Though much of the material was in an advanced state of decay what has been recovered has turned the scientific community on its head. Urban Archeologist Thomas Mordasky, in a press statement Tuesday evening, said: "This find changes everything we previously believed about the 19th century". The prize of the find, a counting machine dubbed the "Electronumerograph" by its creator, was in near pristine condition. Scientists are still analyzing its exact construction and abilities. The following is an excerpt from one of the recovered journals:
July the 14th, 1889
My design is based upon the successful construction of similar counting machines by (somewhat mad) scientists in the British Empire as well as those of the Czar's Court in St. Petersburg. After my successful creation of a smaller, portable machine earlier this year I decided to create a more robust, stationary unit. The mobile version of the device has already proven very useful, providing navigational data and communication services for my workshoppe's airship during its long and difficult trans-arctic smuggling runs. I am now convinced that a similar but more powerful machine would prove of great use to my base in New Amsterdam. Now after nearly a fortnight of planning I am finally ready to begin my construction...
The basis of the mod, all fantasy aside is a Quicksilver Powermac G4. I found the machine in near pristine condition, sitting next to a dumpster on trash day. A quick inspection showed no obvious signs of damage. As I was on my way to work at the time I took a chance and hauled it into the office for a closer look. The Ram and video card had been removed and thrown into the bottom of the case. The hard drive, along with its entire caddy, was gone. After popping the Ram and video card back in I was able to boot the machine from my powerbook's hard drive (Firewire disk mode rules). The tower proved to be a dual 1Ghz G4. After scrounging up some more Ram and a 120gig drive I was up and running in style. I now faced the age-old question of what to do with this thing. My wife and I currently each have laptops and we have no desktop system in the house. I decided to set up the unit as a central server and media system. The machine will live in my entertainment center and act as the central hub for the house. In the beginning it will host our music and photo libraries as well as provide backup and storage duties. In the future it could be completely integrated into the entertainment loop as a DVR.
Supplies:
· 1 Quicksilver G4 (Duh)
· 1 Can of bronze and 3 cans of black spray paint
· 1 Coolermaster Musketeer System Dynamics Detector Mk1
· 1 Front Panel USB 2.0 Hub
· 1 USB 2.0 PCI card
· 120 Gig and 250 Gig ATA Hard Disks
· 2 Hard Disk Cooling Fans
· 4 Claw Feet (Designed for Furniture)
· 2 Blue Cold Cathode Tubes
· 2 HVAC Vent Covers
· Various clock parts, aluminum sheet and bar, 1/8" copper tubing, various industrial fan parts, hinges and brass Tacks, nuts and bolts
· Epoxy, super glue, velcro strips and double faced tape
Mod Process:
The first and most fundamental change needed to achieve my goal was to change the vertical orientation of the chassis to a horizontal one. This would allow the computer to sit alongside my other components and maintain a lower profile. Rather than simply laying it on its side I wanted to actually reorient the interior. As this model is known for cooling problems I decided extra vents would be a good idea as well.
The first step was to strip the machine entirely down to the steel and plot out the necessary changes to the chassis itself. It's a tight fit in there as it is and the options for altering things are rather limited. Nearly the entire front needed to be removed to accommodate both the planned components and the portal style window from my design. The slots for the side vents and the original optical drive supports needed to be cut out as well.
As the chassis is steel it proved too difficult to work with sheet metal sheers so I made the cuts with a Dremel Tool. Afterwards I smoothed out the edges to prevent any unnecessary finger damage. The regular cut off wheels for the dremel work very well but I did find that it went through them rather quickly, with each wheel good for cutting about 4-6 inches of steel. Once the cuts were complete you could really start to visualize the form of the finished piece...
As much of the steel would later be covered by the plastic panels of the G4 I needed to cut corresponding holes in those as well.
Once the plastics were cut and ready it was time for paint. I used four different paints for this design. One Rustoleum bronze (it was the only bronze color I could find) and three finishes of Krylon black: semi-gloss, semi-flat and ultra-flat. The three different black finishes give a nice variety and layered effect to the finished piece that a single color would not have. Even in its rough form the black and bronze color scheme looked fantastic!
For the outside of the case, I wanted to use as much real, unfinished material as possible. Ebay is the ultimate source of near worthless junk and I was able to purchase several broken clock mechanisms for next to nothing. A set of large metal claw feet quickly followed. A trip to a local HVAC repair place provided the vent covers for the sides.
Everything else, hinges, brass tacks, copper tubing and connectors, etc. was found at the Home Depot.
The vents were painted with a flat black finish and small bolts added as "rivets" Only two of them actually mount the vent into place. Each of the two vents is positioned over its corresponding opening in the chassis.
When reassembling the case I left off the bottom plastic panel and used its mounting points to attach the claw feet to the base. This also provides better airflow to the main case fan.
Where the curved handles meet the top of the case I mounted brass hinges for an added decorative effect. Brass tacks are super-glued over the unused holes in the hinges. The hinges are only mounted to the handles and simply flip up, allowing the case to open.
