SteamPunk Frankenstein casemod sure to anger Luddites
By Laura June 
posted February 22nd 2009 3:29AM
posted February 22nd 2009 3:29AM
We see plenty of Steampunk mods around these parts, but this one surely takes things to a new level of insanity. Constructed by D. Maddocks, the SteamPunk Frankenstein PC case mod is monstrously, beautifully cobbled from -- among other things -- a church vent and some cold cathode tubes. When the backlighting is fired up it's quite breataking to behold, though -- at over eight feet tall -- we're not sure we'd like to see it in our own parlor, we can certainly admire the beast from afar. One more daguerreotype after the break, but hit the read link for the whole set.
[Via Slashgear]
[Via Slashgear]
Those lights ruin something that otherwise would be totally fucking awesome.
Replace the lights with actual steam.
Nothing that wasn't already destroyed by the mass of black plastic for a floppy (really?) drive and dual optical drives. Though, I imagine, wooden/brass faceplates wouldn't be TOO hard to construct to fix that issue.
Jesus Christ! That thing looks like the water heater from hell!
I think this is what old man Parker was down in the basement battling in A Christmas Story.
WHO turned the damper all the way down...AGAIN?! Oh blast it!
what about a nice stealth-mod for the drives and the floppy?
everything else looks like real pr0n
that's what I thought... I was "wow" then "eeh" when I saw the drives.. they look like foreign objects plastered onto something of an art.
Yeah, I agree. After all the work that was clearly put into this, the least he could've done is maybe painted the drives with matching colors or something. And those lights are definitely unnecessary.
Yeah I mean youd think after all that work youd make a bezel out of brass or something that had an assistive hinge on it when it needed to open........ Maybe make it a name plate for the piece or something......
why aren't the gauges lit up with old looking yellow lights? and why green backlighting? :\
everything else is good to go in my books, who cares if it's taller than shaq?
NEED MORE STEAM
I wonder how much its Steam power is?
Does its Motion Picture take HD?
this is a great concept design for a steampunk computer. imagine if all the decorative plumbing fixtures were part of an actual water cooling system. it's always more of a challenge putting the decorative pieces to provide for some sort of actual functional use. but the idea & look is awesome to me.
It is water cooled.
That better be a staged water, liquid nitrogen, and liquid helium cooling enclosure..
..I agree with the first poster too, the lights don't add much.
but can it run Crysis?
yea, as a background process id hope
Why would the guys at id hope it runs as a background process?
But will it Blend?
no but it can run 1011110010101110000010110100101010 pretty damn fast!
It can run Steam.
LoL "daguerreotype"!
I think it's pretty fucking hideous.
I don't see any beauty either. I find steam-punk designs visually appealing in most cases but to me, this looks just like a pile of varnished wooden boxes held together by copper lining and elaborately, yet randomly fitted with vintage parts (though some of it very nice looking). Having some identifiably structure and symmetry (aside from the gauges) would already improve the looks, I think. Oh, and remotely decent lighting too. And a dash of appropriate color on the drives and those nasty blue button things.
a++ for name laura
definitely look better in anime than in real life
hey that PC looks like a robot with inbuilt disco lights
This is a great design. But the disco lights don't really compliment.
Where's the daguerreotype?
Should paint the DVD burners and floppy in bronze.
I've said it before...steampunk sucks,get a life.
Nope, sorry. It's YOU that sucks!
Actually no... I'm pretty sure it's steampunk that's lame. There's a reason we don't make shit that looks like this anymore and I'm happy for that fact.
Epsilon343: Yeah, it's because plastic is cheaper than brass.
But can it run Steam?
Lmao!
+1 for you, sir.
Einhanderkiller @ Feb 22nd 2009 6:25PM just beat you to it!
Monstrous, but sweet!
hope it comes with a 5-year warranty
I'm not into steampunk, but this is breathtaking. And lol @ Laura for the writeup, it made my day :)
the drives throw me off. Couldnt they have put it behind a door of some sort? Everything else is win though.
Looks like a server rack covered in wood.
I feel like I just walked in on some strange nerd ritual...come on who has the time or money for this stuff? If it had a functional steam whistle then it would be cool.
AAAnnnnd in today's round of Engadget's "computer parts shoved into something else and called a mod", we have a nicely crafted steampunk case with butt-ugly plastic drive bezels smack-dab in the center of it, drawing in the eye and proving once again that computer geeks may have great technical skills, but they have the artistic sense of a blind rodeo clown.
Seriously; If I take the guts from a netbook and cram them into a taxidermy squirrel, can I submit that as a mod to engadget? Because it seems like any tech guts + any hollow object = Mod.
Someone did that with a taxidermied animal. There's an article on it.
It looks like someone just shoved a load of random gauges, pipes and other brass & copper crap onto a wooden tower. I could easily throw that together in a few hours.
How about hiding/disguising those disc drivers? How about trying to make the gauges do SOMETHING? Give it a theme and some decent function and then I'll actually give two sh*ts about it.
I agree. This is a pretty stupid mod. He just threw random crap onto a big wooden box. I wouldn't be surprised if half of it was glued on, even. The best steampunk mods look like they would actually *do* something.
This is just plain old stupid sad. It's basically a wodden plank with a whole boat load of stupid non-functional plumbing fixtures on it. Then there's a computer bolted to the back side. The two have nothing to do with eachother and it's just plain dumb.
If the pipes or valves or gauges actually did something, that would be cool. But it's just parts and a computer - who really cares.
And those stupid lights - green - guess that's what newegg had to offer that day for cheap.
Somebody said it is watercooled - that's not a certainty even. That could just be cable wrap with that silly UV reflector stuff.
Give me a big black obolisk from 2001 a space odessy that runs.
If someone could make a computer tower of the obelisk that is completely functional, I'd want two!
Flickering orange/red light (like a furnace) would have been okay. I totally agree about the valves and gauges, there isn't any point if they don't actually do something.
That thing is huge! Anyone notice how big the ODDs look in that picture?