You know how back in the early 00's there were all those IE browser toolbars and some people would install every single one they could despite not using pretty much anything from them? This tower's kind of the hardware equivalent to that, and it's hilarious.
Dear god, the memories... Most people had a few, but once had to service a malware ridden one that had over a dozen bars. The customer said it had become progressively slower (...), and now it took 30m to get to the desktop. I s**t you not... 30m later i was looking at the desktop finally stabilizing, with a couple IE's, popup's and overall malware madness :D
Cint! What an amazing project, and solid progress. As for the OS, I don't think either XP or 2000 would do this monstrosity justice. There is only one system that embodies the spirit of this project and that's Windows Millennium Edition. Go full Y2K on this!🤩
I'm still yearning for a aftermarket stereo unit :) As a teenager, I were looking forward to my first car and to get some really cool stereo unit. But it's too late sadly. You can barely swap the modern ones out now :(
@AndreasElf you wanna check out "aftermarket surrounds". It replaces a lot of your dashboard so you can put single and double din stereos in. I have a few different cars. I have a 1977 MGB GT and it's got a beautiful radio head unit in it from the early 80s. It's all analogue and crisp!
@@AndreasElf You are 100% wrong, just get a dash kit and wiring harness for your car. Everything else has been the same for many decades.... I've installed stereos in every vehicle I've owned since the 80s.....
WORKING ALL THE THINGS! There is no limit to how stupid this should be, the dumber the better. And XP is perfect for this because every experience using it is another set of reminders that every programme manager behind the scenes won every fight to stick their stupid, stupid feature in your face with a million popups and dialogue boxes and "are you sure"s and and and and that's why I moved to OS X. So it's a perfect match. _Definitely_ XP.
I'm sure we're all just HEARTBROKEN that this video will get a Part 2, right? :P This isn't just a quick physics experiment; this is Frankenstein's Monster and we're all here for it.
We can only hope that you manage to find a mini-CRT bay monitor of your own one day, Clint. The idea of a fully self-contained & usable Oddware tower sounds amazing.
I have looked in the past. Best I could ever do it fit a 4 inch TV could fit in a double slot. Even then I had to take part of the bezel off and make a spacer/blocker for the sides. Going smaller would be possible but that would be old camcorder CRTs, that would take some work, not to bad but it would be too small for much use.
@@krisreddish3066 I find those old mini B/W TV sets at the flea market all the time, generally 5 USD or less. Would be a good use for one (although I think those are 5")
@@gabotron94 If you can power it 5 inch may fit. Some older PC cases have dual slot optical bays that are about 5.25inch. Things like flash and bezels may get into the way and may take some rework to make them look nice.
@@LGR I recently did a build for my dad where I took his old gateway tower from 98, and put new hardware inside with win10 (while keeping the floppy drive, and beige exterior aesthetic). I would LOVE to see your take on a "sleeper" machine like that. Especially a SFF desktop like an old IBM or something. RTX IBM SFF?!
@@LGR I know as a collector there is a dilemma between wanting stuff and having stuff. Doing some Oddware builds for charity auction could be a fun way to get some of this never used oddball items out in the world.
It's like a ZX Spectrum, with its .. uh.. CC-RAM(?) drive. It would actually be pretty cool to see something like that in an IBM 5150, seeing as it has a cassette interface.
XP was absolutely my first OS thought when VU meters come to mind, and Winamp skins. Amazing tower build. So many childhood dreams in one box. Thank you so much for bringing us along with you!
i was thinking that too. he may have to have a signal repeater in there. idk how well audio signal will hold up after being processed by 4 different devices lol
This generation of Antec cases holds a special place in my heart. I’ve been holding on to the 900 I picked up in the 00’s for a similar oddball retro showcase build.
Agreed!! I Still have my antec from 2010-ish, which looks like a (believe it or not) larger version of the 1200. That Beast has got two 200mm fans on top and a freaking TURBINE fan on the side. Alas, i had to remove the turbine cowl (it literally had a cowl) because of the ever expanding size of GPUs. The case with absolutely nothing in it is a solid 40-50lbs of aircraft aluminum and plastic. I'm glad to see some love for them here - their air flow and modding capabilities are still unbeatable.
@@thecaffeinequeen From what you described this sounds a lot like my Sunbeamtech tower I just got. It maybe was trying to knockoff Antec. For being a low end cheapo knockoff supplier, damn that case is a monster. It is nearly as big as if not bigger than my iBuyPower Chimera tower I had built in 2016! It's so heavy empty it's unreal. It is super well made for being china pride stuff.
Fantastic! I used to walk through an arcade in the cbd near me in the early 2000s that had a bunch of pc shops that would fill their window displays full of machines tricked out with these front panels. So good!
I think that some cool re-skins of WinXP, flashy icon packs, overlay-widgets etc. would go great together with those. I.e. equally as silly on the inside as the outside is the way to go!
I absolutely love this build. This definitely begs for a part 2, with whatever computer you build in there making everything 'functional' (at least as much as those oddball bits actually function).
If you want to continue the oddware theme with the OS, I think Vista would be the best choice. Overall this is a fun idea and I'm definitely looking forward to the follow up with everything functional.
And the hardware needs to be something unusual, but still cool, like a Phenom first generation (X4 9950 BE would be interesting) and a controversy ATI Radeon HD 2900XT.
Vista might be a crapshoot with driver compatibility for the few components in here that require software for full functionality, so XP with a wacky theme like Zune would probably be a better bet. Or maybe even XP Media Center Edition since that whole OS itself is pretty much Oddware in its own way! LOL.
A lot of these PC accessories were made during the times of big LAN parties and gaming conventions and stuff where people would trick out their PC's and add all kinds of stuff to them to show off. The early 2000's to 2006 was an amazing time to be a PC gamer.
