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Where can you still find a BABY AT Computer case?

VERAULT

VERAULT

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Location
Connecticut, USA
So I decided to pull this FULL SIZE AT tower out of my crawlspace and give the system a check. A few years back I removed the barrel battery before it got too bad. IT has some minor corrosion that I can address but not yet.
The system posts fine. Its got an intel 486 33mhz with WEITEK coprocessor and 8MB RAM (8 x 1MB 30 pin simms). comes with a western digital 16 bit ISA VGA card and an ESDI hard drive controller connected to a 1.2mb 5.25" drive, 1.44mb drive, tape backup and working Micropolis 1664-7 344mb 5.25" HDD. IT works and boots but has some bad sectors. The motherboard has "486 WB" stenciled on the back of the board near slot 3. I want to put this system in a new case as the full tower case front bezel and legs (plastic) are super brittle. And its too big.

So where can I find a small AT case (anything midtower or smaller would be ideal)?

IMG_20231201_183920.jpg
 
I’ve not seen any in a while. Occasionally you can find a new old stock ATX case that is old enough to also support AT, with an AT I/O shield and a way to swap the momentary switch with an AT power supply switch.
 
I see em come up now and then on the vintage/retro computer swap meet on facebook... Could try posting you are looking for one there.

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VERAULT said:
the full tower case front bezel and legs (plastic) are super brittle. And its too big.
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What kind of legs are we talking about? If it is those round rubber feet, you can still buy those new. Search for StarTech rubber feet for computer cases.

Of course, if the front bezel is borked, not much that can be done.
 
jafir said:
I’ve not seen any in a while. Occasionally you can find a new old stock ATX case that is old enough to also support AT, with an AT I/O shield and a way to swap the momentary switch with an AT power supply switch.
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That's what I do, but it looks like the motherboard above is super wide--even wider than a 486 VLB board--and some ATX cases have a little indentation in the motherboard tray that would block you from installing a motherboard this wide.

If it's any consolation, many baby AT cases you might find are super yellowed/brittle too so they may not be in much better condition than what you have already.
 
SomeGuy said:
What kind of legs are we talking about? If it is those round rubber feet, you can still buy those new. Search for StarTech rubber feet for computer cases.

Of course, if the front bezel is borked, not much that can be done.
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large 8 inch folding plastic legs with geared teeth that turn in or out. But yeah the front bezel is completely broken at the top. IF it was still fine, id retrobright it an use it.. but since its all broken, orange, and brittle as stale bread.. I need a new case.

twolazy said:
I see em come up now and then on the vintage/retro computer swap meet on facebook... Could try posting you are looking for one there.

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Facebook is just the worst. 90% of people there arent interested in actually selling or shipping anything. ITs just a pointless wasteland.

Makefile said:
If it's any consolation, many baby AT cases you might find are super yellowed/brittle too so they may not be in much better condition than what you have already.
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I think this is a special case. ITs taxi cab yellow and brittle. I sitll have a couple At mid towers which are still beige and the plastics are fine.. This one is so yellow whatever changed the color made the plastic brittle. Not to mention its been in my attic for... I dunno 5 years.. maybe more.. maybe less.

Edit: Also does anyone know what the empty socket is just above the cache memory? u32 or u35 not sure the number. What is the spartan sticker on the chipset. And the case badge is DATASUM CORP. Anyone ever heard of them?
 
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VERAULT said:
Edit: Also does anyone know what the empty socket is just above the cache memory? u32 or u35 not sure the number. What is the spartan sticker on the chipset. And the case badge is DATASUM CORP. Anyone ever heard of them?
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It's probably for a x1 or x4 "Dirty RAM" for the external cache, with a pull up resistor present so it operates as "Always Dirty" if it's missing.
 
Im looking on ebay and they want like $140.00 for old garbage. My price range is like $50 to $70. ITs just a 486 board.. ITs not like its anything special.
 
VERAULT said:
I have never heard of dirty ram. What does it do? Do I want to add it?
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Your write-back external cache allows cache and RAM to go out-of-sync, since writing to cache is faster than writing to RAM. In contrast, a write-through cache (including your 486DX internal cache) always updates RAM immediately and doesn't allow them to get out of sync.

When the cache line is being replaced with data from a different location in RAM, or an external device such as the floppy controller requests an address that is currently cached, the cache controller copies the cached data back to RAM to get them in sync again. Hence "write-back."

An optimization is to use a "dirty" bit to track whether cache and RAM remain in sync or are out of sync. When a fresh cache line is loaded, the dirty bit would be clear; if the CPU writes anywhere in the cache line, it is flipped to set. That way, if the cache line is being reloaded and the previous contents were "clean," writing back to memory can be skipped.

To save money, board manufacturers could leave the dirty socket empty or even omit it from the design altogether, and use a pull-up resistor to fool the chipset into always seeing a '1' bit when it tries to read from the Dirty RAM, while discarding any attempt to write to it. This hurts a bit in memory performance benchmarks, Doom FPS, etc. a bit.
 
Some ATX cases are deep enough to hold an AT motherboard, there were even some cheap cases that did both AT and ATX, having an AT knockout to make an ATX cutout. If you find an older ATX power supply, you can use an adapter to get an AT pinout with it.
 
HoJoPo said:
Some ATX cases are deep enough to hold an AT motherboard, there were even some cheap cases that did both AT and ATX, having an AT knockout to make an ATX cutout. If you find an older ATX power supply, you can use an adapter to get an AT pinout with it.
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Im more concerned with a case. As far as PSU's are concerned I have several. No need to use an atx.
 
VERAULT said:
Im looking on ebay and they want like $140.00 for old garbage. My price range is like $50 to $70. ITs just a 486 board.. ITs not like its anything special.
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It's been like that for a while. AT cases have really dried up
 
These garbage beige boxes we threw away in droves are suddenly worth money? What dip shit is shelling out big money for a cheap chinese clone case? These were like $25.00 at any computer fair new in box. They arent worth more than twice that.
 
Didn't you get the memo? Retro is cool now and every chucklehead with some disposable income wants to be like LGR.

It's to the point where it's often cheaper to buy an entire 386/486 computer and gut it just for the case.
 
But this clone stuff is mass produced chinese garbage.. Christ youth is wasted on the young.. then again I was leagues smarter than todays young people when I was thier age...
 
Dont get me wrong. I love the 386/486 era. IT was by far the best (in my opinion) period of pc computing from when it started to when it ended (pentium). The software, hardware, internet.. This was the glory days..

That being said this is just a clone box.. I dont see why individual components like a case.. should cost alot. The board, the video cards, etc seem like they could command more money... but a case?! Cummon.
 
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