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Upgrades Hardware

Orac^3 -- Not Your Everyday Casemod 328

Posted by timothy from the wopr-junior dept.
jmke writes "G-nome has finished his amazing Orac case mod, which looks absolutely stunning." An excerpt from the site: "Ever since I saw the first series of Blakes 7 I have wanted my own Orac. For those that don't know, Blakes 7 was a late 70s/early 80s British Science Fiction series and Orac was this intellectually snobbish, difficult and incredibly brilliant computer, hand built by an eccentric scientist. The special effects were straight out of 60's Star Trek and a lot of the props were converted from (or later converted to) props from other classic BBC series such as Doctor Who and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (where the Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain looks like it was made by the same bloke!)."
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Orac^3 -- Not Your Everyday Casemod More

Orac^3 -- Not Your Everyday Casemod

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  • Hi-Tech Eye Candy (Score:5, Funny)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) * <homerun@gmail.com> on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:48PM (#9426697)
    If you only look at one article this week or even this month you have got to look at this one. I have never seen such a gorgeous case in my life. The photographs are outstanding. The workmanship on this case is almost beyond what seems possible. THere is a surreal quality to the irridescent green color. THis is truly functional art.

    Go look!!!!

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

  • It's a radio. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:49PM (#9426703) Journal
    That thing doesn't look like it has ANY RF shielding. Bet the FCC and the people who live around him love it. :->
    • And this [thinkgeek.com] is? It's been done before, and I haven't heard of any problems stemming from a clear case.

      • Re:It's a radio. (Score:2, Informative)

        by DAldredge ( 2353 )
        That is a case, not a computer. The person/corp building the computer is responsible for ensuring it follows the correct specs. Notice how no large companies sell complete systems like that?

    • Amusing, but misguided. (Score:5, Funny)

      by DerProfi ( 318055 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:23AM (#9426895)
      Like millions of others, I'm always mucking around in my PC. For the past 15 years, all of the various incarnations of my main desktop have spent most of their time with the cover off. And I've yet to have a single cell phone problem, cordless phone problem, pager problem, AM radio problem, FM radio problem, shortwave radio problem, CB radio problem, 802.11b, g or a problem, TV reception problem, or flux capacitor problem. Best of all, chicks dig it! And who can blame them? I'm clearly the kind of guy who likes to live life on the edge.

    • Re:It's a radio. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:25AM (#9426901)
      RF levels put out by computers are generally significantly lower than those put out by cell phones, and many other devices. You're generally bathed by much more radiation from other sources. In my testing, in order to really detect a computer's RF signals (with the case off), we had to put it in a shielded chambed because there was too much background noise.

      Also, most manufacturers of computer parts have to get the parts certified by the FCC by themselves. The computer as a whole also gets certified, but the individual parts also do.

      RF is crazy stuff. Since the inside of a case is mostly reflective, any small hole in the case (such as where your fan comes out, any air vents, etc) will effectivel cause all the RF to leak out. There's plenty of those in any standard case.

      • Re:It's a radio. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mikael ( 484 )
        I Bet a 20" multisync monitor will put out more RF than the main unit itself. My parents used to enjoy listening to BBC radio 4 on long wave (198 Khz). When I bought a new graphics card, the default video resolution (1280x1024x85?) happened to have a frequency that matched the radio station exactly. For a radius of 10 metres (the entire house), it was impossible to receive the radio signal. Until we found out what the cause was. A quick change of the refresh rate fixed this problem.

    • Re:It's a radio. (Score:5, Funny)

      by treyb ( 9452 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:28AM (#9426911)
      It doesn't need any shielding: he used transparent aluminum.
    • PC components are individually certified by the FCC.

  • Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:50PM (#9426707)
    I could.

  • this is good. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crazyray ( 776321 ) * on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:50PM (#9426708)
    I am happy someone is doing more than just adding neon or chrome to an otherwise-boring beige box. Many of you may think this is wierd, but I am happy to see people express themselves inside or outside of the PC.

  • Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cycline3 ( 678496 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:51PM (#9426713) Homepage
    OK, this is a killer mod. But it just makes me wonder why so many people who do a total mod make it look just like a regualar tower PC case? With all that freedom... why is this still just a rectangular box?

  • Awesome... (Score:4, Funny)

    by sbszine ( 633428 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:53PM (#9426723) Journal
    Just don't let Servalan get her hands on the key : )
  • This is one of the best system mods that I have ever seen. Congradulations! This was obviously a lot of work and an incredible attention. Absolutely amazing.