I have that exact case! I used it in my "mega gaming computer" build in college 2009, and then several years later converted into a server case. It's actually sitting beside me right now! I can't even count the number of times I've opened up and mucked about inside, cleaned the fans, etc.. Surreal watching you install all these oddware pieces into it! What a ride! Can't wait to see an actual computer in this thing
I've got two of the Antec 900. Turned the first into a CD/DVD ripper with multiple drives. Finally retired the 2nd for my new 5900X build. Great cases.
Built like the proverbial brick dunny. At least my 300 is. Weighs a ton, but it's quality. Compared to the ones equivalent in that era, and even modern ones, ... honestly i think i could crush them with the Antec and it wouldn't even care.
This takes me back to the ridiculous PC builds I used to do with the surplus parts I got from my dad's work way back in the day. You missed out not loading it up with tape drives though. The sound of multiple tape drives loading up on boot is priceless.
I love that you used an Antec 1200 for this. I love that case and continue to use it for my main PC to this day because it's the most moddable case I've ever seen, and works great for my 12 hard drives, 2 optical drives, and front panel GameCube ports.
@@SuperFromND You basically take Nintendo's official Gamecube to USB adapter and remove it from its case, then insert it into a 3D printed case that's designed to mount it into a 5 1/4 inch drive bay on a desktop PC. (Several different printable models are floating around online.) Then you hook it up to a USB header on your motherboard and you're good to go.
I'm still rocking that exact Antec tower case, you're right, it is an absolute beast, and every time I lug it around I think to myself "You just HAD to get the biggest one."
I would LOVE to see A Vista build. I don't think I've ever witnessed a fresh install of Windows Vista. And it just feels right that such a polished yet unnecessarily clunky OS accompany this polished yet unnecessarily clunky stack of gimmicks.
LGR, I've followed you for years. This is the most awesomely ridiculous thing you've ever done, and I loved every minute of it. What a magnificent monstrosity you've built!
Clint, a heartfelt thank you for what you do. Your channel is a very welcome slice of pure pleasure in an otherwise very trying world. This build is totally ridiculous and I love it. I look forward to every Friday for lovely nonsense like this.
This is *beyond* old school nerdy and I *absolutely* love it! I can't wait to see the full thing up and running with all its parts going. If you want to go as oddball on the inside as you are on the outside, maybe a Cyrix CPU ought to be fun? Or "fun" depending on how well it can ultimately handle things. lol As for the lighter, maybe the other one wouldn't pose as much of a fire hazard? I think it'd be even more hilarious to use the other one anyway and put it right below the air conditioner module. That way, you can keep your soda cool while you kick some butt in Unreal Tournament or whatever. lol
Cyrix is good, but what if he could cram a Transmeta chip in there somehow? :D Gotta find out whether the fan's blowing cool air in or hot air out; maybe it can keep some gaming tea warm with the heat from the computer itself :'D
I do agree that an XP build would be ideal (especially if you grab the Luna/Zune/Media edition skins and a lot of the popular UI mods I and others used to run back then), but I'm curious what a Win 2k build would look like, since people did run 2k for a while
me and pretty much all the other nerds in my high school class ran Win2K, but a lot of games didn't work on it, so we had to have a dual-boot with Windows 98. The lack of proper game and media support was incidentially why MS felt a need to release WinME. It was never supposed to exist - 2K was supposed to be the only Windows, but it didn't work out. XP was really just a minor upgrade to 2K, with the media support fixed, which is also why 2K is NT 5 and XP is NT 5.1
I love the goofy way it is now and can imagine how cool it would look if everything was matched aesthetically on black or silver. Definitely would get my attention at a computer show.
Oh man, that NewQ Gold VFD looks exactly like what my older brother's all-in-one sound system had! It's probably pretty close age-wise. I remember it had a minidisc player at the bottom of it and I'd never seen or heard of that format before so it always stuck in my mind.
This is why I wish 5 1/4" bays were still mainstream. You can do so much with them. Even if you are all high and mighty thinking that physical media is dead, you can still use them for extra USB ports, fan controllers, or a fancy screen showing system usage (which now has made their way INSIDE of the case, which is silly).
THIS! A case where the front was JUST 5.25" drive bays would be great from a customisation perspective. Put the buttons and lights on a module that goes in one of the bays (with space for a hard drive behind it). Put the ports on a module. Put any front fans you might want on modules. Put your status displays on modules. And of course, put your _drives_ on more modules. You could put 5x 3.5" hard drives across 3x 5.25" bays vertically. Or 3x across 2x 5.25" bays horizontally, with a couple of 2.5" SSDs on the side (I've spent a lot of time thinking about space in 5.25" drive bays). Get a 9-bay tower and fit it with a button/port module, two 5x drive modules, and a 3x drive module for a beefy NAS with 13 externally-accessible, hot-swappable hard drives in some exotic RAID configuration with 3 drives being used for parity, plus a few internal-only SSDs for cache.
This might be very tricky to do because I doubt the parts age well, but: early water-cooling was pretty wild. The case you are using even has the typical holes in the back where you would route your water loop to an externally mounted water reservoir!
Love this channel so much, thank you sir! It’s my fave coffee morning weekend watch.🙌 Part 2 with PC on its way hopefully, you’ve teased us too much now!😅
I found your channel not long ago, and I instantly fell in love with the content you make. I binge watched most of your videos, and even got myself that one Viagra mouse you covered, lol. Thank you for sharing your collection with us, it's literal goals!
Oh man, the Antec cases from that era were everywhere. I think the Antec 900 must have had at least a 50% market share. Everyone I knew, myself included, used one.
This is great! Would be cool to see it used as an experimental "instrument" with a midi keyboard plugged in. You could get great weird sounds by running through all the different oddware, recording to and from cassette, separating channel feeds, etc...
