The donor display for my retro-reimagined Indy LCD display is a Sun LCD’s Model 365-1432-01 or 365-1432-01 from the 2000’s era.

It’s a simple design that lends itself nicely to the pizza box workstations of 90’s. It’s native resolution is 1280x1024 making it a nice resolution at a generally nice price. The SUN LCD monitors I have tried work nicely with the Silicon Graphics workstation and the NeXT workstations. While it can be a bit of a challenge to take it apart, it does go back together nicely.

Given my recent success creating a “retro-reimagined NeXT LCD display”, I decided to do the same for the Indy.

I took the monitor apart, stripping it down to the various shell parts. The first decision I had to make was to attempt the Indy Teal Blue color or the keyboard/mouse SGI Stone look. I went to the paint store to see what basic colors were available. I knew I would most likely need several to get either effect.

There were several starting points for the stone look to choose from. The stone look would have been more correct, as this was the look of the CRT’s that generally came with SGI workstations of the era. But, after examining the two finishes up close, I thought I had a much better shot at recreating the Teal Blue rather than the Stone.

For anyone wanting to recreate the Teal Blue, it’s fairly easy if you have some patience. One of the photos has all the different paint colors I used (but you could get by with just three and be very close).

First, wet sand off all the Sun logos.  They don’t feel like they have a relief to them, but they do.  I used a power sander, 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and water. Once dry, I put on a coat of Rust-oleum Self Etching primer. I gave each part a coat or two. The primer dries very quickly so you can probably move on to the base coat within an hour.

For the base color coat I used Rust-oleum “Lagoon”. This paint gets you 90% there alone. It’s too bright and doesn’t have quite enough green, but it gives the feeling you have a fighting chance at making this work.

From this point on, there is no more direct spraying of paint. Instead, stand back about 4-5 feet and just quickly puff paint out a shot at a time and let it fall onto the parts. Be patient, you only need a few puffs to really move the needle.

Color number two is the Rust-oleam “Metallic”. This paint appears to actually have metal flakes in it. I used it to mimic the sparkle you get from the Indy case. The Indy has an uneven surface that reflects light back at you. The metal flake does the same thing and really sells the finish.

Next move on to the third color Rust-oleum “Satin Black.” This is used to take the brightness of the “Lagoon” down. Feel free to go back and forth or start all over if you apply too much black or it appears uneven. After the first coat, you are using so little paint with the puff technique you can keep going over it until you get what you want.

You will need to have the Indy nearby to constantly compare. I would check the results by putting the LCD stand on top of the Indy to compare after each adjustment.

At this point you could probably stop and be reasonably happy. I thought it needed a little more blue to match the Indy more closely. So, I used the Rust-oleum “Navy” to add a little blue in. Then I felt like it needed a little green, so I used the Rust-oleum “Hunter Green” to bring it back toward Indy Teal Blue. When you are satisfied, use Rust-oleum “Matt Clear Enamel” to finish the parts. Come back the next day and readjust if need be. I spent about three days revisiting until I was happy.

My final acquisition was an SGI badge that I was able to affix to the monitor.  The results turned out amazingly close to the body of the computer.   When I reassembled the LCD and booted up the box, I thought changing the desktop background to an Indy-like teal made the entire thing really come together.