Retro Modding/Fitting an Amiga 2000 Chassis to House Modern PC Components. Looking for input, feedback, etc.

[chlysm]

So I've had this idea for awhile about using a vintage PC chassis and modifying the internals to hold modern PC components while leaving the exterior as original as possible so as to maintain the appearance of a vintage PC. I selected the A2000 because I had a Commodore 64 when I was a kid, but to mod a C64 to hold ATX components is just not feasible, so the Amiga 2000 seemed like the most obvious choice for it's size and shape being very similar to that of an ATX chassis. So as of late, I've been on the hunt for an A2000 chassis which doesn't seem to be too easy to find. (Talking to a guy on eBay about hopefully selling me one for $135 shipped ATM).

Now to get to the point of this post; I found the dimensions and specs for the A2000 chassis online and so I've got a pretty good idea as to how I'll go about doing this. However I'm also fairly certain that someone has done this or something similar before, (Here's a really nice retro fit of an A1000 chassis) so I was hoping to find some examples of this being done or hear out some personal experiences. This way I perhaps can avoid mistakes, or see a better way to go about this that I haven't thought of.

EDIT: I'm open to some ideas in regards to exterior modification so long as they are either:

*discreet and not noticeable; such as USB ports inside the slot for the floppy drive(s).
*something that would have been appropriate for the time period; such as a 14 segment LCD display for a temperature read out in the one of the drive bays.
Thanks in advance.

 

[motrucker]

I think this is a barking mad idea. There are some Amiga users who would call this out & out blasphemy! A select few of them might do you bodily harm. I have met users like this before......

 

[chlysm]

I think this is a barking mad idea. There are some Amiga users who would call this out & out blasphemy! A select few of them might do you bodily harm. I have met users like this before......

Given that the internals will be the only thing that I intend to modify, the chassis should still be able to house the original Amiga components. That and there is plenty of room inside to mount the components that would need to be relocated like PSU.

Personally I don't see how this is any different than the people who get current ATX chassis and mount old Amiga hardware into them when they had the original chassis to begin with. Now that's something that I'd never do. If I owned any piece of hardware that old, I'd want it to be in it's original state (or as close as possible). But then again, I prefer the looks of vintage hardware over the sleek designs of newer hardware.

 

[specialK]

I attempted something similar with A3000 chassis... This was a while ago.

I did it with a laptop motherboard... I don't have any photos to show but it has taken me few months to work things out and iron out some imperfections

Basically I made the mobo fit in a way where I didn't have to cut any of the A3000 chassis parts.
I made some extension leads to all the ports and affixed them to the rear outlets as best as I could.

For the DVD drive I used the C1541c chassis as an external unit

The diskette drive slot I used for a SD card reader and audio/usb front ports

I wish I had photos to show but I took it apart and lent the chassis to a mate of mine who modded it and cut some parts out of it

Marcin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[salaxi54]

Your thought is good. Well, actually, finding A2000 parts/chassis in Europe seems to be a much easier task than in the US...
If you were to mod an A1000 case, i'd call you a blasphemer, but if it's the A2000.. LOL
Anyway, long story short, you might find some of my ideas interesting, as i went through the same task a while ago. Only difference is that i fitted two computers in it.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=50463
I've also done the exact opposite, of fitting an A2000 motherboard in a full-tower pc case.
https://www.amigahellas.gr/showthread.php?5260-Die-Griechische-Panzer-tower-!-(κοινώς-Α2000-GRT)

 

[chlysm]

I looked at the Amiga 3000 chassis, but I decided to stick with the A2000 because it has mounting holes for AT/XT motherboard placement (which is the predecessor to ATX) and should share some (or maybe all) mounting holes with an ATX board. If not, new holes could be added, or I might fabricate and adapter plate that bolts up to the original mounting holes and allows for the placement of modern components on the inside.

 

[zinamo]

hello,
I think someone here may think you are performing a dissacrtion using an Amiga chassis to hold a PC In my opion it's a nice idea if you have a spare chassis or if you have an unrepairable machine to reuse the case. I also like very much the idea of limiting as much as possible external modifications!

It is a good idea to use the existing mounting holes, but my suggetion would be to pick any mobo size from mini-ATX to nano-ITX, because beeing smaller you can move it inside the case and place it in the best position, I think a standard ATX mobo doesn't allow that.. maybe then you can take a micro-ATX PSU and carefully place it's guts inside the amiga's PSU maybe preserving the original fan (so that from outside it will look perfectly genuine).. Nowdays micro-ATX PSU can be very powerfull so you can expand in a good way your configuration.. You can install an optical unit in the 5.25" front bay and place the front pannel of a floppy unit in each one of the two 3.5" bays, behind one you can hide an hdd, behind the other you can place some usb ports covered by the floppy door..