One of my favourite films is 1982’s Blade Runner, for more reasons than just its rain-slicked, retrofitted future, but the funky, chunky monitors certainly help. For obvious reasons, it’s a noticeable quirk of sci-fi flicks from this era—the enveloping Mother computer in 1979’s Alien a particularly memorable example. With an understandable hankering for that aged, off-white shell, one Redditor has crafted his own retrofuturistic PC build.
Redditor ZealousidealWorry881 posted his “handmade” multi-screen setup to r/battlestations. The off-brand Rubik’s cube is definitely a nice touch. I reached out to ask what exactly the Redditor meant by ‘handmade’ and to query the setup’s specs, of course.
The Redditor introduced himself as Arthur, a 25 year old from Ukraine—with a Minecraft channel. As for ‘handmade,’ he really means it.
Instead of relying on 3D printed parts for his setup’s outer shell, Arthur says, “I made it with wood as the inner frame, plywood as the outer body. I filled in some particularly difficult parts with automotive putty, and the parts that were smoother I filled in with wood putty. Then I painted the whole thing with matte universal enamel in the colour ‘X021’—it is very similar to the colour of plastic that was used for various technical things in the past.”
He later went on to add, “The most challenging part of creating this project was, without a doubt, following the correct geometric shapes for a believable look. Since I didn’t use a 3D printer, I had to spend a lot of time making the case look like something that was created in a real production facility.”
Though the PCs outer appearance is deliciously bygone, there’s nothing archaic about its innards, with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, a Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, and 24 GB of RAM under the wood. Unsurprisingly, Arthur explains that gaming served as a key font of inspiration for the build.
“In general, I really like retro PCs,” he tells me. “Although I don’t know much about the actual internal equipment of those times, the visual component of retro technology from the ’80s, ’90s, and even the early 2000s really evokes sincerely pleasant emotions in me. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the visuals of technology from that time, not just home PCs, but also industrial and military consoles, NASA control stations, and so on. So I’ve been thinking about building something like this for myself for a long time.”
What gave him the final push was streaming Portal 1 and 2. “It was so enjoyable to be in the Aperture Science labs that I realised I wanted to bring some of that feeling to the real world,” he says.
While researching how to build his throwback setup, Arthur even bought an old Samsung CRT monitor. Though it bolstered his appreciation for the tech, he found it wasn’t quite right for what he wanted to use his PC for. He also tells me, “In the end, my PC didn’t look exactly like the Aperture Science labs due to various factors such as the size of my monitors, the amount of space on my desk, functionality, and practicality for streaming, but I’m still very happy with the result.”
He welcomes the comparisons to Alien and Star Wars, saying, “I was very pleased to read this, it was such a collective image of a retro-futuristic PC.”
The setup has been so positively received online, Arthur says that he’s considering the possibility of selling his retrofuturistic creations at some point in the future. In the meantime, he’s working on putting together a video that shares his build process in more depth. As for me, I’m either going to persuade myself that I don’t need a retro PC setup, or I’m going to have to think in portals with my own PC build budget.