[Irinikus]

In my opinion, the most aesthetically beautiful piece of hardware I've ever laid eyes on, is the original PlayStation 3 console (especially when vertically orientated), followed very closely by the Sun JavaStation-10, tailed by the Mac Pro 2013.

Silicon Graphics machines and Cray Supercomputers, look extremely cool, but aren't as aesthetically beautiful as the machines mentioned above, in my opinion. (Cool's definitely a good thing though, I like cool! )

What's your opinion?

[pcar]

For me it would have to be the McIntosh MC275, it is just one of the most beautiful pieces of HW i've ever seen.

[Trippynet]

Thing is, it depends on the time. Octane/O2 were beautiful machines for the late 90s, PCs were just beige boxes at the time and I wasn't overly taken by the translucent plastic Macs of the time either. Same goes for the Indigo2/Indy (even Macs were beige boxes at this time). I did think the PS2 was also a very cool looking device for its time as well.

Part of the reason the Indigo2 is my favourite SGI machine is that I was raised in a world of beige PCs, then I saw a room full of purple Indigo2s with granite monitors, they looked sublime back them!

[GeekLucanis]

As much as I don't want to shell out the massive amounts to buy them, the Japanese X68000 and FM Towns II come to mind.

[Raion]

Other than SGIs:

The Sega Dreamcast is a sharp looking console. Some of the AS/400s I've seen. The Cray supercomputers.

[callahan]

There is a common belief in the car world that a person's favorite car for life will be coolest car introduced when they were around 12 or 13 years old (for me that's a 3rd Gen RX-7, fwiw). I think there is a lot behind this, natural design progression as well as car-craziness in the years leading up to being driving age.

On tech stuff, I think a similar adage applies. It has to be something very cool that was released at the right time and had substantial impact on you personally. For me, that's the Octane. I can still picture the first time I saw the glowing lightbar of an Octane front and center in an otherwise dim room of my universities' science center's computing lab. And then I spent may hours writing FORTRAN code for it (I never really learned a more useful programming language, unfortunately).

Internally, although it's a new discovery for me (so there goes the adage), HP's PA-RISC systems are quite impressive.

[GerhardL]

I think I prefer the classic sun4c/sun4m Lunchbox / Pizzabox designs to almost any other computer design. I love the simplicity on the outside and how clean and compact they are designed on the inside. Also, I think despite the cases being made from some kind of plastic they did age very well.

[JohnnyJohnny]

Assuming we're only talking about computer hardware here, then the Cray X-MP or Thermaltake Level 10 by BMW Designworks.

[hamei]

There is a common belief in the car world that a person's favorite car for life will be coolest car introduced when they were around 12 or 13 years old (for me that's a 3rd Gen RX-7, fwiw).

Maybe. But I did all the gear work for these guys for about twenty years

http://www.philreillyco.com/shop/nggallery/page/1

(absolutely shitty website, no idea why they changed it, is that the new thing ? Replace a functioning, nice website with a piece of crap ?)

and have to say, if you ever get to stand next to a C-Type, it is the car I'd choose over all others if I could only have one. They don't show up that great in photos but in real life, they knock your socks off.

Or a UOP Shadow, but the C you could maybe almost drive around in

1972 BRM v-12 is okay too. The proportions and shapes on that are sexy. Or a Mark IV Ford ... or ... better not get greedy, just stick with the C

[BackPlaner]

For me it was always the Sony Vaio UX490N, the top of the line, and also the end of that particular line. Not just beautiful but also (to me) futuristic, when they came out in 2007 there was no way I could afford one, but I never really forgot about it. Fast forward to about four years ago when they had come down below $500, and I was actually able to grab one for much less than that luckily. Sadly, they couldn't really deliver on the promise that the design held, but it is still one hell of a design.