Novelty/Unusual Cases, Keyboards, Rodents, Etc?

SourceVisigoth asks: "The recent story on non-traditional keyboards got me thinking, what else is out there in terms of hardware with an interesting design? Is there anyone who specializes in making cases, keyboards, pointing devices, etc. out of unusual materials or with nonstandard colors or patterns? What about hardware that won't necessarily be more efficient, but simply looks cool? Apple is definitely onto something with the different colored iMacs and the G4 cubes, but someone must be doing this in the x86 world also. NCSX sells 'colorful shells' for the Dreamcast and Playstation, so there must be some demand for this kind of thing, especially among gamers. Not only would a glow-in-the-dark keyboard provide illumination for late-night coding, but nothing says 'I 0wN j00' like a box with racing stripes running down the side!" Gotta admit, something like this might make a nice Christmas gift for your favorite geek. Maybe next year?

Keyboard

[Baloo Ursidae]

The Linux CoolKeyboard [thinkgeek.com] on sale at ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] is really cool in my opinion, despite the fact that the \ key is in the improper behind-the-shift position...

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Mac Devices

[Arthropoid]

Most new devices that are designed to work with Macs come in graphite or a similar iMac color. Since most of these devices are standard USB devices (and the developers would be insane not to also have Windows support), you could purchase some of these. There also is a PC case that looks almost identical to the G3 B&W/G4 Minitower cases. I forget what exactly it is called, but you can probably find it by asking around.

"Cool Case" contest

[darthpenguin]

There was a "cool case" contest a while ago. Here is a link to the /. article:
[slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/09/1239 21 7&mode=nested

There were some pretty cool results. My favorite is the one built out of PVC pipe with a HUGE fan attached to the side. Imagine the overclocking possibilities...

-mdek.net [mdek.net]

The problem of case design has already been solved

[esonik]

The Mark Levinson No.33 [marklevinson.com] looks like a good candidate for a computer case.

Check These Out...

[nathanm]

Alternative Computer Designs [angryfruitsalad.com] has some pretty interesting cases. Some are downright ridiculous.

Ye Nails-And-1x4s method.

[Christopher Thomas]

Don't discard the possibility of building something neat yourself.

Back in my younger days, I got so sick of taking my 286 down from its inaccessible shelf to poke at cards that I took the thing down, gutted the case, and nailed the innards to the wall. It worked fine for several years, and got more than a few odd looks.

As another example, one of the disk arrays at the University is inside a home-made plexiglass box. It looks cool, it works well, and you can build something like that with a sheet of plexiglass, a saw, and a tube of epoxy. I'm still considering my fishtank-in-computer-in-fishtank idea.

Take an old machine, take a few carpentry tools, and let your imagination run wild. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results.