The basis of each side's detail is one of the three clockwork pieces.
I used sheet aluminum to form a simple shroud and mount a few extra gears. The shroud also covers a small strip of aluminum bar anchoring the copper tubing in place. The copper tubing and various connectors are made from refrigerator water line. The other pieces were salvaged from the HVAC repair shop.
By far the best find of the entire project was the green bottle like piece on the left side panel. I found it while digging through the junk parts bin at the HVAC repair place. It cost me $2. It is some sort of oil filter and looks awesome. The right side (the former bottom) came out quite nicely as well, The fact that there is no smooth plastic plate behind it give it a bit more of an industrial quality. I added several extra gears to each clock assembly and have new found respect for anyone who repairs these things for a living. They proved devilishly hard to reassemble. In addition the gear shafts were often too long and needed to be trimmed to allow the pieces to side flush with the chassis. The shafts were high carbon steel and proved difficult to trim down, even with the dremel's diamond cutting wheel. None of the items were painted or refinished in any way. Some appear rather new, mainly the tubing, while others are tarnished or a bit banged up. Overall it creates a nice layered texture to the design, with lots of subtle variations that could never be achieved with paint alone.
Now that the chassis was ready it was time to think about components. The original 2x DVD burner was included in the find and I decided to save money by reusing it. The usb bus on the motherboard was only 1.0 and I wanted USB ports on the front anyway so a USB 2.0 card and hub was a no brainer. For the gauges on the front I chose the Coolermaster Musketeer (version 1). It has three retro glowing blue dials and was perfect for the style I was aiming for. The three devices, optical drive, dials and hub would be stacked vertically and form the left side of the front panel. I used the original sled for the optical drive and had to modify the chassis of the Musketeer slightly, removing some of the metal on the back half. The zip bezel left over from the G4 case was perfect for the DVD drive.
The bezels were then painted black and gold to match the rest of the chassis. Two aluminum bars along the bottom of the case anchor the stack into position. The machine will now have four USB 2.0 ports along the front, a great boon considering the entertainment center where it will eventually live will make accessing the rear ports difficult at best. The three gauges read Fan speed, Audio Output (VU) and CPU Temp.
The original mounting sleds for the hard drives were not only missing but would also have completely blocked the new venting I had installed. Therefore I chose to construct a custom bracket.
It is designed to hold two drives with fans. Two aluminum bars anchor the drives to each other and the two side pieces attach the assembly to the chassis. The fans now face outward, directly into the vent and are wired to the Musketeer's fan controller.
The front bezel is cut from a thin sheet of polycarbonate. I measured everything very carefully and built a template in Illustrator to cut the plastic from. I glued the template right on top of the protective film so it would be easy to remove when I was finished the cuts. Various Circle cutting bits and a good ol' utility knife (sorry fingers) made the cuts.
Once the cuts were finished I painted it in the Krylon Ultra Flat Black. The crackled effect happened on its own, I believe from failing to wait for each coat to fully dry. It looks very cool, like old leather or the fiberboard from old-fashioned electronics. The "rivets" around the perimeter are simple brass furniture tacks, I cut the shafts short and glued them down into pre drilled pilot holes.
The third and final clock mechanism is mounted in place behind the large window opening on the right of the bezel. I used permanent double-faced tape for this so I would not need to cut the bezel any further. If you wind the clock from the back the gears still move.
Due to the curved nature of the G4 case the bezel does not sit flush with the front of the machine. There is nearly a half-inch gap on the center top and bottom. To solve this I used black foam weather striping. It is self-adhesive and fills the space perfectly. This shot also shows the location of the power button, a simple momentary switch from Radio Shack.
The window is cut from the same Lexan as the face. I had purchased a pre-cut acrylic disk for this, but it shattered the moment I tried to drill a hole into it. The Polycarbonate is much less brittle than acrylic and easier to work by far.
After painting the window I made the rivets using the same technique from the main bezel, though with smaller brass tacks. A 2-part epoxy holds the widow in place.
The original power board on the front panel is too big and would not have fit onto the front I had designed. For the new power button I re-purposed the motherboard's existing ten pin connector and cable, Counting up from the red wire pins 5 and 8 are power on and ground. Jumping them together via any simple switch will boot the machine.
Once the cable was modified I glued a brass rivet onto the button so it matched the overall color scheme.
As the finishing touch I mounted two blue cold cathode tubes to light the interior, Giving it a very nice glow.
Overall I Could not be more pleased with the outcome of this project, It looks fantastic and is an amazing attention getter. Its successful outcome has also been an enormous confidence boost as far as the extent of projects I will tackle in the future, particularly what I feel I can do nearly completely by hand.
Mod Specs:
· Apple Quicksilver G4 Dual 1ghz
· 512 MB Ram
· 64 MB VRAM
· 120 and 250 Gig Active Cooled Hard Drives
· Apple "Superdrive"
· 6 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 1.0 ports
· Dedicated readouts for Volume, Fan Voltage and CPU Temp.
· Can travel through time once it reaches 88 mph
The ElectroNumeroGraph Gallery
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