The Plus Deck 2c cassette player can be used on its own, without software control. Just connect the ribbon cable and expansion bracket, and a 3.5mm audio cable going from the blue to green jacks on the bracket. Then you can plug headphones or speakers into the Plus Deck's front panel headphone jack, and use it to play tapes.
Minor aesthetic thing (and some work to do), but you could order them so they go brightest to darkest. Like a gradient that goes from beige to blackest black. Might look cool.
Just came from your 'finishing the build' video. My shiny object syndrome was at an all time high back in 2007 when I was buying a new gadget every month. Had no idea this thing existed back in the early 2000's; it would have been a huge temptation back then. Love how it looks; it's like some kind of retro-futuristic cyberpunk technology.
This is the case I still run my home server out of! Good airflow is right - I've had mine in the basement closet next to my office and it never gets remotely hot. It only utilizes a lowly 2 slots though - a Blu-Ray drive and a DVD drive for ripping my discs, and then a few HDDs. Awesome way to utilize all 12 drives! My vote is certainly for Windows XP, the oddware oozes early 2000s energy when its all arrayed like this. Great video as always, Clint!
You should have the drives go from black at the top down to white at the bottom or vice versa, would make it look like the mismatched colors were on purpose :)
LGR rules. Ideas like this are what make youtube better then other media imo. Maybe a cheesy car accesory to go in cig lighter. small beer cooler ,cofffe warmer, an i pod adaptor that uses a FM frequency or even just a cool skull with led eyes?... The thumbnail and this video had me grinning from ear to ear. thanks man
I had a revision of one of these cases as my case for most of my computer's life. I finally let it go because the top fan is a custom shape and I couldn't immediately find a second replacement for that fan for what I deemed a reasonable price (I had two of those fans fail). I really did love it, though, and it's a little surreal to see one of it's older siblings on this channel!
I love that case, and I still have mine in my basement. I used to keep my P4 HT rig in it, I upgraded it a few years ago to a Phenom SLI setup. I'm absolutely thrilled to see it here on Clint's Oddware video!
Very much looking forward to part two indeed! :D. I'm feeling a late PIII or early P4 (up to 2ghz) with Windows Millennium. Don't forget that Geforce 2 MX!
It's kind of mind blowing to think that if you get that CD duplicator case that you could fill all of the bays in addition to the Antec case that you just put together. That would be an idea for a future video so you're welcome to it. I thoroughly enjoyed this video, and now I'm going to watch your part two video about this build.
I have a single bay version of the Antec Veris in an old HTPC that I built. It has the VFD from the Silverstone insert you put in and a single volume knob. Its main use is that you can completely power the PC on from an infrared remote and with the included software, you can emulate keyboard commands with a remote making so that you can completely control an HTPC with a remote.
The fact that they are not grouped by color triggers my OCD heavily, other than that, it's absolutely awesome. It reminds me the early 2000's when the coolest computer cases had blue crappy neon lights and a lot of useless stuff on them that looked flashy 😂.
As a teenager I would love buying different pieces of odd ware like lighting, hardware; etc, and applying them to my store bought PC. Eventually I went on to the building of my own PC, and would get so excited over the building process. Just waiting for my parts to arrive was exciting enough. Good times! And this is exactly why I enjoy watching LGR. He brings the nostalgia back! (Comment also for the algorithm boost.)
LOL that is stupidly awesome :D I just want to see all of that working (together). The audio things plugged into each other and the "subwoofer" outputting sound, controllable by the remote, showing which song is playing on Winamp on the screen and so on.
Such a cool homeage to the customizability of desktop computers with their standardized bays! Also, please, I'm begging you to either spread all the light colored ones evenly, or have them all together in a row!
I had no ideas such bizarre add-ons existed for PC towers back then. Then again, it wouldn't matter, I wasn't working yet or earning revenue from anything so I wouldn't have been able to indulge anyway. Still, what a strange time it was when PC's were a new thing to the regular consumer and everybody was experimenting. Good times that'll never come back...which is why I'm glad you channel exists, you can relive these experiences for me.
What a beautifully magnificent homage to late 90's and early 2000's PC building! About the cigarette lighter, when the PC is on display get a car accessory like a fan and plug it!
Oh man I had an Antec 1200 as my first case for a PC I built myself! Getting the foam out of the fan cages is an absolute nightmare to clean - like 32 screws to get them open. Also that 200mm "Big Boy" fan and that hilarious eSATA port on the front - this just screams "WINDOWS VISTA MONSTER"
Nice way to store everything in working order, sort of like a 2000s pc modding museum. Yeah about youtubing, back when I was making a video a week I had to do stuff like that, including a Windows XP ultimate build in which I had to devide in 2 parts, first hardware build, second games and benchmarks. That's the way it goes when you're on the clock!
I used to have one of those exact bay fans... chopped it up to use as a fan inside a NES-PC ITX system inside an old NES. Now I'm using a slim 60mm fan on the side to draw air through the system though.
I love old Antec cases. I have a hard time finding cases with enough bays to build my dream system which would house several 5.25" hotswap bays for 3.5/2.5in drives as well as 2 DVD drives and perhaps some kind of modern oddware space-filler.
Several of the PCs I built in the 90's and early 2000's had those funky devices like the front sound jacks, game controller I/O ports, fan controls, and temperature gauges. Those were so cool back in the day! 😄
Love it! I remember wanting this case when it came out, and a few years ago I was lucky enough to trash pick one! (Empty, unfortunately) I'm currently reassembling it and the algorithm recommended this video. If you feel like getting rid of any of those drive bay covers or fans from the front, I'd be willing to buy them! Thank you for continuing to make these Oddly relaxing videos for all of us to watch.
@@LGR thanks anyway! Just got it put back together despite the previous owners best efforts. Need to order some Mobo standoffs and we'll be good to go!
