A Gorgeous Desk With AMD Inside

We’re the first to admit that we don’t see much woodworking here at Hackaday. But this desk with a PC inside from [John Heisz] is just too gorgeous not to share.

The build is mostly cherry veneered half-inch plywood and real cherry. There are dozens of angles and complex pieces that all fit together in a valuable and powerful desk. The centerpiece of the desk is the air intake grill with a 2019 Apple Mac Pro-like finish. [John] mentions that he previously did it by hand with just a parked drill bit and some patience, but he vastly prefers the automated way. Two cubbies flank the center vent, made from plywood with cherry veneers glued on. A USB hub is hidden at the back in one of the cubbies, exposing all the I/O for the AMD-powered desktop PC hidden inside. The top of the desk is hinged to allow easy access to the PC. [John] asserts that he made the coolest desk in the known universe. We don’t know if we can say it’s the coolest, but we certainly appreciate the process and expertise that made it.

After you’ve finished your new desk build inspired by [John]’s project, perhaps you might be interested in a levitating turbine desk toy to seal the deal. Video after the break.

Continue reading “A Gorgeous Desk With AMD Inside”

An All In One Cube PC For A 1990s That Never Quite Happened

When a particular device or appliance is evoked, there comes with it a set of expectations over what it might look like. A toaster, a camera, a washing machine, or a PC, will all have their own accepted form factors, and it’s rare that a manufacturer is adventurous enough to venture outside them. In the world of PCs there was a brief flowering of this type of creativity through the 1990s, and it’s that time which [ikeji]’s cube PC squarely fits in. It’s a 3D printed PC with a built-in display, keyboard, and printer, and while some might categorize it as a cyberdeck we’d say it goes further, we could easily imagine a slightly more polished version being an object of desire back when a powerful machine carried an 80486.

Inside it’s no slouch, packing an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro on a Mini-ITX motherboard, and while the display is a mere 7-incher it fits neatly behind the fold-down keyboard. The thermal printer is maybe more of a toy, but it’s good to find that even a bleeding-edge motherboard still has a serial port on it somewhere that it can talk to.

While the build undoubtedly has a few home-built rough edges we like the idea, echoing as it does those all-in-ones from the CRT era. Unless you have a handy Minitel terminal you won’t find much like it.

Valve Sells Software, So What’s With All The Hardware?

Steam branding is strong. Valve Corporation has turned their third-party marketplace into the first place millions choose to buy their PC games. The service has seen record-breaking numbers earlier this year with over 25 million concurrent users, so whatever they are doing is clearly working. Yet with all those software sales, last month Valve announced a new piece of hardware they call the Steam Deck.

Use the colloquialism you’d like, “not resting on your laurels” or “Mamba Mentality”, it’s not as if competitors in the handheld PC space are boasting ludicrous sales numbers. At their core, Valve is in the business of selling computer games. So why venture into making hardware? Continue reading “Valve Sells Software, So What’s With All The Hardware?”

Emulating The IBM PC On An ESP32

The IBM PC spawned the basic architecture that grew into the dominant Wintel platform we know today. Once heavy, cumbersome and power thirsty, it’s a machine that you can now emulate on a single board with a cheap commodity microcontroller. That’s thanks to work from [Fabrizio Di Vittorio], who has shared a how-to on Youtube. 

The full playlist is quite something to watch, showing off a huge number of old-school PC applications and games running on the platform. There’s QBASIC, FreeDOS, Windows 3.0, and yes, of course, Flight Simulator. The latter game was actually considered somewhat of a de facto standard for PC compatibility in the 1980s, so the fact that the ESP32 can run it with [Fabrizio’s] code suggests he’s done well.

It’s amazingly complete, with the ESP32 handling everything from audio and video to sound output and keyboard and mouse inputs. It’s a testament to the capability of modern microcontrollers that this is such a simple feat in 2021.

We’ve seen the ESP32 emulate 8-bit gaming systems before, too. If you remember [Fabrizio’s] name, it’s probably from his excellent FabGL library. Videos after the break. Continue reading “Emulating The IBM PC On An ESP32”

You Won’t Believe How Much Tech Is Hiding In This Desk

Say what you will about office life: there were definitely some productivity perks, but the coffee is much better at home. Like many of us, [Pierre] has been working from home for the last year or so. And as much as he might enjoy spending so much time in his small Parisian apartment, it lacks many of the amenities of the office such as a scanner, printer, and, you know, a reasonable amount of space in which to work.