  • Um No (Score:5, Informative)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @11:56PM (#9426747) Homepage
    I'll first congratulate whoever built this maagnificent piece of art. Very cool. You have way too much free time :) (He's also an excellent photographer. Not something you see very often in case modders :) )

    But it's just not functional!!!!

    All that metal tubing for the cables and stuff and the water cooling tubing must make it a nightmare to work in. Do all those tubes even go anywhere?? It seems awfuly crowded to work in there

    How would you change a hard drive?

    I'm also not a huge fan of watercooling. If there is a leak, two things happen.
    1) Your computer gets wet
    2) The chernobyl effect. Assuming it's survived this long, the coolant's now gone, and the computer keeps getting hotter. Uh oh.

    That being said, it's still beautifully crafted with incredible attention paid to detail.

    • Re:Um No (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xtal ( 49134 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:10AM (#9426841)
      I'm also not a huge fan of watercooling. If there is a leak, two things happen.
      1) Your computer gets wet
      2) The chernobyl effect. Assuming it's survived this long, the coolant's now gone, and the computer keeps getting hotter. Uh oh.

      I did a lot of experimenting [nyx.net] with watercooling for about two years, short answer is it isn't going to leak unless you do something stupid or are very unlucky. If you have a GFCI on the outlet, you don't actually have too much to worry about. Just use proper clamps, or even zip ties will work ok.

      So basically, I'd say this one is not worth worrying about. There have been very few meltdowns for all of the water cooling kits sold, and it HAS come a long way. Resevoirs aren't really needed with some of the new and adapted pumps that are out there. Fish tank 120V submersibles are obsoleted for 12V pumps. Good purpose built radiators are out there. Add silicone tubes and good hose clamps, and you shouldn't see a leak. Think of all the high pressure systems in your average car - rarely do those fail if maintained in far worse conditions.

      • Re:Um No (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <{slashdot} {at} {monkelectric.com}> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @01:24AM (#9427130)
        I had my Koolance system fail twice, the first time soaked the entire mb, took a week to clean up and killed a stick of ram ... the second time it didn't spill but nearly fried the computer because even with antifeeze the pumps seized with some kind of growth...

        Note, both times it took over a year for the system to fail. It is my belief that on a long enough time line, all water cooling systems will fail. How long have you been using yours for?

        • Re:Um No (Score:4, Informative)

          by simcop2387 ( 703011 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @01:37AM (#9427176) Homepage Journal
          put one drop of bleach in there (on a side note, if you ever have to sanitize water, one drop of bleach per gallon should kill most harmful bacteria and other living organisms)

          • Re:Um No (Score:5, Funny)

            by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @02:42AM (#9427388)
            Do not, however, believe the idiots who tell you this is a fine way to make river water potable when camping.

            It had rained during the night, so we were having trouble getting the campfire started to boil a pot of water. My buddy, who was an Army Ranger for chrissakes, says, "No problem!" He pulls out this tiny bottle with an eyedropper, and plops one drop of bleach into the pot. No more buggies. Nice and clean. Tasted nasty, but it was safe.

            Holy christ. Somebody needed to tell that to our digestive systems. About fifteen minutes later, somebody down there pulled the Big Red Switch and WHOOOM. More came out than ever went in, and it emerged with a force sufficient to lift me about a foot right up into the air. I expected to look down and see a pile of clean, white bones lying there. A couple of ribs, my left ulna, two vertibrae, and, right in the middle, my pelvis.

            I was expelling so fast my butt actually got hot from the friction.

            I've had dissentary and I've drunk bleach-water. I'll take the amoebas any day.

            • Re:Um No (Score:5, Informative)

              by ross.w ( 87751 ) <rwonderley AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:52AM (#9428044) Journal
              Chances are you didn't use enough bleach. The water in your tap, has been dosed with chlorine at much higher concentrations than what you would have drunk. Haven't you ever been swimming in a pool? Didn't you swallow any? That didn't give you the runs did it? I agree with the other poster who said you should have used more bleach and left it for an hour or two. I think the water purifying tablets you can buy say much the same thing in the instructions.

            • Cold water? (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @10:18AM (#9429394) Journal
              Bleach will work if...

              1. You use the right amount (don't know the proportions off the top of my head)

              2. You leave it to sit and work based on the temperature of the water. Cold water requires you let it sit longer.

              3. Lots of particulate matter (protein!) can protect nasty buggies from the chemicals. Physically filtering the water through something to get the big bits out first is a good idea.

              I've had a 100% success rate by using a ceramic filter and my judgment. If the water looks really iffy (i.e. hepatitis) I'll look elsewhere or use iodine after filtering it. Fortunatly really nasty stuff (like viruses) isn't a problem in wilderness areas where human waste isn't present.