XP works great, Vista is definitely underrepresented (and really unique in its own way), but importently the software needs to be as cursed as the drive bays. Yes, I mean desktop gadgets, IE toolbars, themes, icon packs, all that kind of fun stuff!
I used to have a 5.25 LCD display in my PC years ago from Crystalfontz, which is still making them today. Loved to see my temps., fan speeds, harddrive space, and also have RSS updates scroll across. 😁
I still use the ankek 1200 as my main pc case, just with custom metallic blue trim, great case, also remember selling some of these devices when worked in the computer retail industry in the 90's and early 2000s
Especially if it's going to be unplugged, I think you should remove the cigarette thing. Everything else is at least functional, so it would be cool to have all twelve bays doing something, in my opinion!
Okay, serious use case for a case full of 5.25" drive bay oddware: DIY Hifi system front-end. BD drive, Cassette deck, IR receiver, status displays, button modules, and a hard drive. Maybe add a floppy drive for good measure if you've still got some space left. Pair it with an amplifier that the computer can order to power up and you've got something that'll play most kinds of media, including streaming if you connect it to a network, and most importantly, that you can fix if one part of it breaks. If you can find a suitable set of software to go between the buttons, status displays and whatever media playback engine you're running inside, you might even be able to use it without a monitor. If not, maybe you could find a touch-screen module to go in a few bays?
I still have my Antec 300 case from a 2008 build. All parts and mint condition. It was one of the least flashy cases I could find that was made of metal. The last component I pulled out of it, an OCZ power supply from 2008, died just a few weeks ago. Thing outlived the company that made it (defunct in 2014) by 9 years.
Thank you for putting this monstrosity together. when I saw the title, I knew that thing was going to be ridiculous! Makes me miss the days of 5.25 oddities! Maybe stick with P4 with XP 32bit or lower cause you may not have 64 bit drivers or Vista drivers? Maybe also move the AC above the cigarette lighter, for protection, or swap with the Creative live thingy? While your safety is utmost importance, you could go all in with ram cooler modules and the craziest pci/isa expansion modules you have. Thanks for putting together amazing videos!
The follow-up completing this build with a PC is here!
th-cam.com/video/D1OEZ42yf_4/w-d-xo.html
What about putting the burger mouse on this bad boy? :-)
You know how back in the early 00's there were all those IE browser toolbars and some people would install every single one they could despite not using pretty much anything from them? This tower's kind of the hardware equivalent to that, and it's hilarious.
Wow, you unlocked a neural pathway right there with that toolbar thing
Customer: I can't see the webpage any more!
Tech: To many IE browser toolbars...
LOL
Been there seen that as a tech in the 90's
LLAP 🖖
Dear god, the memories... Most people had a few, but once had to service a malware ridden one that had over a dozen bars. The customer said it had become progressively slower (...), and now it took 30m to get to the desktop. I s**t you not... 30m later i was looking at the desktop finally stabilizing, with a couple IE's, popup's and overall malware madness :D
@@ErazerPT I remember! Awesome times! Being a tech back then meant a bunch of head banging on the wall... 🤪
LLAP 🖖
IIRC there was a plugin that let you scroll through all the installed toolbars to give you more usable screenspace
This totally looks like something you would find in a magazine in the early 2000s. I love it.
I remember seeing photos of builds like this on Tom’s Hardware back then! I think they used a Cooler Master Stacker case
@@LGR So as of 7:19 you're basically building the "Ultimate" audio PC?
@@mattparker9726 the musketeer III doesn’t really do much with the audio
MAXIMUM PC cover build
And those magazines are all out of business now.
I love it. You basically built a car dashboard PC hybrid. cassette deck, speakers, cig lighter, gauges, even got the "AC"
Even a rear view mirror lol
Great now it needs some fuzzy dice hanging off the side.
Install a PC and run a drive sim!
It's like the physical equivalent of having a ton of browser toolbars. Similar level of functionality too
"let's search google for 'cool toolbars very nice'" - Vinesauce Joel
Cint! What an amazing project, and solid progress. As for the OS, I don't think either XP or 2000 would do this monstrosity justice. There is only one system that embodies the spirit of this project and that's Windows Millennium Edition. Go full Y2K on this!🤩
I think a PC Chips Motherboard with fake cache or maybe a Celeron without any would be most appropriate for this. Add to the madness 🙂
@@MrDuncluh yesss Celeron!!!
Cyrix!!
ME is unstable and better known as the Mistake Edition ware as XP or 2000 are stable with the NT Kernal would do justice for this build.
@@rogermeyer5695 That's EXACTLY WHY Me is a great option! Don't you get it? 😂😂
It reminds me of when in the 2000s you would walk into aftermarket car stores and see all of the different funky radios on display all in demo mode.
I'm still yearning for a aftermarket stereo unit :)
As a teenager, I were looking forward to my first car and to get some really cool stereo unit. But it's too late sadly. You can barely swap the modern ones out now :(
@AndreasElf you wanna check out "aftermarket surrounds". It replaces a lot of your dashboard so you can put single and double din stereos in. I have a few different cars. I have a 1977 MGB GT and it's got a beautiful radio head unit in it from the early 80s. It's all analogue and crisp!
You can still do that in 2023...
@@AndreasElf You are 100% wrong, just get a dash kit and wiring harness for your car. Everything else has been the same for many decades.... I've installed stereos in every vehicle I've owned since the 80s.....
@@PanekPL Yep. Walmart, best buy, audio stores, flea markets.....
This is exactly where I hoped we'd end up after having looked at so many 5.25 drive bay oddities. Clint never disappoints
I want to see this Oddtower running at it's full potential. With all of those silly devices working fully. Do it!
I would love to see that too!
tbh I thought he'd do that in this episode.. kinda upset I didnt get to see it here
It looks soul-less without everything working. you must give it life!!!!
WORKING ALL THE THINGS!
