Uhm, what? Are you saying the diagram is wrong, or the diagram is something that would appear on a prototype, not a production case, what?
What does that have to do with anything? The tray might be from a 9xxx, but the case has *nothing* to do with the tray. Again, look, it doesn't fit the spacing of the bays properly.
Actually, what I suspect happened here was that this case chassis, the design of which which I think dates from around 1998-1999, was updated to "relocate" that front fan to face to the side with that added-on bracket but they never updated the front stamping to get rid of the dome. Side-facing fans started being a "thing" sometime around 2001-2002 because of the sheer amount of heat coming off the 1Ghz+ AMD and Pentium 4 CPUs of that era was significantly more than that coming off 1999-era chips. Plus, you know, someone decided it looked cool. Undoubtedly the case skins were also updated to include some stamped/milled slots that matched up with this. (Or possibly they just cut a hole and screwed a grill over it.)
*Why* would an IBM case have a specific Apple drive tray in it? That isn't a "prototype" part, I was able to search it from the part number stamped on it.
Heaven knows there weren't any other sources of junk computers in RTP besides SUPER SECRET laboratories.
No, it's not. It happens to be the right width to wedge in there, but it's not made to fit that case by any stretch of the imagination. Here, I've annotated your picture to show what the problem is:
Sigh. The floppy goes in the 3 1/2 inch bay. There's a drawing of the bezel on the sticker that shows what it looked like: 3 exposed 5 1/4 inch bays, 2 exposed 3 1/2 inch slots, the bottom 3 1/2 device was obscured.
"It came from a thift shop in a town where *maybe* there were prototype boxes floating around 10 years before I got it and, uhm, if I squint my eyes the proportions sort of remind me of the Power Mac 8600 even though it's actually wrong in every conceivable detail. By jove, PROTOTYPE!"
Prior to this last round of pictures I had *no idea* what you were talking about, you hadn't posted any of the outer shroud. (I'd assumed that everything was missing, not just the bezel.) My first thought upon seeing that notch was perhaps there had been a locking device in that corner that someone had hacked out to open the case, but it does look like the edges of it have been turned/finished. That certainly implies this case was being used for *something* odd, but it doesn't negate the near statistical certainty that the case is a completely off-the-shelf item ordered out of an OEM catalog and modified by a the reseller/end user.
Looks like a bone-standard-if-somewhat-bland early-ish Pentium 4-era side panel to me. (The case is white and plain, which in my mind that anchors it to the early 2000s; colors like silver and black started being popular enough with OEM/small builder/home-built machines around 2003-2004 to start outnumbering the white/beige boxes, even for systems built for business/industrial use.)
However, the x600 that was in development in the same general time frame as IBM's ATX form factor Long Trail CHRP board. Apparently it features a side mounted cooling fan as well. Can anyone confirm that it's pointed at the RAM Banks. I'd love to have a pic of the inside of an x600 case showing that fan location. At any rate, side fan cooling predates the P4 by at least five years.
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I said it was a hurry-up at lunchtime session and that new pics would be up in the AM today.
Check the "AT" compatibility listings on the door/tray, that makes me think it's much earlier than Y2K. More likely an early ATX development case, much modded from a future generation of Clone Boxen.
Indeed, but considering the string of coincidences, Long Trail CHRP is by far the most interesting of improbabilities.
I already said in my opinion the case chassis itself dated to somewhere around 1999 and was updated to add the side fan sometime later than that. That may actually be a late date, I'm basing that on the fact that the system I had which I *swear* was exactly that case was built sometime in late 1999-2000. So far as I know the tooling for parts of that case could date back to the original release of the ATX specs by Intel in 1995.
If it *really* was something modified prior to Y2K for something that needed a special fan layout I'd actually say a far more likely possibility than anything CHRP would be an Alpha motherboard. Alpha was HOT in the late 90's, both literally and figuratively, and ATX incarnations weren't rare.
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"I saw an airplane with a propeller at the local field today:"
Uhm, developers nail motherboards to whatever's handy, they don't get special things.
I'm sure it's nice sheet metal but it's nothing special. The cases they sell to "white box" makers are often more sturdy than the exquisitely-engineered-but-flimsy-in-pieces plastic-and-tinfoil boxes that brand-name systems come in. If your basis for comparison is Apple's cases from the 90's then, well, it's a bad reference point. They're "highly engineered" but the materials were *crap* compared to a cheap clone thrown together out of generic Taiwanese parts.
You know, if that makes you feel warm and fuzzy, sure, that's what happened. Your only pieces of evidence are a red herring drive bracket and a general sense that at least some of the case's tooling dates to an era when AT motherboards were still floating around. (I bought my last BRAND NEW AT motherboard in late 2000, a 500Mhz K6-2 to upgrade someone's 386-40* on the cheap, and you could still readily buy cases that could take them.) That's *it*. You have no dates, no labels, no engravings, nothing, but sure, believe that it's a prototype if it makes your day somehow. I like believing that All Dogs go to Heaven with less evidence than that.
