The Main Setup Hacks in progress thread.

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The other setup threads have beautiful pics of beautiful workstations. This topic's for the nitty gritty of concept development and custom (hacked) builds in progress.

Just set up the KVM rig on the temporary, knockdown desk. It's a "what have you done with your AppleMac and PC today" kinda deal.



The 14" 1080p Notebook spans to the  24" 1920x1200 WUXGA panel, The QS02 spans from desktop/menu 1600x1200 panel to the 1920x1200 WUXGA workspace. The Dell Dimension 4100 I've been upgrading is supposed to do the same but doesn't quite work as yet. The displays can be set up so that all three CPUs can be open at once by choosing DVI or VGA if I want.

Ok, that's my ever changing setup ATM, what main workstation hacks have you folks got in progress?

 

[cheesestraws]

The other setup threads

There are other setup threads?  The longer I remain in the house, the more overengineered my desk is getting; I think by the end of this quarantine it will look like a cross between a cathedral organ and Kennedy Space Centre, but I'm not sure that counts as a hack...

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

LOL! I missed your reply, I'll have to dig up links to the loungish type setup threads we've had over the years. The 24" WUXGA panel fuzzed out and the 27" replacement is due in tomorrow as opposed to the estimate which was four days later. Can't wait to share another pic.

So put up your your in-progress pics here. You're one of the folks posting setup pics in the "What have I done with my AppleMac today" thread, no? Just crosslink the attachments here as well, I'll bet a lot of others are mucking about with all kind of setups as well to fill quarantine time. Here, on topic stuff won't roll away in the pages of day to day trial and tribulations posted in that thread. Let's keep it tight for future reference. []

 

[cheesestraws]

Well, here's my new Lisa setup.  It finally has a corner to call its own!  Though not a very big corner.  I should either look for or build a trackball for it...

 

[Von]

Ok, that's my ever changing setup ATM, what main workstation hacks have you folks got in progress?

I think this may qualify as a hack... 



At the office I have a workstation that can be used standing or sitting. With the work from home in place, to get a standing workstation I took and old coffee table and sat it on top of my home office desk with monitor arms holding the 2 Tunderbolt monitors.  

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Nice, I like the marbleized finish. I see what you mean about the trackball. If you make a top for the chest of drawers that fits snugly betwixt drawers on the left and the wall on the right you may have room to use the mouse, definitely fit the trackball. If you're not a tool guy, it can be cut for you at your local orange or blue box.

Absolutely love the laptop stand, I'll have to look into getting one of those some day.

 

[cheesestraws]

Nice, I like the marbleized finish.

I don't know if you saw my post in the Conquests forum when I got it—the story I was told (which I have no particular reason to doubt) is that this Lisa was used for an Apple (UK) publicity event at some stage, for which they got a professional artist to marble it.  It's actually really nicely done, comes across better in person than on camera.  It has, somewhere, a sister Lisa which was done in woodgrain, which is such a startling idea that I'm going to keep an eye out for it on general principle...

I see what you mean about the trackball. If you make a top for the chest of drawers that fits snugly betwixt drawers on the left and the wall on the right you may have room to use the mouse, definitely fit the trackball

Yup.  The other thing I'm considering is that I found a small cache of little handheld joystick thingies in a box (which are just two potentiometers and a switch, really), which I was wondering about trying to build mouse emulaton with.  We'll see.

I took and old coffee table and sat it on top of my home office desk with monitor arms holding the 2 Tunderbolt monitors.   

That's really nifty.  That whole room just oozes industrious tinkering, I love it.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Wood, marble, granite -izing was a thing for several years. I did it for signs and displays but never got around to doing a computer. I did faux brick finish on the CNC router cut skin around the base of a housing development entry sign, now you've got be thinking about Legoizing a compact Mac case. [}] Nah, too garish.

Lisa trackball is a fab idea, model and print a case that matches the Lisa KBD and you'll be the hacks guy to the Lisa gang.

@Von I'd say so, that coffee table lift is genius, undeniably a hack. Love the panoramic Macs in progress display.  What brand is the case in the right corner with the prismatic groove/LED motif? I have exactly the same one with my old Atom board set up inside. No nameplate, I think it's just a very nice generic Fat-MiniTower case design. Makeshift anti-fatigue mat is also genius. I had about a 20" stack of those sitting around forever and just gave them to a friend for his garage workshop. That use never crossed my mind.

I've had some really bad back pain recently, so I finally set up a standing lab workstation on wheels that's been kicking around forever as a mobile project unit. Never really had room for it, but thankfully is hadn't quite made its way to Goodwill. You can see the monitor on it reflected in the TV panel. It's staying, the shelves that no longer fit on that windowed wall I cut down and they're now behind the toolbox, becoming the base of the new setup.

