Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
DIY: The $175,000 Silicon Graphics Refrigerator
By James Grahame
High-performance computer manufacturer Silicon Graphics recently filed for bankruptcy, but a decade ago they were on the leading edge of the Internet Revolution. Their once drool-worthy Challenge servers are now laughably obsolete, making them perfect candidates for some oddball case modding. Like this fantastic Silicon Graphics refrigerator.
Matthijs Mourits gleefully documented his demented quest to turn a broken Challenge DM into a convenient little bevvy cooler. The machine was gutted (sigh) and he got his hands on a quiet "hotel room" style fridge that slipped perfectly into the Challenge's old skin. This re-purposed SGI box now lives proudly in the coffee area at the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam.
I once worked for a company that had several SGI boxen, although they were used as database servers and only served up whiz-bang graphics when the boss came to visit. Sadly, those machines were relegated to the junk pile well before someone came up with the idea of slipping a Micro ATX board inside. Pity, that.
