What make and model of AT Baby Tower is this?

[ta0]

No, no, I'm looking to rebuild a particular computer from my childhood. So it has to be the exact one. And from what I remember, it only had one 5.25" slot, but before I reject buying one that has two (because those are for sale every now and then), I wanted to make sure I'm not just remembering things incorrectly. If, for instance, the common motherboard dimensions would have made it impossible to create a case with only one slot, or something like that, then I would suspect I'm mistaken.

(Before some snarky person says "how are you going to rebuild it if you don't know anything", I have already hinted earlier in the thread that I have most of the information such as the motherboard make, various cards, even the MHz-displaying reset/turbo panel. I just don't know what type the case was, and have no documentation because it seems to have been a no-name.)

 

[SomeGuy]

I'd also go out on a limb and say that if they existed they were not popular and therefore not common. The main reason being that they were usually sold as parts and bought by people who usually would want to expand their systems. A single bay 5.25" case is the sort of junk one of the big manufacturers (copmaq, dell, etc) would crank out because they knew they were selling to people that would never change their machine around until they threw it out and bought a new one. But then they would change the case design even more to save space or money.

 

[ta0]

If I'd known you wanted one like 20 years ago... I wouldn't have recycled the 8 or so I picked up at various computer shows back when they were new. These were cool though, as most of them allowed configuration of the LED panel. You could make the 7 segments say any two things you wanted to within the confines of a 2-digit 7 segment LED panel, one would show in Turbo mode, one in non-turbo. I still remember configuring the DIP switches.

Thanks. If I'd known I'd want one in 20 years, like 20 years ago... I would have kept it!

I have the "manual" for one of those, it says "Display Pennel Card AT-17B". Should I scan it? Pretty useless info I guess.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Nope, I still have some similar boxes and there is a minimum of 2 5.25" drive slots.

 

[ta0]

I'd also go out on a limb and say that if they existed they were not popular and therefore not common. The main reason being that they were usually sold as parts and bought by people who usually would want to expand their systems. A single bay 5.25" case is the sort of junk one of the big manufacturers (copmaq, dell, etc) would crank out because they knew they were selling to people that would never change their machine around until they threw it out and bought a new one. But then they would change the case design even more to save space or money.

But that makes it quite possible that it is indeed a one-slot model I'm looking for. These were built in the spare time by some guys in the computer department of a large company where my father worked, and they helped people get a super-duper system for very cheap. This was a 25MHz 386 with 2 MB of RAM! Fastest computer on the block at the time They might even have built those SIMM modules themselves, I remember them talking about things like that, to get the latest and greatest for half the price.

I've been trying to figure out where they might have gotten the cases, and from what you're saying, it does not sound completely impossible that these guys got hold of some surplus-ish hard-to-sell models. They might have made a deal with some manufacturer in Taiwan directly, or bought some obsolete cases from a domestic reseller.

This is unfortunate, I was kind of hoping somebody would tell me I'm completely wrong so I could go and buy that 2-slot case and be done with it.

 

[Unknown_K]

Computrend sold that case, I have one.

 

[Agent Orange]

HP made a case/system in late 1999 or early 2000 that had one 3.5 opening for a 1.44 floppy, and one 5.25 slot for a CDROM. I suppose you could mount a 5.25 floppy in there with no problem. The case that I'm referring to was marketed at a discount to Chrysler employees, and it ran WIN98 Millennium. I got the thing from a friend who had retired from Chrysler and it was a horrible machine in every respect. The motherboard was a 5 slot PIII affair with no room for expansion. HP never posted XP drivers or BIOS upgrades, so you were stuck with W98ME. If you are the crafty type you could probably stuff another mobo in there and be happy with it. I believe it was one of few boxes that I ever set out with trash.

 

[Freestyle]

My dad bought a 386SX system for home use in that exact case in September 1991 (I remember that date for various reasons - but mainly because it wasn't that long ago I turfed out the receipt). Per the picture, it had two 5.25" drive bays (one populated, one empty), and two 3.5" drive bays - one with a 3.5" drive, the other with an 80MB WD Caviar. It wasn't until 1995 that I filled the second 5.25" bay with a $700 4x CD-ROM drive. I've recently picked up the same case again with a 1992 build date (for use in my own first PC rebuild), and it also has two 5.25" drive bays. In 1992 my father was given a slightly faster 386SX by his workplace and that came in a similar case with two 5.25" drive bays. The cases I owned in the '90s had push button power switches, however, and the default seems to be the rocker-type switch.

From my sample size of three AT cases (all purchased in Australia FWIW) I can't tell you definitively that these cases never came with one drive bay, but given that in 1991-2 the default here was pretty much two 5.25" drive bays (presumably so anyone could install a second floppy drive to backup their disks) and given that pretty much every picture of these cases, and every auction for the same baby AT case shows two 5.25" drive bays, it's unlikely that it was built with one bay. Happy to be proven wrong though!

 

[ta0]

Computrend sold that case, I have one.

I guess it's just me, but that case looks "just right" to my eyes, "like a computer is supposed to look". It has to be the one I remember, even with the 2 slots. I used to angrily press the turbo button when the computer was slow, and nothing would happen except the display would switch between 10 and 25. I had no idea what those numbers meant, but I knew Turbo meant that something was fast, because my friend's dad had a Volkswagen with Turbo and he would tell me his dad's car was much faster than my dad's. So I kept pressing Turbo. I guess the lead was not connected to anything.

Agent Orange: I doubt it was the same case though, don't think any 5 slot PIII boards were made in Baby AT form factor.