There is no limit to how stupid this should be, the dumber the better. And XP is perfect for this because every experience using it is another set of reminders that every programme manager behind the scenes won every fight to stick their stupid, stupid feature in your face with a million popups and dialogue boxes and "are you sure"s and and and and that's why I moved to OS X. So it's a perfect match. _Definitely_ XP.
@@shant-oHe says exactly why it wasn't in the video at the end
I'm sure we're all just HEARTBROKEN that this video will get a Part 2, right? :P This isn't just a quick physics experiment; this is Frankenstein's Monster and we're all here for it.
My younger self would have been blown away at the site of this monstrosity in the early 2000s, I love it!
We can only hope that you manage to find a mini-CRT bay monitor of your own one day, Clint. The idea of a fully self-contained & usable Oddware tower sounds amazing.
Self contained... did they ever make a drive bay keypad???
I have looked in the past. Best I could ever do it fit a 4 inch TV could fit in a double slot. Even then I had to take part of the bezel off and make a spacer/blocker for the sides. Going smaller would be possible but that would be old camcorder CRTs, that would take some work, not to bad but it would be too small for much use.
@@krisreddish3066 I find those old mini B/W TV sets at the flea market all the time, generally 5 USD or less. Would be a good use for one (although I think those are 5")
@@gabotron94 If you can power it 5 inch may fit. Some older PC cases have dual slot optical bays that are about 5.25inch. Things like flash and bezels may get into the way and may take some rework to make them look nice.
Honestly the perfect video idea, I would love more videos like this where you combine a bunch of weird tech stuff into a monstrocity
I’d love to do more, I’m open to ideas!
@@LGR I recently did a build for my dad where I took his old gateway tower from 98, and put new hardware inside with win10 (while keeping the floppy drive, and beige exterior aesthetic). I would LOVE to see your take on a "sleeper" machine like that. Especially a SFF desktop like an old IBM or something. RTX IBM SFF?!
I wonder if anyone's made a folding keyboard that fits in a drive bay.
@@LGR find some way to wire up all the usb oddware you have, I know they make multi-port USB dongles
@@LGR I know as a collector there is a dilemma between wanting stuff and having stuff. Doing some Oddware builds for charity auction could be a fun way to get some of this never used oddball items out in the world.
- "Look at this tower! It can take cassette tapes!"
- "Oh, cool! I never saw a tower that can play cassettes as well as CDs."
- "No, just cassettes."
That's a good point! I didn't even click on he didn't actually put an optical drive in it! Cassettes only!
It's like a ZX Spectrum, with its .. uh.. CC-RAM(?) drive.
It would actually be pretty cool to see something like that in an IBM 5150, seeing as it has a cassette interface.
I would probably have put a zip drive in here.
@@jonathanellis6097 Dual layer DVD with LightScribe.
- I just load ISOs from cassettes.
Congrats on getting featured in the PCMag newsletter! I just saw the article for the first time, and you totally deserved it. Keep up the great work!
Didn't even know they had a newsletter! Neat!
@@LGR I didn't even know they still existed. lol
XP was absolutely my first OS thought when VU meters come to mind, and Winamp skins. Amazing tower build. So many childhood dreams in one box. Thank you so much for bringing us along with you!
The thing i'm most curious about is how many of the audio related oddwares can be integrated together.
i was thinking that too. he may have to have a signal repeater in there. idk how well audio signal will hold up after being processed by 4 different devices lol
Ideally integrated with Clint's modular synth rig!
This generation of Antec cases holds a special place in my heart. I’ve been holding on to the 900 I picked up in the 00’s for a similar oddball retro showcase build.
Agreed!! I Still have my antec from 2010-ish, which looks like a (believe it or not) larger version of the 1200. That Beast has got two 200mm fans on top and a freaking TURBINE fan on the side. Alas, i had to remove the turbine cowl (it literally had a cowl) because of the ever expanding size of GPUs. The case with absolutely nothing in it is a solid 40-50lbs of aircraft aluminum and plastic. I'm glad to see some love for them here - their air flow and modding capabilities are still unbeatable.
@@thecaffeinequeen From what you described this sounds a lot like my Sunbeamtech tower I just got. It maybe was trying to knockoff Antec. For being a low end cheapo knockoff supplier, damn that case is a monster. It is nearly as big as if not bigger than my iBuyPower Chimera tower I had built in 2016! It's so heavy empty it's unreal. It is super well made for being china pride stuff.
Fantastic!
I used to walk through an arcade in the cbd near me in the early 2000s that had a bunch of pc shops that would fill their window displays full of machines tricked out with these front panels. So good!
I think that some cool re-skins of WinXP, flashy icon packs, overlay-widgets etc. would go great together with those. I.e. equally as silly on the inside as the outside is the way to go!
I absolutely love this build. This definitely begs for a part 2, with whatever computer you build in there making everything 'functional' (at least as much as those oddball bits actually function).
If you want to continue the oddware theme with the OS, I think Vista would be the best choice. Overall this is a fun idea and I'm definitely looking forward to the follow up with everything functional.
Vista would be good and look flashy like all the oddware. Someone also said XP with the Zune theme, which I think would also look good
OS2/Warp?
Edit: ah, but yeah, that likely won't work driver-wise.
And the hardware needs to be something unusual, but still cool, like a Phenom first generation (X4 9950 BE would be interesting) and a controversy ATI Radeon HD 2900XT.
Vista might be a crapshoot with driver compatibility for the few components in here that require software for full functionality, so XP with a wacky theme like Zune would probably be a better bet. Or maybe even XP Media Center Edition since that whole OS itself is pretty much Oddware in its own way! LOL.
Widgets! ALL THE WIDGETS!!
That is both ridiculous and awesome at the same time. I love it.😄
It definately needs an XP System in it. 👍
Media Center Edition?
@@kshadehyaena Of course. LOL.