 

[cheesestraws]

Wood, marble, granite -izing was a thing for several years. I did it for signs and displays but never got around to doing a computer

They did it to the whole UI of RISC OS.  Which when it was new looked incredibly classy, but looking back looks very dated now.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

My new-to-me 27" WUXGA replacement panel for the 24" one in the pic is out for delivery on the FedEx truck! Can't wait to get things set up. I'll post a more detailed shot of just the desk/work area.

 

[Von]

What brand is the case in the right corner with the prismatic groove/LED motif?

Oh yeah, that cases is bedazzled with many LEDs:



The case came from CompUSA and I think it is a white-labled InWin or KingWin. I added the stainless drawer handles on top to move it around as well as the fan in window to match the stock fan on the top window.  It runs XP on an intel 915GUX board which is nothing special.  My plan after doing some backup on this machine is to get it to dual-boot to a linux disto.

THe case to the right is my many-boot Museum box mentioned here.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The one on the right is what I was asking about. What's the branding in the square indent, mine's blank.

 

[Von]

The one on the right is what I was asking about. What's the branding in the square indent, mine's blank.

Not sure on the make...the branding is from the PC shop that I got it from circa '98 called Cutting Edge Computers in Redmond WA.

 

[Cory5412]

That's an Inwin case. - the A500 specifically. More at https://www.targetpc.com/hardware/cases/inwina500/ 

Lots of boutique PC manufacturers would have used it, just as a boutique PC maker today might just put their own logo on an NZXT or Fractal Design case.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks, C, I was figuring it was a generic case, but a really nice one. It reminds me when there were ads in Computer Shopper with a very large pile of cases lined up and stacked together for comparison of the relative sizes. I bought one when I built my CorelDraw machine, very solid stuff back then, if not overly handsome. Not surprised to hear they got less solid between then and 1999. I love the case with its prismatic racing stripe and LED's, a pleasure to mess around with.

edit: speaking of racing stripes, my 27" monitor arrived four days early, packed beautifully, but FedEx still managed to jostle it enough that it has three racing stripes runnin up and down the right side and the controls on that corner are now wonky. Otherwise it's pristine. :undecided:

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Damn, I've been FedEx'd and not real happy, but not too sad about it either. The trio of vertical racing stripes are of beautiful ascending thickness and coloration and look pretty cool. Seller got back to me right away and is going to try to find and send me a replacement panel on Monday, if not they'll give me a full refund and I keep it or recycle it for them.

My fabulous new, bolts through the top of the desk swingarm mount is rated for 24"-27" displays, but apparently not for this 27" beast of a Dell UltraSharp! It's working out all right as the left side rests upon the raised section of the setup and it sure makes it easy to hook up connections. We'll see what happens when I move it to the right of the replacement as a "free" 27" menu screen for Illustrator. []

Time to rethink the setup in a big, wide panoramic configuration.

 

[Von]

That's an Inwin case. - the A500 specifically. More at https://www.targetpc.com/hardware/cases/inwina500/ 

Lots of boutique PC manufacturers would have used it, just as a boutique PC maker today might just put their own logo on an NZXT or Fractal Design case.

Yep, that is the one and it has been great except for its locations for hard drives.  There is one in the 3.5" bay and then another towards the top/back of the case.  Since we are in Hacks...here is a mod that I made:



This is a bracket that I made to hold 2 drives from some case internals I had lying around.  It holds 2 SSD drives one of them a 2.5 in an adapter bracket.

And here is that bracket mounted in the Inwin case making it easier to get at the drives:



Not the best shot but the new drive caddy is behind the flashlight.

 

[Cory5412]

apparently not for this 27" beast of a Dell UltraSharp!

Oh - what model did you get?

Bummer about the stripes, but nice that the seller is being so accommodating.

I've been borrowing a U2711 from work, as I mentioned, and they are absolutely ginormous. I'll admit I never appreciated the difference between 24 and 27 inches of display before having to haul it home and find a place for it in my house.

Here's what I ended up with:


I have five total of these shelves. The idea was that this white table would float around among the five and I would sit at whatever particular computer struck my fancy at the moment. I had to very rapidly put everything in here so it's not very well organized.

Directly behind where I'm sitting for work is the shelf that my personal server is on, it has another of these white tables and since these pictures were taken I brought my office chair home.


I need to pull the 840 (and you can't see it, but there's a Plus in a blue carrying bag) off of that shelf and rearrange things so the server can sit laterally, to reduce the chance of running into it and to reduce the noise it makes. Mid-term, I'll probably see about putting the new vtools on this same shelf with the server, and the vtools management system will probably be an alternate system on the display on the right.

This whole setup is based on something I saw while moderately ironically browsing a furniture porn blog a number of years ago. It was this high concept '90s semi-open workspace furniture system that put the computer and display on this stationary shelf and the primary work surface on a wheeled table that could be slid right into the shelf for detailed computer work, slid further out when you needed space for other things, or the keyboard/mouse could be stacked in the main shelf and the table could be pulled out into a center area for, like, meetings or group work.

 

[Cory5412]

bonus - the current vtools.