblance already. :lick: