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Turning a 1995 IBM Aptiva, 66mhz 486DX2, into an i7 6700k
- IYasha 4y ago"If you're seeing this message, that means JavaScript has been disabled on your browser, please enable JS to make Imgur work." :-| Thank you, HN, for being usable without JS.
- agumonkey 4y agopotential alternative link https://linustechtips.com/topic/553903-my-1995-ibm-aptiva-486dx2-to-i7-6700k-not-56k-safe/ https://linustechtips.com/topic/553903-my-1995-ibm-aptiva-48...
- grishka 4y agoIf only there was a way to display images without JavaScript...
- jwilk 4y agohttps://github.com/mikf/gallery-dl https://github.com/mikf/gallery-dl to the rescue!
- brnt 4y agoI have not disabled JavaScript, but imgur never loads on mobile for me.
- IYasha 4y agoYup. And when I open it in an a little outdated Firefox-based browser, there's just nothing but empty background.
- userbinator 4y agoNote: set your UA to something really old or unknown, and imgur direct links will actually become direct links to images instead of redirecting to their JS-filled abomination and then loading the image. Unfortunately this doesn't apply to collections of images.
- manholio 4y agoI have a floppy disk and it's a perfectly fine piece of computing peripheral, I've even recovered some old university projects from 20 years ago. No need to bastardize it into a mockup SD card reader, the same goes for the CD-ROM.
- geoffeg 4y agoIt is somewhat wild to me that PC towers are still a thing. So many other tech products have had significant form factor reductions in the past ~40 years yet gaming PCs have largely remained unchanged. (I understand we've had massive increases in computing capabilities, especially around 3D graphics and the power and cooling required for them.)
- kube-system 4y agoDon’t jinx it! Really, it’s probably PCI slot form factor graphics cards that is keeping it alive.
- BeefWellington 4y agoPCs have had significant form factor reductions though. From smaller form factors like mATX to straight up embedded SBCs like the NUC to even smaller lighter-power systems like the Raspberry Pi. Mid-towers have survived for the same reason cars still leave some open space under the hood in their designs: There are incredibly important practical benefits in being able to easily work in a space.
- walrus01 4y agoIn addition to being able to work in a space, also being able to deal with a wide array/vendor choice of possible thermal solutions, economically, to deal with up to 200W TDP CPUs and high wattage GPUs in a relatively compact enclosure. I wouldn't want to go smaller than mid-tower ATX case if doing something like a really powerful single socket air cooled CPU and a serious gaming video card.
- Latty 4y agoIt's only remained unchanged if you haven't decided to downsize: I've been building all mini-ITX machines for a while now. My main PC is in a DanCase A4-SFX, which is a 7.2L case. Even my NAS is mini-ITX. That's all standard parts. You can go even smaller if you are willing to sacrifice standard parts and go for a NUC or whatever.
- ezconnect 4y ago
- abraxas 4y agoNice although this would not have been my choice of a case to mod. I'd love to and some day may attempt to do this to a well preserved SGI Octane or O2.
- kube-system 4y agoThis build really resonated with me because the Aptiva was my first IBM ~~compatible~~ PC. I later broke it learning how to work on PCs as a child. If I can find where it ended up, I may very well do the same build.
- abraxas 4y agoYeah, obviously there is nostalgia value for a lot of people but objectively it's a pretty average looking case even for the era... which leads me to ask this: what _was_ the best looking computer case of the retro era?
- Aeolun 4y agoI think anything retro will beat anything current because of the nostalgia factor. At the time I didn’t think about how aesthetically pleasing a case was though.
- jinto36 4y agoSee the GP's comment about SGI- SGI cases were still some kind of box or tower, but usually with curvy accents and bright colors at least. Otherwise, I wish I had managed to pick up a NeXT when they were not as rare as they are now. Apple of course didn't make any regular-looking towers or desktops while Steve Jobs was in control. Sun tried a bunch of different form factors in the Sparcstation line, but they were generally all beige boxes of some sort or another. In IBM-compatibles, there were... not many I can recall that stood out. IBM themselves had some slightly unusual designs in the PS/2 series, like the model 25, but nothing that was particularly nice-looking. Curious what other people have to say about other IBM compatibles in this regard. I have a lot of computers but haven't seen everything yet.
- sen 4y agoReally really well done! I love builds like this and am collecting pieces for my own sleeper PC. I'm an unashamed nostalgia addict and would much prefer an older case in the room than the modern ones we get these days.
- jonah 4y agoI don't have anything to add to this aside from nice job. I just wanted to marvel at the banner ad that I saw on the imgur page. https://aeroparts.aero/repair/nitropure-asm/ https://aeroparts.aero/repair/nitropure-asm/ Replacement parts for Boeing 737s?! I'm intrigued that they take out display ads for those kinds of things.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mukundmr 4y agoI just finished seeing the movie Sonic 2. Are you Dr. Robotnik by any chance? Seriously though, the floppy drive is the icing on the cake. Great build.
- ranieuwe 4y agoThis was my first PC ever. Such nostalgia. I still remember the games it came with. Magic Theatre and Hyperman were amazing. Cool project!
- ngcc_hk 4y agoLove the old keyboard.
- userbinator 4y agoI suspect if he found a smaller motherboard, it would drop right in. I've always found it a little ironic that IBM, which started the whole PC industry that standardised on the PC, XT, and AT, yet had some of the more proprietary form-factors in their later models. ATX was Intel's effort.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoLots of manufacturers had proprietary motherboards in the early 90s before ATX. The advent of superIO chips led to having on board ports with no standard way to exit the case.
