Quad-core coffee table trumped by dual-Mac garden furniture

Last week we brought you the story of the Mac Pro put out to pasture as a coffee table and asked readers to share similar stories. Which of course you did, you lovely people. A fellow reader named Mark pointed us in the direction of the works of German designer Klaus Geiger, who will sell you one of the benches below if you …

[Anonymous Coward]

I wired up an old 12v CPU fan..

...and used it to circulate cold air in my beer fridge.

[Michael Duke]

I was expecting a Windows ME disc not NT Workstation.

There was nothing wrong with NT at the time, it was a good desktop OS. Rather lacking in server chops back then and well behind the competition in features but a reasonably competent desktop OS for the period.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure I've still got a set of IE3 beta discs of about the same vintage stuffed away in some dark corner somewhere... from the moment MSFT realised "OMG! the internet"... if anyone has a use for them?

[Blofeld's Cat]

"I was expecting a Windows ME disc not NT Workstation."

Ditto - Presumably they finally used up all their Compuserve and AOL disks.

My accountant uses HMRC update disks as coasters.

[Not That Andrew]

I used to use a Win 95 disc as a coaster (original MS disc). After my home WinXP disc (original MS disc) died on me, out of curiosity I cleaned the Win 95 disc and tried to install it on an old computer Installed perfectly. So naturally I tried the XP disc and the installed failed at the same point.

At least it resulted in me upgrading my home PCs to Win 7.

EDIT: spelling

[Stoneshop]

Adam's disks

Such a stack of platters, and late '80's? Those disks were way more than 20MB; more like 200..500MB. They're also thin film (shiny, reflective) instead of the oxide coated platters (reddish-brown) one would find in the average 20MB disk like the ST225, also indicating higher capacity.

My PC back then ran two Maxtor 4170 ESDI drives (5.25", FH). Those had a platter stack that looked quite like these.

[Adam Hartfield]

Re: Adam's disks

They may have been slightly larger (upon further recollection 40 MB sounds right), but definitely less than 500 MB. They came out of HP series 300 HPIB boxes and barely had room for the OS (HP-UX 6, 7, or 8) and our 3 MB of software.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump

From now until November at least the word "Trump" comes with some unfortunate connotations. Can I suggest that El Reg's headline writers choose a different style until the storm blows away,

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Trump

Get over it, you PC weeny...

[Antonymous Coward]

Re: Trump

I've been losing sleep over this too. I've a horrible feeling that, should the Republican party fail to destroy their lead candidate before the election, and then should he be elected, the meaning of the word "trump" could be quickly and irrevocably inverted. Much in the style of bork and gerrymander...

Will Trump trump "trump"?

[Sloppy Crapmonster]

Re: Trump

> Will Trump trump "trump"?

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

[herman]

Re: Trump

It looks like you are working on a new version of brainfuck, so here it is for you:

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump! Trump? Trump! Trump! Trump. Trump? Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump? Trump. Trump?

Trump! Trump. Trump? Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump! Trump. Trump? Trump. Trump. Trump.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump! Trump? Trump! Trump! Trump. Trump? Trump.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump? Trump. Trump? Trump! Trump. Trump?

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump! Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump! Trump. Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!

Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump!

Trump. Trump? Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.

Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump! Trump? Trump! Trump! Trump. Trump? Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!

Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump? Trump. Trump? Trump!

Trump. Trump? Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!

Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!

Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump. Trump? Trump.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: Trump

Is this Turing complete?

[phuzz]

My monitor at work sits on a stack of VHS tapes, they're close to being older than our youngest employee. (The other monitor sits on a stack of old O'Reilly books, I care not about "Oracle Essentials for 9i, 8i and 8")

I was using an HP copy of WinXP as a coaster, but it's gone missing somewhere.

[Blitheringeejit]

re O'Reilly etc

I'm liking the "Oldest manual used for monitor stand?" idea for a Friday competition - may I submit Aldus Pagemaker 5.0?

Old git icon, obviously...

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: re O'Reilly etc

I've got learn ASP in 24 hours and fireworks mx manual for my monitors... Not that I bought them mind, they were on the shelf and never touched so I thought I'd put them to good use.

As for the iMac I've still got one of them in the garage somewhere.

[Chris King]

Re: re O'Reilly etc

Ragemaker 5.0 - I had lots of fun killing off old copies of that.

Mostly me jumping up and down on the boxes, screaming "DIE ! DIE ! HAHAHAAAAAA !"

[usbac]

Re: re O'Reilly etc

I have an original Apple ][ manual from 1977 in good shape!

Complete with schematics and an assembler listing of the OS. Man, those were the days....

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: re O'Reilly etc

I have an original Apple ][ manual from 1977 in good shape!

That's a hard one to beat. I have some manuals and technical books on my shelves from the '80s - K&R 2nd ed, Bach's Design of the UNIX Operating System, IBM SNA LU6.2 FAPL - but nothing from the '70s, I think. My copy of TAoCP vol 1 is the third edition, published a mere 19 years ago. I had some older references once, but I think they're all long gone.

[Sloppy Crapmonster]

Re: re O'Reilly etc

I just threw out a copy of the O'Reilly MCSE exam prep book that covered Windows 95 and NT 4.0. So not older, but quaint.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell Poweredge 1750 Case

Im currently using one as an excellent perimeter firewall.

On its side propped up under table to prevent the young un crawling out of the living room.

I also once used the steel side panel off a Viglen server as an oven tray to cook a pizza and a Fujitsu Primergy panel on top of a barbeque as a hot plate.

[waldo kitty]

System 36

i don't think i can get a decent picture of the System 36 holding up the end of my work bench... it is against the wall out of the way and the bench is eight feet wide... the 36 is blocked in by an old "winged" typing table from the '60s (photo here http://office-turn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Vintage-Folding-Typing-Table-and-Rolling-Printer-Stand-360x433.jpg ) which houses two UPSes and two of the back end servers... the 36 is the same height as a metal two drawer filing cabinet of which there is one of those holding up the other end of the bench ;)

[Delbert Grady]

my latter 6502 days

it was back sometime in the 90s, but when my old BBC Master died, i noticed that the nice, heavy, metal and beige (naturally) dual BBC Micro 5.25 floppy drive - (i think it was an Opus) was the same size as the spare PC CD drive i had gathering dust, (i think it was one of those that connected to a soundcard) and i was delighted to find it all fited and had the familiar 4 pin molex power connectors inside the old 5.25 dual height case, so i fitted the CD drive as it had a built in switch mode PSU, and i dispensed with the flat grey floppy cable and connected the 3.5mm audio out to my stereo amp and was happy. I miss the heavy build quality of some of that old stuff.

I later fitted one of the rather fetching black 5.25" drives into my new 386 (i think it was) IBM-PC,

but by then i found out everyone was using 3.5" floppies by then.

- you can't win 'em all

[lazarus]

Re: my latter 6502 days

I still use the power supply out of one of those enclosures for firing up drives externally to recover data. Even relocated the fan from the enclosure onto the mesh top of the power supply.

Our student BBQ used to be the lid from a desktop case with the radiator from the back of a fridge laid across it.