Computers I Have Painted Black

I have always thought that black was a good colour for a computer. In fact, I've been painting 'em black since 1980, long before “case-modding” became popular.

1980: Compukit UK101

The Compukit UK101 was a 6502-based machine, built from a kit. Supplied without a case, as usual for hobbyist machines of that era. My father and I built a wooden case with an aluminium panel, painted black with a black leathercloth lid. In the photo, it's connected to a monochrome video monitor which is also in a wooden case, painted black, with a plastic flowerpot on the back, over the CRT neck. The UK101 is still working nearly 25 years later, although I went through a phase of favouring bright, primary colours and the machine has been repainted in yellow.

1987: Atari ST

Terrific 68000 machine, but who wants to put it in a grey case? Well, Atari did but I changed that. I also added two IMS C012 transputer link adaptor chips, as well as a direct 68000 bus interface connector.

1992: 386SX-25 PC

Oh how dull, a 386 PC clone. I put a motherboard in a box; but I painted the box black and added some aluminium panels. One panel holds the key-operated power switch, while the other holds the reset switch. There's a switch-guard to prevent accidental resets. All the panels are bolted in with purple anodised aluminium hex-head bolts (from a bicycle shop). The original 386SX system ran MS-DOS 5.00, but I gradually upgraded it into a more powerful machine. The black case then became home to a screaming Pentium Pro 200MHz machine, my primary Slackware Linux box. But it's now retired, mainly because it's an AT-style case and power supply. The Pentium Pro motherboard is still in there, as is the 3.5" floppy disk in a 5.25" tray, but I've robbed out the 72-pin SIMMs to put into my SGI Indy.

1998: 486 PC Tower Case

Just in case I ever need to run old MS-DOS software, I still have my old DOS system. I have quite a bit of C code that I wrote years back for MS-DOS, much of which is distinctly non-portable. I was given a tower case that works well with a 486 motherboard at 100MHz, but a beige box would never do. So it was out with the black spray-paint! The result is a fine DOS box with silver detailing and modified control panel. The power switch is a massive one from an old NCR Unix box, while the original power-on and Turbo lights are now wired to the activity LEDs on the network card. Not that I ever use it, you understand...

2002: Athlon XP Tower Case

My current Slackware Linux box. Rather a fine ATX format tower case that contains an AMD Athlon motherboard and a SCSI disk system.

The Ones That Got Away

Way back when I worked for the London Software Studio, I visited a customer site in the City of London. They had an original 4.77MHz 8088-based IBM PC Model 5150 with monochrome screen, entirely painted black. It looked really stylish. I wonder what happened to it?