A lot of these PC accessories were made during the times of big LAN parties and gaming conventions and stuff where people would trick out their PC's and add all kinds of stuff to them to show off. The early 2000's to 2006 was an amazing time to be a PC gamer.
I have that exact case! I used it in my "mega gaming computer" build in college 2009, and then several years later converted into a server case. It's actually sitting beside me right now! I can't even count the number of times I've opened up and mucked about inside, cleaned the fans, etc.. Surreal watching you install all these oddware pieces into it! What a ride! Can't wait to see an actual computer in this thing
I've got two of the Antec 900. Turned the first into a CD/DVD ripper with multiple drives. Finally retired the 2nd for my new 5900X build. Great cases.
Built like the proverbial brick dunny. At least my 300 is. Weighs a ton, but it's quality. Compared to the ones equivalent in that era, and even modern ones, ... honestly i think i could crush them with the Antec and it wouldn't even care.
Never had a 900, but I’ve got an old video capture system built in a P180. It’s huge and weighs a ton.
It's glorious in its oddness. It has a 2000's edgy vibe. Definitely want to see it up and running with XP
This takes me back to the ridiculous PC builds I used to do with the surplus parts I got from my dad's work way back in the day.
You missed out not loading it up with tape drives though. The sound of multiple tape drives loading up on boot is priceless.
I love that you used an Antec 1200 for this. I love that case and continue to use it for my main PC to this day because it's the most moddable case I've ever seen, and works great for my 12 hard drives, 2 optical drives, and front panel GameCube ports.
front panel gamecube ports for PCs are a thing??
@@SuperFromND You basically take Nintendo's official Gamecube to USB adapter and remove it from its case, then insert it into a 3D printed case that's designed to mount it into a 5 1/4 inch drive bay on a desktop PC. (Several different printable models are floating around online.) Then you hook it up to a USB header on your motherboard and you're good to go.
I'm still rocking that exact Antec tower case, you're right, it is an absolute beast, and every time I lug it around I think to myself "You just HAD to get the biggest one."
I would LOVE to see A Vista build. I don't think I've ever witnessed a fresh install of Windows Vista. And it just feels right that such a polished yet unnecessarily clunky OS accompany this polished yet unnecessarily clunky stack of gimmicks.
You’re starting to convince me
@@LGR This was my thought, too! Building a Vista-era machine also ensures you'll have solid choices for a CPU with integrated graphics.
Vista was well known for its gadgets! does the silverstone have sideshow support? 😄
@@succulent951 Oh man I was just thinking about Sideshow. Did they ever make any 5.25" Sideshow displays? That would be amazing.
I gasped audibly when I saw you pull out that Antec Twelve Hundred. I loved this case! So many FANS!
Only fans?
@@DForce26 Don't go there.
@@DForce26 ONLY FANS
LGR, I've followed you for years. This is the most awesomely ridiculous thing you've ever done, and I loved every minute of it. What a magnificent monstrosity you've built!
Clint, a heartfelt thank you for what you do. Your channel is a very welcome slice of pure pleasure in an otherwise very trying world.
This build is totally ridiculous and I love it. I look forward to every Friday for lovely nonsense like this.
This is *beyond* old school nerdy and I *absolutely* love it! I can't wait to see the full thing up and running with all its parts going. If you want to go as oddball on the inside as you are on the outside, maybe a Cyrix CPU ought to be fun? Or "fun" depending on how well it can ultimately handle things. lol
As for the lighter, maybe the other one wouldn't pose as much of a fire hazard? I think it'd be even more hilarious to use the other one anyway and put it right below the air conditioner module. That way, you can keep your soda cool while you kick some butt in Unreal Tournament or whatever. lol
Cyrix is good, but what if he could cram a Transmeta chip in there somehow? :D
Gotta find out whether the fan's blowing cool air in or hot air out; maybe it can keep some gaming tea warm with the heat from the computer itself :'D
It looks like the kind of thing video games now put into their environment when they want to show that something is "a computer" and I love this
I do agree that an XP build would be ideal (especially if you grab the Luna/Zune/Media edition skins and a lot of the popular UI mods I and others used to run back then), but I'm curious what a Win 2k build would look like, since people did run 2k for a while
*raises hand
Win2k user here 😅
Only switched to XP because my 2k install got corrupted during a LAN with friends. 😂
me and pretty much all the other nerds in my high school class ran Win2K, but a lot of games didn't work on it, so we had to have a dual-boot with Windows 98. The lack of proper game and media support was incidentially why MS felt a need to release WinME. It was never supposed to exist - 2K was supposed to be the only Windows, but it didn't work out. XP was really just a minor upgrade to 2K, with the media support fixed, which is also why 2K is NT 5 and XP is NT 5.1
I love the goofy way it is now and can imagine how cool it would look if everything was matched aesthetically on black or silver. Definitely would get my attention at a computer show.
This is my memory of growing up tinkering with computers in one video! Encapsulates the adventurous spirit of, "I wonder what on earth this does?"
Oh man, that NewQ Gold VFD looks exactly like what my older brother's all-in-one sound system had! It's probably pretty close age-wise. I remember it had a minidisc player at the bottom of it and I'd never seen or heard of that format before so it always stuck in my mind.
This is why I wish 5 1/4" bays were still mainstream. You can do so much with them. Even if you are all high and mighty thinking that physical media is dead, you can still use them for extra USB ports, fan controllers, or a fancy screen showing system usage (which now has made their way INSIDE of the case, which is silly).
THIS! A case where the front was JUST 5.25" drive bays would be great from a customisation perspective. Put the buttons and lights on a module that goes in one of the bays (with space for a hard drive behind it). Put the ports on a module. Put any front fans you might want on modules. Put your status displays on modules. And of course, put your _drives_ on more modules. You could put 5x 3.5" hard drives across 3x 5.25" bays vertically. Or 3x across 2x 5.25" bays horizontally, with a couple of 2.5" SSDs on the side (I've spent a lot of time thinking about space in 5.25" drive bays).
