^Speaking of German design(ers), weren't the Braun AM/FM radios sort an inspiration to the iPod?
I vaguely remember reading something like this.

My grandmother's Braun SK2 used to look similar, at least.
Round chassis, big dial, beige..

Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braun_SK_1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title= … irst_generation

As much as I hate to admit it, if you look to Apple if you want to look at stylish computer design, but even then, limits exist. The "trash can" case was a total failure.
Personally, I've always preferred the more boring cases over the stylish gamer cases. although quality is improving, the big brand cases no longer cut you to shreds.

Yes Apple was more creative in later case designs. As mentioned by others, the PC was first a office work horse and later also a main stream home device. Because of how motherboards, HD's, vid cards, etc had to made to work together there really was no easy way to build a creative case other than add some bells and whistles to a rectangular box 😀
As far as that black plastic stereo stuff... it is garbage to the audio collectors who look for real vintage with polished aluminum panels, knobs, glass and sometimes real wood cabinet 😁

If we are talking Braun then Olivetti made some highly stylized PCs of its era.

In terms of case style, I feel that we started seeing a lot of variety around 2005-ish. I have an Antec Nine Hundred which, IMHO, still holds up functionally and stylistically. Even before that, even ss far ss the late 90s, some designs were, again IMHO, very nice and would still hold up yoday, aestheticly speaking, excepy maybe for the beige aspect.

Then Enlight Endura 7237 (probably an OEM/ODM model branded by Enlight is an example of such a timeless design, IMHO. Some Fujitsu and IBM Aptiva cases from the late 90s also exude class to this day, IMHO.

Maybe I'm biased.

Originally, the PC was just a work tool.

Yes, I agggree with that. But a "tool" does not mean that it can't have a real high quality utilitarian design. I also aggree that the first IBM models had a good "industrial" design.
However, despite so many companies making PC's subsequently almost nobody succeeded to establish a "quality brand" of some kind (Of course with the exception of apple. However, not before the G4 macs and even those looked rather like kitchen appliances then computers)

Right now I am sitting before a relatively high end dell computer. Yet, the CD drive feels flimsy and wobbly like an old desk drawer. And this was always the case. Even Plextor drives felt relatively cheap if compared with a real CD player. If I open the tray of a Keenwood or Pioneer CD Player it just feels solid. And although I love the SB Live drive bay it too is a relative simple design and rather an exception.

It seem as long as your PC had the higest specs for the lowest price you could mount it in a beverage crate. I wish Yamaha had made some 386 PC in a silver rack with aplifier gauges showing the CPU load...

Aui wrote on 2024-06-28, 06:09:

Yes, I agggree with that. But a "tool" does not mean that it can't have a real high quality utilitarian design. I also aggree th […]
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Originally, the PC was just a work tool.

Yes, I agggree with that. But a "tool" does not mean that it can't have a real high quality utilitarian design. I also aggree that the first IBM models had a good "industrial" design.
However, despite so many companies making PC's subsequently almost nobody succeeded to establish a "quality brand" of some kind (Of course with the exception of apple. However, not before the G4 macs and even those looked rather like kitchen appliances then computers)

Right now I am sitting before a relatively high end dell computer. Yet, the CD drive feels flimsy and wobbly like an old desk drawer. And this was always the case. Even Plextor drives felt relatively cheap if compared with a real CD player. If I open the tray of a Keenwood or Pioneer CD Player it just feels solid. And although I love the SB Live drive bay it too is a relative simple design and rather an exception.

It seem as long as your PC had the higest specs for the lowest price you could mount it in a beverage crate. I wish Yamaha had made some 386 PC in a silver rack with aplifier gauges showing the CPU load...

Optical drive tray build quality has been an afterthought for a while now, both on PCs drives and settop DVD/Blu-Ray players. In the heyday of optical media, 15 to 20ish years ago and more so before that, IMHO, drive trays were often quite sturdy and well built.

As for gauges, with CPU load and whatever else, I suspect quite a few people, probably a vast majority, would have found them tacky, useless (before multithreaded pre-emptive multitasking becoming more common) and an unnecessary expense, myselfincluded. There would arguably be much more of a practical use case for this today and add-on products to enable this kind of functionality have existed fir a while. The fact that they remain niche products is, IMHO, an indicator as to why we don't see this in OEM computers nor integrated into most cases.

That being said, again IMHO, the industry did stay stuck in "beige or bust" mode for way too long. Case industrial design only started taking a turn for the better about 20ish years ago. Apple certainly helped that (even in their beige is beautiful era).

Also, the silver faced stereo component era pretty much came to an end in the late 70s to early 80s (with some exceptions), so having this design philosophy/language on post 1985-ish, new, expensive and cutting edge 386 computers would probably not have been attractive to consumers and what they likely perceived as modern looking at the time (their 1979 or earlier vintage Yamaha, Pioneer or Marantz receiver, however functional, sturdy and arguably aesthetically pleasing was almost certainly not it).