            • Re:Um No (Score:3, Informative)

              by mikael ( 484 )
              I'll take the amoebas any day.

              You really don't want an amoebic infection of the bloodstream. My stepfather got one while clearing out the drains in our cottage (disused farmhouse cottage). We don't know how long it had been brewing, but for about three nights he would go to bed and then start having "the shakes". He was deathly white, and was shivering with an amplitude of an inch. I was just about expecting something to burst out at any minute.

              Fortunately, we got him to the doctor for a checkup. As his
        • You put antifreeze in your water cooling system? No wonder it failed. Don't put glycols in systems not designed for them.

          The ONLY ONLY ONLY thing to put in a water cooling system is DI water. DI water is both distilled and deionized which means it is neither conductive nor corrosive.

          Your local community college probably makes DI water and will likely fill up a couple of gallon jugs for you for free.

    • most processors will slow themselves down if they get too hot.
      • Only the pentium 4, as far as desktops go, and in certain laptops as well, but aside from that, no. It's far from "most".
        • The Athlon XP (at least with some motherboards) will shut off if it gets to hot. I don't think it degrades gracefully, and I don't think I want to find out given the Toms Hardware video of them testing the original Athlon (supposedly part of what scared AMD into putting a thermal diode into their chips), but at least it shouldn't die.
  • The effects on Blakes7 were not borrowed from Classic Trek. They were lifted straight out of Dr. Who, another landmark BBC SF show famous for its cheesy effects.

  • Partial mirror... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:02AM (#9426790)
    The site is chugging along slowly, but here's a mirror of the two shots on the front page so people can get the gist of the mod.
    Front [onlinehome.us]
    Back [onlinehome.us]

  • A beautiful piece of work. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by neuro.slug ( 628600 ) <neuro__ AT hotmail DOT com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:03AM (#9426794)
    Apple should hire this guy. In the world of cheesy 'look-through-the-window-at-my-neon-tubes' case-modding, this fellow has certainly showed us all something truly unique.

    -- n
  • The slashdotting of this server can be raised to the 3 as well.

    Exp[Server]=slashdotting

  • First two pics (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was able to grab the first two images before server died. [hnet.net]

  • image mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by infonick ( 679715 ) * on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:07AM (#9426820) Homepage
    Thanks to my /. subscription, i was able to secure some images! orac3 images [members.shaw.ca]

  • names are important (Score:4, Informative)

    by corian ( 34925 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:07AM (#9426824)
    from the story posting:

    "G-nome has finished his amazing Orac case mod, which looks absolutely stunning."

    from the linked web site:

    by G-gnome on 9th June 2004

    that's G-gnome, not G-nome. Note the extra "G".

    Proofreading, anyone?

  • Orac (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:07AM (#9426826)
    Been a while, but IIRC...

    Orac was special because it had access to subspace, and could communicate with any computer anywhere.

    Orac met his demise when the occupants of subspace got annoyed at the signals he was transmitting though their realm. (Sort of reminds me of a STTNG episode too... perhaps I'm confused).

    Last I heard, the actor that played the character "Avon", had bought the rights to the series, and was working on continuing it.

    Any torrents of the series?

    Back on topic: why would anone want to see the dust in their computer? Or end up a slave to constantly cleaning it, and carefully?
    • Orac met his demise

      What demise? Orac was in the final episode, last seen as the crew flew towards Blake's base on Gauda Prime. Along with Avon, he is the only character who's fate is uncertain.

  • That's really impressive, a ton of work went into this mod. I can't imagine having this amount of time to devote. Nice photos too for the most part, and very descriptive captions.

    I'll post a mirror as PDFs if needed.

  • warning! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chris Deegan ( 764287 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:10AM (#9426844)
    don't put this machine near your kids or anything - they might get assimilated...

  • Looks nothing like ORAC (Score:5, Informative)

    by Usquebaugh ( 230216 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:15AM (#9426858)
    Really,

    it's a very nice case mod, but has no link to Blakes7 other than the name.

  • mirror of 55 of the pics (Score:5, Informative)

    by 770291 ( 770291 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:26AM (#9426902)
    http://robotiq.com/index.asp?category=orac [robotiq.com]

  • Fast link to main pic (Score:2, Informative)

    by miknight ( 642270 )
    For those who just want to see the final picture of the case quickly go here [tinypic.com].
  • this really is beautiful.

    now if only powermac g5's were cheap enough for me to buy one, and completely ignore the warranty to build a piece of art like this. Of course, I'd use those chrome tubes and attach Doctor Octopus claws on the end of mine.

