Should you’ve constructed or purchased a desktop PC recently, you may’ve seen that they have an inclination in direction of two appears to be like. They’re both RGB disco balls that fell out of an alien house ship (an alien ware, if you’ll), or they’re tiny mid-century fridges full with wooden accents.
However SilverStone is nostalgic for a time when computer systems had been, nicely, ugly. In case you are, too, you may take into account shopping for its new retro case subsequent 12 months.
The SilverStone FLP01 was proven off at a stay expo in Japan and completely fondled by ASCII.jp (noticed by Tom’s {Hardware}). Apparently it began as an April Fools’ joke final 12 months, however the response was so optimistic that it’s develop into an actual product.
Regardless of its appears to be like and horizontal structure, the case is absolutely compliant with all the fashionable ATX requirements, which means you possibly can throw in an everyday motherboard and all of the trimmings and count on it to work. The one factor that is perhaps difficult is getting a giant cooler to suit beneath the disc drive.
Yup, this factor has a disc drive, one thing that’s develop into uncommon even in a roomy desktop chassis. In truth, it’s hiding it behind an much more archaic characteristic: the 2 plastic dummy floppy drives on the entrance, with the highest one flipping right down to reveal a 5.25-inch customary media drive match for a DVD burner and the underside one hiding USB-C, double USB-A, and headphone ports. On the opposite facet, you get a very good old school inexperienced LED energy gentle and disk drive exercise indicator.
The inside can accommodate a full-sized ATX energy provide and graphics playing cards as much as 310mm lengthy, with a pair of 80mm followers dealing with air circulation. And the horizontal structure is robust sufficient to carry up a monitor… although there’s no phrase on whether or not that’s a contemporary, 5-pound LCD or a chunky CRT that’ll throw your again out. The design relies on the NEC PC-9800, a collection with some critical nostalgia energy in Japan.
SilverStone informed expo-goers that it’s bringing the FLP01 to the Japanese market in early 2025 for 19,800 yen (a bit of beneath $130 USD). Whether or not it’ll get a world launch is anybody’s guess.
Whereas the corporate has a wide variety of instances and energy provides, its availability is usually a bit hit-and-miss. In case you have your coronary heart set on this retro case, possibly plan a visit to Akihabara for subsequent 12 months.