Because most people didn't give a damn about the aesthetics or the quality of the case as long as it served it's purpose. I'm still using the original case I got with my computer in 2002 because I'm not willing to spend a cent on something that's sitting at my feet and collecting dust. Stylish people always had a way to make standard ugly things appear more aesthetically pleasing but the majority of buyers were perfectly happy with the basic grey/beige box option. I certainly wouldn't want some fugly glass panel case with tons of rainbow leds and 15 fans light/noise polluting my room when I'm trying to do my job, enjoy a game or watch a movie.
My dead silent boring Compaq case is actually a blessing and I get to use it as a coffee desk.

Grzyb wrote on 2024-06-27, 16:40:

So, his real name was Lutz and he was German!? For all those years, decades, and even centuries, I thought he was Italian... (in […]
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Ydee wrote on 2024-06-27, 15:37:

Lutz (Luigi) Colani

So, his real name was Lutz and he was German!?
For all those years, decades, and even centuries, I thought he was Italian... (insert facepalm here)

Anyway, his designs were among my worst nightmares...
For all those crimes against German Square Functionality(TM), Germany should have stripped him of citizenship, and expelled 🤣

So you're a big fan of his creations?
But seriously, not everyone likes its design, but one thing can't be denied - it couldn't be confused with anything else on the market at the time. His button design will tell the author on every case he designed.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-06-27, 20:32:

^Speaking of German design(ers), weren't the Braun AM/FM radios sort an inspiration to the iPod? I vaguely remember reading some […]
Show full quote

^Speaking of German design(ers), weren't the Braun AM/FM radios sort an inspiration to the iPod?
I vaguely remember reading something like this.

My grandmother's Braun SK2 used to look similar, at least.
Round chassis, big dial, beige..

Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braun_SK_1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title= … irst_generation

The man behind this was Dieter Rams and his timeless designs for (electronic / electric) consumer products remain unmatched until today.

The customer decides the looks and features of their case. If they want to have a case that resembles A/V equipment, they can have it as there is much to choose from.

Most people do not choose such cases; that's why for example Lian Li no longer manufactures high quality aluminum cases and has been practically replaced by Jonsbo in that area.

There were some innovative large-OEM PC designs in the mid-late 1990s, e.g. the IBM Aptiva S series, some NEC models, etc. They were also extremely pricy.

The problem with these machines, really, is that they were expensive and had mediocre internals. Likeliest market would have been higher-income families wanting a computer for the kids and not knowing much about the details. As the kids got older, as information about what components are good/not so good became more plentiful, and as computer lifecycles shortened, the market for those machines plunged.

The more demanding, more knowledgeable, higher-spending customers went to Dell/Gateway, the clone shop down the street, or started building their own machines. And for them, if anything, modularity was more important than design. Stuff was moving extremely quickly, the large OEMs had way more compromises on expandability, and many people had been burned by their previous large OEM system having woefully inadequate expansion (e.g. my early-1995 AST system with a single PATA channel, 8250 UARTs on the external serial ports, a generic parallel port, one free ISA slot, soldered video, and a 528 meg BIOS hard drive limit when the machine shipped with a 420 meg)

Everybody who remained, well, became increasingly price conscious. As the price point of large-retailer Windows system plunged in the early 2000s, any willingness to experiment on the high end with design plunged with it. Except maybe a little bit with Sony Vaios. And this continues to this day - high-end non-gaming non-businessy Windows laptops have struggled whereas Apple sells MacBooks at those or higher price points all day long.

I wish my hifi could broadcast to my TV. I wish my hifi had a calculator function. I wish my hifi could print a graph out. I wish my hifi could scan a barcode. I wish my hifi could rotate a servo motor. Why doesn't my hifi look as sleek and cool as those other hifis any more? What is it about the wide modularity that kills the sleekness of form?

The audio equipment holds a disparate number of things as well, but only those things they knew they could miniaturize or that every user of one will see as advantageous.

Everybody who remained, well, became increasingly price conscious. 

Yes, I guess your view is largely correct. The discrepancy is nevertheless amazing. Just saw this one a few days ago.

These sell for incredible money and yet, at its heart its just a tape drive, something that you would also use for your old C64. What is so amazing is, that the internals of computers are generally way more sophisticated than that of audio equipment, yet the "packing" always remained rudimentary. But I guess, before you designed a case like that for your new desktop brand, the cpu market would have moved on to the next gen.

Aui wrote on 2024-06-30, 00:17:

Yes, I guess your view is largely correct. The discrepancy is nevertheless amazing. Just saw this one a few days ago. images.jpe […]
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Everybody who remained, well, became increasingly price conscious. 