- walrus01 4y agonot just proprietary form factors but also buses (MCA) with unreasonable licensing terms, which is why the x86 pc industry stuck with 16-bit ISA and then EISA right up until VLB and then PCI began to exist as a thing. The PS/2 was a terribly proprietary design. Just about the only thing it gave us was the PS/2 keyboard and mouse interface, and widespread use of 3.5" 1.44MB FDDs which would have happened even if IBM didn't exist.
- mongol 4y agoThe other day I realized that IKEA Hyllis may work as foundation of a very simple case.
- xcambar 4y agoI lack experience in custom builds, but judging by the amount of work, you might as well just buy raw galvanized sheets and build from scratch, no? The only upside I see from Hyllis is that maybe it's just cheaper than raw materials because IKEA.
- mongol 4y agoI lack experience too. But I thought it may form a frame, and perhaps it could be as easy as drilling holes and working with plywood for anything remaining.
- xcambar 4y agoThe SD card reader hidden in the floppy disk drive is such a good idea! (You can see it in action in the second gallery)
- Terry_Roll 4y agoWhen do we see "Turning a 1995 IBM Aptiva, 66mhz 486DX2, into a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W"?
- eitland 4y agoI have an old Aptiva 486 DX2 66 Desktop model waiting for me to try to recover whatever can be recovered from the hard drive. It was our first PC style computer and we used it a lot. Fun facts: - newly booted it could run AutoCAD on the standard 4MB - of course with a giant extra 8MB it flew and was only limited by us kids knowing nothing - it had suspend/resume (!) If you hit the power button ut turned itself off and when turned on again it came right back where you left it. For younger people here: this was amazing at the time. Some friends probably stil had drives that had to be "parked" around that time. - 24/7 IBM Helpware was somehow included and these guys (it was mostly guys) where amazing. As a 15 - 17 y.o. I called them a number of times after siblings had cleaned the "mess" in the C:\ folder etc etc. I called them on midsummers eve and I think on new years eve (it might have been Christmas) and they were always friendly, helpful and patient. Utterly amazing customer support! Could answer anything and would stay on the phone while I ran through the backup disks or whatever I did to solve that days problem. Set a standard for what IT support should be like for me. (Yes, I have done IT support myself since then and those guys and Limoncelli/Hogans book "The Practice of Systems and Networks Administration" was probably the best inspiration for me.)
- al_borland 4y agoI had one of these as well. I don’t remember what happened to it, but last time I interacted with it was probably in 2005 or 2006. I was trying to get some MP3s off the thing (I couldn’t find them anywhere else). It was running Windows 95, so no USB. It just had a 28.8 modem, so no transferring it over the network. I ended up using WinRAR to split each file across multiple floppy disks, so I could join them back together on the other side. That was also the last time I used both WinRAR and floppies. In hindsight, I probably could have moved the files to the D drive, installed Linux to C, got the USB port working, and used that. Or just pull out the HDD and throw it in an enclosure to use as an external drive. Oh well… the floppies work and we’re probably faster.
- jncraton 4y agoYou can also perform transfers like this using crossover or null modem[1] serial cables if both machines have serial ports. I transferred a number of files like this back in the day. You could even use them for some multiplayer games that would have otherwise required a proper LAN. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_modem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_modem
- keddad 4y agoIt is always quite worrying for me to see something like this. People take a piece of tech which belongs in a museum and effectively destroy it just to get a cooler PC case.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- swarnie 4y agoI'm sure someone somewhere has preserved one, every additional unit after that was e-waste two decades ago. Do you want my old one from when i was six? Its probably still at the back of my parents loft somewhere.
- speedgoose 4y agoIt probably belongs more to the trash than a museum.
- Ekaros 4y agoIf we go that route what doesn't belong to museum? Do you store all the food packaging? Every magazine? All of the spam you receive? That might be very useful for some historian in couple centuries after all... Where to stop?
- mymythisisthis 4y agoLooks like Andy Warhol already did this."Warhol, consigned 300,000 of his everyday possessions to sealed cardboard boxes" https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29125003 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29125003
- dusted 4y agoI'd have installed DOOM on it and it'd have been just fine!
- unnouinceput 4y ago"Using the case from a 1995 IBM Aptiva to custom build my modern computer". There, I fixed the title.
- pugworthy 4y agoFor those into this, r/sleeperbattlestations on Reddit is centered around such conversions.
- LegitShady 4y agoThey're so ugly they become beautiful.
- eemil 4y agoLove it. Personally, I've been looking for a beaten up (non-working) Sun Ultra 20/40 to build a PC in.
- tuxie_ 4y agoIf you replace each and every part except for the case, are you "turning an Aptiva into an i7" or are you just using an old case for your computer?
- oaiey 4y agoWhen he does it step by step, i would say: turn is the right expression :)
- iforgotpassword 4y agoBut he didn't. He didn't first swap the CPU, then the ram, and a few weeks later the Mainboard. It's really just "reusing a case".
- implements 4y agoObligatory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus > The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. […] The concept is one of the oldest in Western philosophy, going back to the time of 500–400 BC. It is a common theme in the field of metaphysics.
- quickthrower2 4y agoRelevant old British comedy sketch: https://youtu.be/56yN2zHtofM https://youtu.be/56yN2zHtofM Skip to 1:35
- qayxc 4y agoDoesn't apply in case. He didn't gradually upgrade components, but swapped every part except for the case. Correct title should be: building a modern PC inside an IBM Aptiva case.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tuxie_ 4y ago
- agumonkey 4y agoI still miss these big desktops
- jonplackett 4y ago> may contain erotic imagery. Ha.
- marcodiego 4y agoHe kept just the case.
- qayxc 4y ago...and the exterior of the floppy drive