Get a 9-bay tower and fit it with a button/port module, two 5x drive modules, and a 3x drive module for a beefy NAS with 13 externally-accessible, hot-swappable hard drives in some exotic RAID configuration with 3 drives being used for parity, plus a few internal-only SSDs for cache.
Pretty cool contraption you created, so much old school "stuff" in one case lol would be cool to see you demo this at a show!
Man the cigarette lighter trays are amazingly hilarious! I've never thought this ever existed ! It is so 90's stuff
They copied the idea from the 1950s SAGE Air Defense System.
I bet Samuel L Jackson's pc in jurassic park had one!
Big time. "Let's add some more heat into something that's already running far too hot!"
This might be very tricky to do because I doubt the parts age well, but: early water-cooling was pretty wild.
The case you are using even has the typical holes in the back where you would route your water loop to an externally mounted water reservoir!
Love this channel so much, thank you sir!
It’s my fave coffee morning weekend watch.🙌
Part 2 with PC on its way hopefully, you’ve teased us too much now!😅
I found your channel not long ago, and I instantly fell in love with the content you make. I binge watched most of your videos, and even got myself that one Viagra mouse you covered, lol. Thank you for sharing your collection with us, it's literal goals!
Oh man, the Antec cases from that era were everywhere. I think the Antec 900 must have had at least a 50% market share. Everyone I knew, myself included, used one.
I had one with 6 drive bays and ended up filling them all.
This is great! Would be cool to see it used as an experimental "instrument" with a midi keyboard plugged in. You could get great weird sounds by running through all the different oddware, recording to and from cassette, separating channel feeds, etc...
You now have a computer that would blow any kids mind away in 1998
The Plus Deck 2c cassette player can be used on its own, without software control. Just connect the ribbon cable and expansion bracket, and a 3.5mm audio cable going from the blue to green jacks on the bracket. Then you can plug headphones or speakers into the Plus Deck's front panel headphone jack, and use it to play tapes.
Minor aesthetic thing (and some work to do), but you could order them so they go brightest to darkest. Like a gradient that goes from beige to blackest black. Might look cool.
WHY IS THIS VIDEO NOT 2 HOURS LONG? Loved every second of it
The reason it's great is because it's edited down to just the good stuff.
Man I would have loved a computer like that in the early 2000s. Great stuff.
Just came from your 'finishing the build' video. My shiny object syndrome was at an all time high back in 2007 when I was buying a new gadget every month. Had no idea this thing existed back in the early 2000's; it would have been a huge temptation back then. Love how it looks; it's like some kind of retro-futuristic cyberpunk technology.
This is the case I still run my home server out of! Good airflow is right - I've had mine in the basement closet next to my office and it never gets remotely hot. It only utilizes a lowly 2 slots though - a Blu-Ray drive and a DVD drive for ripping my discs, and then a few HDDs. Awesome way to utilize all 12 drives! My vote is certainly for Windows XP, the oddware oozes early 2000s energy when its all arrayed like this. Great video as always, Clint!
This thing is awesome! I think you should also use a bunch of other oddware with it too: keyboard, mouse, French baguette wrist rest... the works!
vista would be the perfect os for this monstrosity!
You should have the drives go from black at the top down to white at the bottom or vice versa, would make it look like the mismatched colors were on purpose :)
Or mix the pattern up so it looks like a piano.
LGR rules. Ideas like this are what make youtube better then other media imo. Maybe a cheesy car accesory to go in cig lighter. small beer cooler ,cofffe warmer, an i pod adaptor that uses a FM frequency or even just a cool skull with led eyes?... The thumbnail and this video had me grinning from ear to ear. thanks man
I had a revision of one of these cases as my case for most of my computer's life. I finally let it go because the top fan is a custom shape and I couldn't immediately find a second replacement for that fan for what I deemed a reasonable price (I had two of those fans fail). I really did love it, though, and it's a little surreal to see one of it's older siblings on this channel!
make a custom fan bracket. Hire a kid with a new fangled 3d printer.
This is a mad Frankenstein beast, I love it! I feel like XP is going to be the best way to go with it
Go with Vista Black if you can find it. Odd OS for an odd system.
A real masterpiece. I miss this gadget era.
So glad Oddware is still going strong. Thank you Clint.
I love that case, and I still have mine in my basement. I used to keep my P4 HT rig in it, I upgraded it a few years ago to a Phenom SLI setup. I'm absolutely thrilled to see it here on Clint's Oddware video!
What a delightful monstrosity!
This a thing of beauty.
Absolutely love this so far. Please build up this monstrosity.
Very much looking forward to part two indeed! :D.
I'm feeling a late PIII or early P4 (up to 2ghz) with Windows Millennium. Don't forget that Geforce 2 MX!
It's kind of mind blowing to think that if you get that CD duplicator case that you could fill all of the bays in addition to the Antec case that you just put together. That would be an idea for a future video so you're welcome to it. I thoroughly enjoyed this video, and now I'm going to watch your part two video about this build.
I have a single bay version of the Antec Veris in an old HTPC that I built. It has the VFD from the Silverstone insert you put in and a single volume knob. Its main use is that you can completely power the PC on from an infrared remote and with the included software, you can emulate keyboard commands with a remote making so that you can completely control an HTPC with a remote.
Big tower of oddity, I love it.
The fact that they are not grouped by color triggers my OCD heavily, other than that, it's absolutely awesome. It reminds me the early 2000's when the coolest computer cases had blue crappy neon lights and a lot of useless stuff on them that looked flashy 😂.
agree, also there is something about the black case, maybe it should be neon / LGR green or purple or something?
Also, some units would fit better together, like having the circle fire right on top of the musketeer 2, since they have very similar esthetics.