Yes, I guess your view is largely correct. The discrepancy is nevertheless amazing. Just saw this one a few days ago.
images.jpeg
These sell for incredible money and yet, at its heart its just a tape drive, something that you would also use for your old C64. What is so amazing is, that the internals of computers are generally way more sophisticated than that of audio equipment, yet the "packing" always remained rudimentary. But I guess, before you designed a case like that for your new desktop brand, the cpu market would have moved on to the next gen.

The other thing is - look at the life expectancy of the items in question. I would think most audio equipment would be expected to have a 10+ year life, whereas PCs from the mid-90s to about 2006 had a life expectancy of... 3-5 years at the absolute most. Like, honestly, look at the thread about 1998 systems - the flagship system in 1998 was a PII 450; by mid-2001, everyone was saying 600-700MHz would be required as a near-minimum for WinXP. In that world, you'd pay extra for expandability/modularity, not for looks.

Look at the IBM Aptiva S series, which I mentioned in my earlier response. The original stealth S series that had the very cool little floppy/CD-ROM console that went under the matching monitor while the rest of the machine could be tucked away. (It seems there was a later S series that was a black PII with a traditional case) IIRC, the top of the line S series machine with the matching monitor sold for upwards of $5000CAD + tax. My googling (https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/steal … finally-appear/ ) suggests the fastest 2159 S series, in 1996, was a 200MHz Pentium with 32 megs of RAM. USD$3099 + $499-799 for the monitor which aligns with my $5xxx CAD recollection knowing exchange rates at the time. That machine was basically a paperweight by early 2000 (3.5 years after it launched) - maybe with a RAM upgrade, you could crawl Win2000. I don't know how much a generic beige P200 with 32 megs of RAM and a comparable monitor from Dell or Gateway or the clone shop down the street cost in 1996 (probably at least US$1000 less), but I can tell you it became obsolete just as quickly as the stealth Aptiva, maybe less quickly because you had more chance of upgrading a few parts and getting an extra year out of it.

And, I would add one other thing: at least in North America where houses are/were bigger, PCs wouldn't be located in rooms easily visible to guests. So no benefit to spending extra money on a 'stylish' computer to impress guests.

Aui wrote on 2024-06-30, 00:17:

Yes, I guess your view is largely correct. The discrepancy is nevertheless amazing. Just saw this one a few days ago. […]
Show full quote

Everybody who remained, well, became increasingly price conscious. 

Yes, I guess your view is largely correct. The discrepancy is nevertheless amazing. Just saw this one a few days ago.

The attachment images.jpeg is no longer available

These sell for incredible money and yet, at its heart its just a tape drive, something that you would also use for your old C64. What is so amazing is, that the internals of computers are generally way more sophisticated than that of audio equipment, yet the "packing" always remained rudimentary. But I guess, before you designed a case like that for your new desktop brand, the cpu market would have moved on to the next gen.

That's a good point, to a point. Ironically, while everything was changing fast, the case was one of the things that could last through a few upgrades.

On a different note, "Resonance Damping Wood Base" on a tape deck ? That would not have enticed me then, nor would it entice me now . Not my kind of oil. 😉

darry wrote on 2024-07-01, 04:30:

On a different note, "Resonance Damping Wood Base" on a tape deck ? That would not have enticed me then, nor would it entice me now . Not my kind of oil. 😉

you only say that because you didnt experience $6000 wooden volume knob!

It took hifi designers 30 years to get to that design.

The design wasnt crude, its form followed its function.

Like, honestly, look at the thread about 1998 systems - the flagship system in 1998 was a PII 450; by mid-2001, everyone was saying 600-700MHz would be required as a near-minimum for WinXP. In that world, you'd pay extra for expandability/modularity, not for looks.

I wished the radio amateurs in my area had known this.
It was often me who had been asked to install modern Windows on hopelessly outdated PCs.

Not that this wasn't without joy, I loved seeing those 14" VGA monitors from my childhood again - so alive and in daily use..

But seing the small HDDs and minuscule RAM expansion wasn't nice.
Those PCs had been crawling on Windows 9x already..

So what could I do? I had to search my parts bin and install some extra memory. A lot of extra memory.
After the upgrade, Windows 98SE or XP, respectively, started to operate in a time frame that did no longer hurt so much.

Anyway, I just mean to say that gamers aren't really representative here.
Normal users and professional users do have their own ideas when it comes to specs.
They're on two different sides on the spectrum, so to say. Two extremes. The gamers are somewhere in between.

Edit: There's another case of outdated PCs.
Those running in the offices of super markets.
They're very low-speced and outdated, often.
I know someone working in a P. Market who says the PCs had been recently upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP.
I'm not kidding. Schools in my country are similar. The PC rooms not seldomly get the tech from yesterday or ere-yesterday.

Quick update.
The IBM JX computer had a black, slim chassis as well.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_JX

It's essentially an IBM Jr in a different packaging, with a real keyboard.
In Japan, the JX had been better known than in the west.