beige rant (was Re: IBM 5150 with red case on ebay)

[Swift Griggs]

On Sat, 14 May 2016, Tor Arntsen wrote:
> Even the case, according to http://www.oldcomputers.net/bellandhowell.html
> "The normally beige case was colored black (only on the surface, it is
> still beige underneath)"

I think it looks pretty classy. It matches my slide projector. :-)

I agree with those who protest the gawdy blue-LED-ridden 'gamer' cases and 
designs. Those just don't cut it. 

Personally, I'd go for sustainable-wood, tempered glass, and okay, molded 
plastics if they are done well and it has an SGI badge on it :-)

Inevitably, I'm drawn to designs using metal, wood, glass and other 
expensive materials that few but boutique computer case makers would dare 
contemplate. Heh, but now I hear one of my co-workers who is an old DEC 
expert saying "... back when computers were made out of wood ..." and I 
think of some that *were* (I can at least see them on the web) and yeah, 
okay, so I wasn't around in the 60's and 70's. Well, I was in a portion of 
the 70's but I was considerably occupied with being born and other quite 
serious matters like house-training and tooth-growing which I believe is a 
decent excuse for not remembering all of the fine machines back then. One 
should always take the time to have a decent birth.

I figure, if you are going to have a nice interior one has to consider the 
space a computer rig takes up, even on a KVM. It's going to be a 
significant feature in the room. If it's not locked up in a cabinet, it's 
going to be seen quite a bit. Might as well afford the machine as much 
design consideration as the furniture, if not a tad bit more. I like 
computers more than (most) furniture. Though I do some woodworking and 
furniture done right is cool, too. If they can compliment each other, so 
much the better. Of course, this is all a desktop consideration. Servers, 
I have a different design sense for (mostly pragmatic).

-Swift