Inspired by another build, [Pierre] set out to build his dream desk that is maximum PC power in minimum space. It is chock full of easily-accessible cavities that hide everything you’d expect, plus a few things you don’t, like a flatbed scanner, a printer, a router, and a wireless charging pad. One cavity is dedicated to I/O, and another has three international power sockets. The only thing it doesn’t hide is the 22″ pen display that [Pierre] uses for sketching, signing documents, and occasionally as a second monitor.

A home-brew jig makes consistent dowel drilling much easier.

This desk may look like solid wood, but the top is a veneer that’s glued on to a custom-cut 1mm steel sheet. The inside frame is made of hardwood and so are the legs — one of them has a hidden channel for the only two cords that are even somewhat visible — the power and Ethernet cables. He joined all the frame pieces with dowel rods, and made a 3D-printed and metal-reinforced drilling jig to get the holes just right.

[Pierre] started this build by planning out the components and making meticulous notes about the dimensions of every piece. Then he sketched it and modelled it in FreeCAD to get all the cavities and cable runs correct and ensure good airflow through the desk. After that it was on to woodworking, metalworking, and PCB fab for relocated and hidden display controls and a custom-built amplifier.

It’s obvious that a lot of thought went in to this, and there’s a ton of work appreciate here, so clear off that inferior desk of yours and check out the build video after the break. Wish you had a PC desk? [Pierre] is seriously considering a Kickstarter if enough people show interest.

Are you into minimalism, but don’t want to build something of this magnitude? There’s more than one way to get there.

Continue reading “You Won’t Believe How Much Tech Is Hiding In This Desk”

Someone Get This Minimalist Wooden PC A Martini

It’s interesting to imagine what computers may have looked like throughout different time periods that precede their portability or even their existence altogether. In the 1950s and ’60s, computers still filled entire rooms, but if the age of the PC had arrived earlier one is left to wonder what might a minimalist mid-century PC might look like.

Well, if we were lucky, it would have looked something like [xmorneau]’s cubical computing creation. This DIY beauty is made of scrap oak and a sexy set of hairpin legs. As hot as it looks, [xmorneau] shouldn’t have to worry about overheating — the bottom is completely open except for an intake fan, there’s another fan at the top that exhausts hot air through a mesh grille, and those lovely little legs elevate it four inches off the desk. Our favorite part (after the legs) has to be the secret lid that blends in beautifully.

The cube measures 32cm³ (~12.6in³), so [xmorneau] went with a mini-ATX motherboard, but was able to fit in a full-size graphics card. Everything is mounted internally to wood except for the mobo, which is mounted on a panel of sheet metal that makes up the back wall.

We love the way this looks and are glad to see that this build changed [xmorneau]’s opinion of RGB a little bit, because we can’t help but like it both ways.

Too sophisticated for your taste? Check out this LEGO-Minecraft mashup.

Retro Recreations Hack Chat With Tube Time

Join us on Wednesday, March 17 at noon Pacific for the Retro Recreations Hack Chat with Tube Time!

join-hack-chatNostalgia seems to be an inevitable consequence of progress. Advance any field far enough into the future, and eventually someone will look back with misty eyes and fond memories of the good old days and start the process of turning what would qualify as junk under normal conditions into highly desirable collectibles.

In some ways, those who have been bitten by the computer nostalgia bug are lucky, since the sheer number of artifacts produced during their period of interest is likely to be pretty high, making getting gear to lovingly restore relatively easy. But even products produced in their millions can eventually get difficult to find, especially once they get snapped up by eager collectors, leaving the rest to make do or do without.

Of course, if you’re as resourceful as Tube Time is, there’s another alternative: build your own retro recreations. He has embarked on some pretty intense builds to recapture a little of what early computer enthusiasts went through trying to build useful machines. He has built replicas of early PC sound cards, like an ISA-bus AdLib card, its MCA equivalent, and the “Snark Barker”— or is it the “Snood Bloober”? — which bears an uncanny resemblance to the classic Sound Blaster card from the 1980s.

Tube Time will join us for the Hack Chat this week to answer questions about all his retro recreations, including his newest work on a retro video card. Be sure to bring your questions on retro rebuilds, reverse engineering, and general computer nostalgia to the chat.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 17 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.
Continue reading “Retro Recreations Hack Chat With Tube Time”