  • ROFL This show led me into computing! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Edmund Blackadder ( 559735 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @12:52AM (#9427023)
    Believe it or not I became interested in computing from that TV show and that same orac computer.

    No, I am not British. I am actually from one of the soviet block countries and believe it or not our national TV bought and broadcast that show. I can see now why they prefer it to Star Trek. I don't remember the storylines exactly, but Blake's 7 had a revolutionary overall story line -- it was a bit like Star Wars with a small revolutionary group fighting an evil empire. Also I am willing to bet Blake's was much much cheaper than startrek.

    Well I was a little kid and I asked my parents what a computer was ... and luck would have it they were both computer engineers. So they told me a all about how a computer is an intelligent machine, and from then on i decided that i would create computers like ORAC and was pretty much obssessed with them. Shortly thereafter i got my parents to buy my a BASIC book and was deeply mired in goto statements.

    Anyways, thank you Blake's 7!!! You made me a nerd!

    P.S. Am I glad my country did not buy Startrek instead! I would be a startrek nerd on top everything else!
    • If you liked Blake7, check out Farscape. Chances are you'll find yourself getting that old sci-fi show chill factor again.

      *sigh* Farscape.

      Why do they always cancel the good shows?

      • Re:ROFL This show led me into computing! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by BlacKat ( 114545 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @02:45AM (#9427396)
        Did you know that SciFi has made a four-episode mini-series to "finish" the story? It will be airied during the fall/winter season this year. :)

        Each episode is one hour, so less commercials about 40 minutes, or 160 in total, for just over 2½ hours. :)

        I would of prefered all of season five myself, but it will be nice to see a conclusion to the story instead of just "To Be Continued..."!
  • hands down, that's art

    it reminds of paintings by hr giger, the guy who created the monster from the movie alien:

    google image search for hr giger [google.com]

  • Its amazing what one can do with some silver loom (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aardwolf204 ( 630780 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @01:43AM (#9427193)
    This mod reminds me a lot of my PC mod. I'm not trying to tute my own wistle here, just offer some insight into the wonderful things one can do with something as simple as silver loom and offer some advice

    My friends and I got into the case mod thing a while back. I ended up getting a nice case with a window, threw in a few blue cold cathodes, and watched in glee as all of my friends and I had the same exact thing albeit different colored LEDs and Neons. Wippdie-do. I needed something to make mine look a little different than my friends so aside from doing the invisible CD drive mod (case simplicity is bliss), I loomed all of my power and IDE cords with chrome loom you can pick up from automotive shops like Advance or Auto Zone.

    I also found the chrome loom at a few online retailers but the price was ridicilious. I think I ended up getting a few feet of the stuff from a local auto shop from the StreetGlow brand. This stuff can really make what used to be a boring case something plesant on the eyes. It really accents the colored LEDs or Neons in your case.

    The tricky part is figuring out how much to cut for each strip of wite. I suggest laying out all of your drives in your case and connecting the molexes. Make sure to leave an extra molex near the bottom for future upgrade as I'm sure most new graphics cards will require them. Cut the loom to size of the wire with a litte bit extra which can nicely cover that ugly molex. I went with 1/4" loom which worked perfectly for that huge motherboard connector, and works great with room to spare on the rounded IDE cables. If you want to give it something a little extra get some 1/8" also and use it for the smaller cables. I was going to cover my water cooling tubes with the stuff but that was a bit over kill. Still, the case looks more like something out of a badass anime while all of my friends cases look just about the same.

    You can also try colored chrome loom instead of traditional silver but since I've got blue lights I wanted as much reflection as possible.

    Has anyone else had experience with this, what problems did you run across? Can you share some advice?
  • for K-kde to finish his mod ;-)

  • I saw this a couple weeks ago, because its slashdotted pretty well now. Truly remarkable, above and beyond most case modding.
  • Not really, but I was lucky enough to see the front page so I'll post a sample picture.
    Here's the better of the two pictures on the front page:
    orac3.jpg [fizzl.net]

    (This ain't blazingly fast server either, so my apologizies if it's dead already)
  • an intellectually snobbish computer runs linux? Certainly most of the intellectually snobbish computer users do.
  • Fear not, little chickens - we've spoken to our hosts, and a line upgrade is imminent! You guys have been maxxing out our line to 100% for 7 hours, so do your worst to the new one, eh? :)

  • PC mods remind me of souped up Honda Civics or as I call them "all show and no go." I am just curious why people waste so much money on something that can be quite expensive and so useless.

    I haven't had a PC mod in my life. If I end up with extra money, I usually spend it on hardware or something that can increase my productivity, something that is useful. I do admire the fact that people are dedicated to making their boxes look good, but gee.... a computer is just a tool.

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