 

[ta0]

Freestyle: it sounds just like the system I had, and this was 1991 as well. Yes, those rockers. The spring was so hard, when you flipped it, the computer case would jump, and it made a loud thump by itself, and as the inrush current of the system was very large, the ceiling light would flash and there was a loud bang when you turned on the computer. Then the hard drive heads would bang against the case, the screen would make another bang and start wobbling and whizzing, slowly and shakily fade in American Megatrends (C) 1990 and then some weird numbers would start counting up to 2048 with a ticking noise. If you didn't carefully keep your hands off the keyboard, you'd risk ending up in that weird purple/green screen and nothing would work and you couldn't play Commander Keen!

The way I remember all this nonsense was that it was much nicer than the clean, practical wonder machines of today. The old computers would make computery sounds, would behave in quirky computery ways, even have a computery smell, and it was all very computery, exciting and magical for some reason.

Modems were nice too, not only did 2400 bauds give time for a lot of coffee breaks; it was the sound! Gave the whole thing a personality. You'd sit and listen to the modem and you'd know from the sound how the modem was feeling. And every once in a while you'd get the distorted swear words though the tiny modem speaker, from some poor old bastard who'd once again been awaken in the middle of the night just for the fatal mistake of once letting their son run a BBS.

But I digress!

 

[Unknown_K]

That case style was popular around the 386 era. Its like Enlight cases remind me of the 486 era.

 

[modem7]

So, are you guys pretty certain that this tower never came in a variant with only one 5.25" slot, that is, one less than the one pictured? You sure?

The only person who can, with 100% certainty, ...

"Pretty certain" != "100% certainty"

modem7's answer was pretty useless, like, duh, you have to be 100% certain to be 100% certain, wow, completely relevant...

It didn't appear logical to me that you would ask people to state that, yes, they are less than 100% certain.
Particularly since no one even suggested any uncertainty.
And you added, "You sure?" I didn't see "pretty" or any other qualifier in that.

I asked if you guys were pretty sure there was not a particular model made. Was that a reasonable question?

I don't know why you would think that we here would know whether a particular no-name Taiwanese maker did not release a particular variant of a released model.

Yes, because you can reason about whether there exists any particular reason why that would NOT be made.

That is not what you asked. If you were attempting to solicit such possible reasons, you could have simply asked, "Can anyone provide a plausible reason as to why the maker of the case in post #1 would not have made a single-5.25"-bay variant of it?"

Quickly, some answers that I can think of:
* The company established a negative cost benefit in the exercise (e.g. retooling cost vs. expected sales).
* Very low priority

But perhaps you wrote, "would" when you meant, "could".

 

[Krille]

A case designed with only one 5.25" bay would make it hard to fit a standard AT PSU in the back I'd think.

 

[ta0]

It didn't appear logical to me that you would ask people to state that

Uh, sorry for lashing out, it wasn't directed at you really, but at "Stone". There's always one guy...

In my experience, a lot of the time a forum like this is often a place where you can ask half-baked questions and still get amazing responses.

 

[Agent Orange]

Uh, sorry for lashing out, it wasn't directed at you really, but at "Stone". There's always one guy....

Don't be too hard on Stone. His observations are usually right on and he backs off if and when he knows he's wrong. A lot of people have tried to tell you that what you are asking is probably out of the main stream. No one is doubting that you at one time had a "one bay" mini tower, but like my HP box, yours also was most likely OEM propitiatory and not the usual garden variety that poured in from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.

 

[ta0]

Why, I for one is very much doubting it. Many replies in this thread have made me think that I must be remembering things wrong. Unfortunately there are no photos of my old computer afaik, perhaps that is a testament to a healthy childhood, but it bothers me now.

I was just pissed off by Stone's unwarranted snark - this is a vintage computer forum after all, so telling someone that nobody gives a crap about your shitty old junk?

And I got unjustifiably angry, don't know what got into me really. It's just that that type of behavior has become so common on the internet these days. It is like there is an infinite army of people with infinite amounts of time on their hands and instead of doing something interesting like collecting stuff they just harass people online for no reason. Perhaps "Stone" is not one of those people, I don't know. Overreaction on my part.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Please keep it civil! Yes, I realize that this is the internet and politeness and discretion don't count for much, but I'd like to think that people held together by a common interest might be able to keep things politic.

Stone is a long-time participant in this forum and he does maintain quite an inventory, so it's good to stay on his good side.

As far as your case goes, I recall that they also came in a 5-5.25 and 2-3.5" full tower version. I sold the readout to a junked one a couple of years ago--and I probably still have that rocker switch. But trust me, these were from Taiwan and were just one of a number of commodity parts with no particular branding brought over by the containerload during the late 80s and early 90s.

A single 5.25" drive slot would be very unusual and probably not in the interest of someone from the Far East interested in low-margin, high-quantity sales.

 

[Robin4]

So, are you guys pretty certain that this tower never came in a variant with only one 5.25" slot, that is, one less than the one pictured? You sure?

I know from back in the day, that baby AT style cases where the smallest towers out there.. I never seen a version with one 5.25 inch bay slot.

Baby AT = 2x 5,25 inch bay slot
Mid AT tower is 3x 5,25 inch bay slot.
Big AT Tower mostly have 6x 5,25 inch bay slot..

 

[Robin4]

Thanks. If I'd known I'd want one in 20 years, like 20 years ago... I would have kept it!

I have the "manual" for one of those, it says "Display Pennel Card AT-17B". Should I scan it? Pretty useless info I guess.

Please scan it, it might be able to of use.

 

[Caluser2000]

As the others have mentioned I've only seen baby AT cases with two 5.25" bays.