This retro PC case has a big red button and a turnkey and it hits me square in the chest with nostalgia

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Silverstone FLP02 retro PC case on display at Computex trade show — (Image credit: Future)

Any fellow nostalgia surfers out there? I surf those waves of nostalgic emotion almost on the daily (it's hard not to hearken back to simpler times, isn't it?), so thank the lord for companies like Silverstone which cater to it. This time around, the company has gone for a standing rather than horizontal retro chassis.

The beige and griddled chassis of the FLP02 immediately takes me back to the old family computer, which would sit waiting for me to return home from school and boot up Caesar III or Heroes of Might and Magic 2. Or draw random rubbish in MS Paint—the joys of childhood imagination, eh?

And hang on, hang on, is that a big red button and a turny key knob I see? Why yes, yes it is. The lock key is presumably for the power button, so you have to turn it while you switch it on or off. But it could also be a chassis lock.

There's also a Reset and Turbo button (your guess is as good as mine) and an LED number screen.

According to the spec sheet, you also get some front I/O ports, though I can't quite see where. You get one USB-C port, two USB-A 3.0 ports, and one Combo Audio port.

The ATX chassis measures 323 x 494 x 472 mm and supports two 120 mm fans on the front, one 120/140 mm fan on the back, and either three 120 mm fans or two 140 mm fans on the top.

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The Taipei 101 building and Taipei skyline in Taiwan. — (Image credit: Jacob Ridley)

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It also supports a rear 120 mm or 140 mm radiator and a top radiator of up to 360 mm. In other words, retro though its design may be, it's well-equipped for modern cooling and hardware.

I'm leaning more towards the small form factor (SFF) side of things for my next build or upgrade, whenever that may be. But damn, Silverstone sure knows how to make me reconsider things by hitting me in the memory bone.

Or maybe that's just the rose-tinted glasses talking, who knows?

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Jacob got his hands on a gaming PC for the first time when he was about 12 years old. He swiftly realised the local PC repair store had ripped him off with his build and vowed never to let another soul build his rig again. With this vow, Jacob the hardware junkie was born. Since then, Jacob's led a double-life as part-hardware geek, part-philosophy nerd, first working as a Hardware Writer for PCGamesN in 2020, then working towards a PhD in Philosophy for a few years while freelancing on the side for sites such as TechRadar, Pocket-lint, and yours truly, PC Gamer. Eventually, he gave up the ruthless mercenary life to join the world's #1 PC Gaming site full-time. It's definitely not an ego thing, he assures us.

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