Or maybe there was just a trim piece of some sort that snapped into that area, long lost now. There's a nice big round hole in the chassis it could have snapped into. Or, again, some sort of anti-theft bracket, perhaps. It being a "finger hole" sounds pretty ridiculously sketchy to me. But again, it can be whatever you like.
I ran across this great website the other day. It was made by this guy who works a landscaper in Utah, who one day was out collecting rocks to throw in gardens when he was suddenly struck by how a nearby boulder *totally* looked like a dragon skull. So now he's dedicated his life to the study of the giant dragons that lived in Utah that crystallized and turned into rocks half a billion years ago but left amazing mathematical clues that only he understands that proves that they're *not* just rocks, no matter what those nasty paleontologists who keep making fun of him say. Everybody needs a hobby.. . . and even better as an exercise in fantasy/imagination and curiosity! [
Great one! :lol: But the only point I was and have been making in reference to the X600 is that it nails introduction of the side mounted cooling fan to the timeline seven(?) years prior to the P4 thermal eruption event.
Granted, but developers of motherboards for a brand spanking new form factor reference design don't.
Having done a lot of custom sheet metal work of all sizes for many uses and having dissected a considerable number of computer cases to collect the more interesting bits of sheet metal work over the years, I beg to differ.
] ]'>Actually, that's one of the clearest of indicators that this isn't a production case from a clone. Note the fact that there is no FCC classification for A or B use or residue from the removal of such anywhere on the case whatsoever. See the comparison picset below.
Sounds just like my Radius 81/110 which also has a cool card retention design. This is a VERY light weight, highly refined piece of sheet metal work with an ugly, utilitarian cover that came with a generic front bezel as documented in the removal diagram on the backplane, that being being one of the very few stickers on the case.
As I said, there are four of those holes on each side and the front of the case, it's not related to the finger hole at all.
Yep, I have several that I cycle through with regularity, cyclical mania and depression being a contributing factor that adds a bit of zest to my participation in each. [I ran across this great website the other day. It was made by this guy who works a landscaper in Utah, who one day was out collecting rocks to throw in gardens when he was suddenly struck by how a nearby boulder *totally* looked like a dragon skull. So now he's dedicated his life to the study of the giant dragons that lived in Utah that crystallized and turned into rocks half a billion years ago but left amazing mathematical clues that only he understands that proves that they're *not* just rocks, no matter what those nasty paleontologists who keep making fun of him say. Everybody needs a hobby.. . . and even better as an exercise in fantasy/imagination and curiosity! [
] ]'> I need to document the interesting case features at the back of the case on top and bottom. They look lke a clever implementation of a quick-change racking clip system for the chassis in its Bare@$$ nekkid' configuration. Again one of several curiosities about this beast.
I don't think I have have *ever* seen a white-box clone with FCC classification stickers certifying the assembled unit. Not ever, ever, ever. In one of your pictures the power supply *does* appear to have an FCC sticker on it, however. If the case and power supply were sold as a unit then only the power supply needs the sticker. (And to cut off the possible objection, that still applies if that's not the original supply, of course.)
That case that I really wish I still had to take a picture of looked *exactly* like that from the front, to the point that I would bet money it was stamped from the same tooling. Ever think that maybe the company that designed it might have perforated the front panel like that because it would let them move around the locations of things like the power button and LEDs and sell a line of seemingly distinct cases that just had a different plastic bezel? IE, if Joe Blow Cloner Incorporated agrees to order (some many hundreds/thousands) of the things it qualifies them to get their choice of bezel with a milled logo and the switches wherever they want? That actually argues strongly *against* it being some sort of prototype for a specific form factor, a prototype wouldn't have all these neat universal features that let the OEM's customers pick and choose and mix and match bits and pieces to get exactly what they need.
Your comparison is meaningless, it's a sample of *one*. I've owned generic tower cases that you could probably climb up on top of and jump on without hurting, while I've had others that you could literally crumple up in your hands. (I'm using the word "literally" correctly according to the dictionary meaning in that sentence, no exaggeration.) The cost difference between the two when new would be about $60.
Hell, I had one that was literally bullet proof. We used it as a stand to put things on that we shot, and everything from .22 to 9mm would - at best - pass through one side then rattle around inside. .45 would pass all the way through more often than not, and rifle rounds would pass completely through as well. But for small-caliber pistol rounds, this chassis (a full-tower server chassis,) would have been a perfectly decent thing to duck behind if a firefight broke out. That chassis was our "shooting target stand" for a couple years before it finally sustained enough structural damage to no longer be useful.
In that case, every singly bvanilla clone sold was in clear violation of FCC regulations. I'd be very surprised if "any" of the case imports advertized on the pages of Computer Shopper back in the day failed to have an FCC Class B certification label per import regulations or at least my limited understanding of them. Every computer sold in the US of A for home use has to meet and display Class A FCC approval.
Tooling for the can is cheap in comparison to hard tooling for the plastic bezel. I don't recall offhand ever seeing a generic case where the front panel wasn't integrated in to the Bezel plastics.
We'll see after work. Late again, ta!
