Commander X16

I am not the most up-to-date on Commander X16 developments. If I remember right, David Murray talked about that the kit/machine won't ship with any cases, and the ones seen in the videos are just one-offs.

Which is a shame!

Recently I was in the look-out for some PC cases, and MAN, I don't know how I didn't notice before, the offerings are total BORING! And if I search for "interesting PC cases" or something, then it's all the ridiculous gamer stuff that comes up.

Currently the best I can imagine dropping a CX16 into, is a 90s PC case, with desktop (as in, under the monitor) orietation, vents and lines all around, patches of gray around the LEDs and buttons, Turbo MHz LED display, and such.
While the offerings weren't much better even back then, there are some moderately exciting front bezel designs on shop-built PC configs from that era that I remember seeing.
It would be cool to see something living in such a case that is not a bog-standard PC board. (yeah-yeah AT vs ATX differences whatever)
Is this the best to come up with? I really hope that it is not!

1.) What would you put the Commander X16 into?
2.) Are there any mildly good looking modern PC cases to buy?

For now, I'm going to set my computer inside of a 4U rack enclosure. There's a "sound base" sitting on the bottom, so the computer will sit nicely on top of that.

Eventually, David will have the bespoke X16 case, and I plan to order at least one of these:

I think a Checkmate A1500 Plus case might be a good choice.

kelli217 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:27 pm I think a Checkmate A1500 Plus case might be a good choice.

Absolutely. I have their ITX case, and it's very well made and looks very good.

I think there's been some ideas floating around about how to extend this 3D printed case to fully enclose the Gen1 board:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5170783

For now, it makes a neat keyboard to go in front of the case posted above.

I imagine the X16 looking kinda like this: Like a sideways C64 GS or a C128D but smaller.

Barring the ability to physically sketch the case into existence, I think the Checkmate case looked really good too, I'd love to see what it looks like together with the monitor they're planning on releasing.

Eventually I will put mine into my own wedge case design (that's the one for Gen-2): I plan to add a compartment in the back to allow space for the DEV board: Those who are interested can find the design on Thingiverse

In honor of one of the X16 questions asked at VCF East last month, I'd like to see a carbon fiber case and matching carbon fiber keyboard.

To help make the carbon footprint of the CX16 "legendary."

Personally, I never cared for the white (I prefer black). To me the most beautiful case I've ever seen is the one for this machine:

https://c256foenix.com/a2560k/?v=7516fd43adaa

It reminds me a lot of something you would've seen in the 2000s when I was young. I would love to have a case or keyboard that looks like, regardless of the tech inside of it. Of course, I don't care for the rainbow leds in the thing (yes, this thing apparently has rainbow leds in it), which I think completely spoils the look. Of course, I would guess the cx16 wouldn't fit inside this thing. Honestly, I don't know what the board looks like that's supposed to go into this thing.

Honestly, I was planning on not really bothering with a case at all. If nothing else, I would leave the top off the official case so I'd always have access to those expansion ports.

I wonder though if its possible buy an off-the-shelf case that this board would fit in? I did see some video of a guy who put it in a tower case. I've never bought an empty computer case, so I really know nothing about it; I've just always used the case the computer came in. Of course, honestly I've never cared much for what my computer looked like (its not like you're looking at it while you're playing video games), then again these days all computers come in black cases. Haven't seen too many stark white cases either (though I have seen plenty of beige ones, which I'll be honest I also prefer over blank white).

Yes those are beautiful.
I also have a white VIC-20 ITX case from myretrocomputer.