I love these videos. Even just making an update or part 2 would be fine!
As a teenager I would love buying different pieces of odd ware like lighting, hardware; etc, and applying them to my store bought PC. Eventually I went on to the building of my own PC, and would get so excited over the building process. Just waiting for my parts to arrive was exciting enough.
Good times! And this is exactly why I enjoy watching LGR. He brings the nostalgia back!
(Comment also for the algorithm boost.)
A forgotten classic, the "where does the air intake come from" build -- love it!
What a great project. 😊 There is nothing stupid on it, it's real History 😉👍🤗
LOL that is stupidly awesome :D
I just want to see all of that working (together). The audio things plugged into each other and the "subwoofer" outputting sound, controllable by the remote, showing which song is playing on Winamp on the screen and so on.
i sUpPoRT tHe cUrReNT tHiNg
Please name it the oddware obelisk
Such a cool homeage to the customizability of desktop computers with their standardized bays!
Also, please, I'm begging you to either spread all the light colored ones evenly, or have them all together in a row!
I had no ideas such bizarre add-ons existed for PC towers back then. Then again, it wouldn't matter, I wasn't working yet or earning revenue from anything so I wouldn't have been able to indulge anyway. Still, what a strange time it was when PC's were a new thing to the regular consumer and everybody was experimenting. Good times that'll never come back...which is why I'm glad you channel exists, you can relive these experiences for me.
I have one big question; How heavy is the entire thing?
I really want to see a full system build with all of this! So fun.😂
What a beautifully magnificent homage to late 90's and early 2000's PC building!
About the cigarette lighter, when the PC is on display get a car accessory like a fan and plug it!
Oh man I had an Antec 1200 as my first case for a PC I built myself! Getting the foam out of the fan cages is an absolute nightmare to clean - like 32 screws to get them open. Also that 200mm "Big Boy" fan and that hilarious eSATA port on the front - this just screams "WINDOWS VISTA MONSTER"
Nice way to store everything in working order, sort of like a 2000s pc modding museum. Yeah about youtubing, back when I was making a video a week I had to do stuff like that, including a Windows XP ultimate build in which I had to devide in 2 parts, first hardware build, second games and benchmarks. That's the way it goes when you're on the clock!
I used to have one of those exact bay fans... chopped it up to use as a fan inside a NES-PC ITX system inside an old NES. Now I'm using a slim 60mm fan on the side to draw air through the system though.
I love old Antec cases. I have a hard time finding cases with enough bays to build my dream system which would house several 5.25" hotswap bays for 3.5/2.5in drives as well as 2 DVD drives and perhaps some kind of modern oddware space-filler.
Several of the PCs I built in the 90's and early 2000's had those funky devices like the front sound jacks, game controller I/O ports, fan controls, and temperature gauges. Those were so cool back in the day! 😄
Love it! I remember wanting this case when it came out, and a few years ago I was lucky enough to trash pick one! (Empty, unfortunately) I'm currently reassembling it and the algorithm recommended this video. If you feel like getting rid of any of those drive bay covers or fans from the front, I'd be willing to buy them! Thank you for continuing to make these Oddly relaxing videos for all of us to watch.
I already sent them to another viewer a few weeks back, otherwise I’d be happy to help. Best of luck on the reassembly!
@@LGR thanks anyway! Just got it put back together despite the previous owners best efforts. Need to order some Mobo standoffs and we'll be good to go!
XP works great, Vista is definitely underrepresented (and really unique in its own way), but importently the software needs to be as cursed as the drive bays. Yes, I mean desktop gadgets, IE toolbars, themes, icon packs, all that kind of fun stuff!
Oh man... those Antec cases were the definition of baller back in the day!
I used to have a 5.25 LCD display in my PC years ago from Crystalfontz, which is still making them today. Loved to see my temps., fan speeds, harddrive space, and also have RSS updates scroll across. 😁
I still use the ankek 1200 as my main pc case, just with custom metallic blue trim, great case, also remember selling some of these devices when worked in the computer retail industry in the 90's and early 2000s
Especially if it's going to be unplugged, I think you should remove the cigarette thing.
Everything else is at least functional, so it would be cool to have all twelve bays doing something, in my opinion!
This thing just screams "I was to preoccupied with whether or not I could"
Awesome!
I had hope for a bigger variety. There is a lot of audio stuff in there which does look cool, but together they look a little samey.
Okay, serious use case for a case full of 5.25" drive bay oddware: DIY Hifi system front-end.
BD drive, Cassette deck, IR receiver, status displays, button modules, and a hard drive. Maybe add a floppy drive for good measure if you've still got some space left. Pair it with an amplifier that the computer can order to power up and you've got something that'll play most kinds of media, including streaming if you connect it to a network, and most importantly, that you can fix if one part of it breaks. If you can find a suitable set of software to go between the buttons, status displays and whatever media playback engine you're running inside, you might even be able to use it without a monitor. If not, maybe you could find a touch-screen module to go in a few bays?
I still have my Antec 300 case from a 2008 build. All parts and mint condition. It was one of the least flashy cases I could find that was made of metal. The last component I pulled out of it, an OCZ power supply from 2008, died just a few weeks ago. Thing outlived the company that made it (defunct in 2014) by 9 years.
Nice. I got my Antec 1200 back in 2011, and still using it as I type this!! Great oddware tower of goodness!!
Thank you for putting this monstrosity together. when I saw the title, I knew that thing was going to be ridiculous! Makes me miss the days of 5.25 oddities! Maybe stick with P4 with XP 32bit or lower cause you may not have 64 bit drivers or Vista drivers? Maybe also move the AC above the cigarette lighter, for protection, or swap with the Creative live thingy?
While your safety is utmost importance, you could go all in with ram cooler modules and the craziest pci/isa expansion modules you have. Thanks for putting together amazing videos!