so basically here's the deal..

update October 31, 2002: i took a couple of pictures of the adic scalar 10k in it's current form! go take a look..

this page has proved to be quite popular! never in my wildest dreams did i think that anyone would be so interested in silly lights stuck to a computer.. well, here's the story behind this page:

we received these new sunfire 15ks and an adic scalar 10k tape library and decided upon initial inspection that the lights they come with stock would just not do.. the 15k is an amazing machine, and deserves a much nicer presentation, in our opinions.. the enterprise 10k has some cool LED's that chase when the cpus are active, but the 15k only has a few lights that sit there or blink to a standard rhythm.. we have some grand plans for sprucing these machines up in the spirit of the old thinking machines CM-5 or the mythical W.O.P.R., but for now we just put some cold cathode tubes on the inside of the machine's doors..

the adic is also quite impressive, if not also lacking in the light department.. there's quite a lot that can be done with this machine - we hope to explore the options soon!

the response has been amazing.. people all over the world have seen these pictures and the one at the very end has made it on to many folks' desktops.. Sun itself has contacted me and expressed a lot of interest in this, and of doing something similar to the 15k when it undergoes it's next revision.. whether that will pan out is something we'll have to wait and see, but it's great that they are showing interest in making their machines better looking..

aside from the CPU board LEDs, the sunfire series of machines have an LCD panel at the top next to a flourescently lit Sun logo, as seen below on our sunfire 6800:



all in all, this isn't befitting such a nice machine, so it was decided that we should spend some time and a little amount of cash to spice things up a bit.. the total time invested was about several hours for one person, and the cathodes cost about $15 each.. we used a ham radio 13.8v power supply to power the whole thing..

a lot of people seem really bent out of shape that i called this a casemod.. apparently, those who properly mod cases consider this to be a sorry excuse for a mod because i didn't take a dremel to the case, or spray paint everything orange, or put fan guards in the shape of biohazard symbols all over it.. the fact of the matter is that this is really a big joke.. i mean, it looks really cool, but i'm not trying to compete with people who consider casemodding a serious art - this is quite different.. just a bunch of unix dorks with some spare time and velcro.. relax people, look at the pictures and have a chuckle..

thanks to slashdot.org and [H]ard|OCP for featuring this page, and thanks most of all to Sun and Adic themselves for making such amazing machines for us to play with.. if you want to link to this page or wish to use the pictures contained herein, or have any questions about this "mod" or any of it's mundane details, please feel free to email me at bri@rm-r.net

and now without further ado, i present to you "the most expensive case mod on the planet" (tm):

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staging the lights
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the targets - scalar 10k in the foreground with e15ks to the right
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the e15ks next to the scalar 10k
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two of the blue cold cathodes in place
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all of the blues in place
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red cathodes in place in door of scalar 10k
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closeup of upper cathode placement
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closeup of temporary wiring
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wiring of blue cathodes and swifty-nifty torque wrenches the e15ks come with
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red cathodes in the 10k
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reds on the tail end of the 10k
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boring router switchy things..
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greens in place!!
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another shot of greens done..
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full size shot..
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blues fired up for test run
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with the front doors open
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another..
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greens and blues on!
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green doors open
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someone opening the door with slow shutter speed
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i got the greens so bad..
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artistic overlap of lights on the floor
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it's alive!
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this is the one everyone wants for their desktop

rest assured, there's more to come as the days go on.. soon the 10k will be wired and all a-glow in red!