Michael Blumenthal
Ian Scott 
🐙TIL that the case badge on the IBM PC/AT 5170 can be rotated for when it’s sitting vertically!
IBM made this massive vertical case that enclosed the whole system: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/vertical-ibm-at-286.1217153/
Vertical IBM AT 286
I've shown this on in the past but all the photos went bye bye when I sold my business and retired. I was hosting all my photos on my old business site. This Vertical IBM AT was one of two super finds in my 15+ years collecting old computers. I've added a couple of things and have been trying...
Some 5170s shipped with this gray plastic panel so you wouldn’t offend anyone who would have happened to see the naked metal back of your computer. This panel is the only thing left from the AT I used when I was a kid; it mounts with Velcro and this 5170 I just got doesn’t have the matching side so I’m holding it up.
Gorgeous na Shock!@polpo I have a bunch of hardware with NY state asset badges on it... mostly probably in the attic at this point. When I was younger and couldn't afford hardware, they just happened to always be throwing a lot away, it seems. 😌
Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️@polpo schools and churches just love burning their name into things
ThatKomputerKat 
NEPŘÁTELSKÉ EMOCE 🇺🇦🇨🇿
Aviancer@polpo I wonder if they had a problem with their computers walking off on them ^^
leah & tigers & bears, oh my!@thamesynne @polpo Wow yeah, that could certainly prompt a way more visible and _permanent_ marking of the gear then.
(moved)Galbinus Caeli 🌯@polpo call the number and ask if they want it back
@SkipHuffman it's the number for the campus police department 😬
Derek@polpo ooooo! 🤓
Vicious Babushka@polpo I received an IBM PC/AT when I graduated with my degree in Math/Computer Science in 1986. It had 40MB of storage!
Jesse Morris@polpo Mackie HR824 studio monitors also have rotateable emblems for this purpose
Peter Mount@polpo Probably one of, if not the first, where a designer of the case thought about desktop or tower configurations.
A Thinkstation I have has that as it's a tower but rack mountable so you can rotate the logo.
In the 90's one of the better Gateway cases went further where you could even rotate the external drive bays easily if you wanted a tower instead of a desktop
Seiðr@polpo Oh, that predates the PS emblem in the PS2 disc tray, then.
BeyondMachines 
@polpo The time when engineers were building computers.
sysfrank 🤣🤣🤣@polpo Cool (warning, old guy here): When I was teaching robotic programming (AML) at the IBM plant where they made the keyboards, they had this robot that placed the IBM logo inside the little square in the plastic. It centered the plate by moving it up, down and sideways until it sensed that the inlaid plate had contacted the edges of the indentation, then calculated, and centered the plate before gluing it in place. The rotating logo on the case is a lot simpler to center, just need to drill a centered hole. 🤣
@sysfrank Oh wow! I have the IBM Model M keyboard with the square logo badge. I had no idea there was such a complicated system to center it!
ted byfield@polpo @jkohlmann Better still: you *couldn’t* do that on an XT because the badge was glued in (at least on the one I had, which was pretty early). Always nice to discover those micro-design choices that reveal a hidden process of corporate learning.
Joseph Kohlmann@tb @polpo Flash forward to 2024: that damn Lightning port is still on the bottom of the Apple Magic Mouse 🥴
Yes, people complain about this one all the time, but, wow, revelations of the hidden process of corporate learning! Legitimately interesting! It occurred to me that the *absence* of that process or its evidence can be just as telling 😵💫
Undefik@polpo AFAIK the logo on the Sony PS2 can be rotated too
J. Williams@polpo Attention to detail like that is part of what made IBM PCs so amazing.
Tim 🎮@polpo does it only rotate 90 degrees? My instinct for being obtuse and absurd wants to turn it upside down
@timixretroplays oh it can go all the way around if you want!
@polpo and now I want it to spin whimsically whenever there's hard drive activity
S T E L L A R 
@polpo just turn it into a pins.. rarest pins ever
Monsieur Valentine 🇺🇦