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This gaming PC inside a vintage radio is truly amazing

Nathan Drescher
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Here’s a truly unusual PC build. It’s a gaming PC inside a vintage 1940s Motorola radio case. And believe it or not, the thing actually works!

YouTuber Carter Hurd, who goes by AltaPowderDog on Reddit, is no stranger to builds that are off the beaten path. He’s built a PC tower out of concrete, 3D printed a stainless steel watch, and water-cooled a laptop.

A pc inside a vintage wooden Motorola radio case with a stainless steel fan at the front, surrounded by green leaves.
image: Carter Hurd

Hurd is an engineer and inventor by trade, with a background in robotics and automotive sensing technologies. Today, he considers himself an artist, and after watching a few of his YouTube videos, it’s hard to argue with him. This latest vintage PC build tops everything he’s done thus far.

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“I’ve built a number of weird computers on this channel,” Hurd says at the end of his video about this vintage PC build. “But this is my favorite.”

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The build features vintage wood, stainless steel, and leather instead of plastic. It eschews RGB lighting for a plasma tube. There’s even an old-style mini fan front and center to draw in fresh air.

Better than the CyberDeck? Wood and Leather Gaming PC Build

The specs on the PC he slapped into the vintage wooden case are unknown. The title of the video says it is a gaming PC build, but when he tests the temperatures at the end of the video, he compares it to a laptop.

The motherboard itself looks like a custom job. At least, it has had parts added to it, including various USB slots.

The good news is the big stainless steel USB fan he used does the job. The temperatures of his build are in line with what you’d expect from gaming on a laptop. He pulled it off with one single fan, although he had to reverse the blades to pull air into the case, and he installed a clear plastic fin to help guide the air across the motherboard.

This isn’t the first merging of vintage home deco with modern tech. Check out Jeffrey Stephenson’s slipperyskip.com site for some weird examples. But Hurd’s creation is in a class by itself.

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Nathan Drescher
Nathan Drescher
Computing Writer
Nathan Drescher is a freelance journalist and writer from Ottawa, Canada. He's been writing about technology from around the…
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