The "Spartan Bluebird"
By Garry Buck - Tucson, Arizona - Posted on July 25, 2003

Introduction

When I first heard of the Mini-ITX I was fascinated by the creative possibilities. I bought one immediately, along with a case that was specifically intended for the tiny VIA motherboard. It worked great, and I was amazed by its small size, but it seemed rather conventional, the same old thing only smaller. I wanted something truly unique, something that represented my other interests, and did not remotely look like a computer.

I love Art Deco, and when I found a replica of a 1935 Spartan Bluebird radio for sale on eBay, I had my inspiration.

Construction

The front of the radio is a 16 inch diameter, cobalt blue mirror, which conceals a wooden case that houses the radio. Since this is a modern replica of an old tube radio, the case is largely empty, except the circuit board for the transistor radio, and a cassette player.

I wanted to keep the radio and cassette player in working order, so the challenge was to insert the VIA motherboard, hard drive, floppy drive, CD burner and power supply into the available space.

I was able to modify the mounting bracket for the cassette player to hold the floppy and CD drives. The hard drive is wedged above the radio circuit board.