- Japan gachapon machines now offer items of detailed miniature rack servers
- Each 1/12 scale server model reproduces real brands like Cisco, Dell and A10
- They have tiny cables, ports, fans and stackable racks, but these are just toys
If you live in the United States or the United Kingdom, you probably know automatic distributors in grocery stores and shopping centers that provide tiny toys or collectibles in plastic capsules. You insert your money, turn the handle and release a price, usually something like bouncing balls, agitated toys, collection characters, etc.
Japan offers something similar, but with truly desirable products that are of much better quality. Gachapon machines are part of daily life and can be found everywhere, including stations, shopping centers, arcades and even on the sidewalk. The name Gachapon comes from two Japanese sounds: “Gacha”, the start of the handle of the machine, and “Pon”, the sound that the capsule emits when it falls.
These machines offer a huge range of thematic products. As you can imagine of Japan, they include everything, from cute and original to the strange specific or completely bizarre, including tiny versions of animals, people, food or animal and manga characters. Minimachines recently spotted Gachapon machines (via @KalleBoo) distributing miniature rack servers.
Like the real thing
Rack servers do not serve any practical lens – you cannot really use them, so banish the ideas you may have to create a data center for a shoe box – but attention to detail is remarkable.
Made for collectors “at the age of 15 and over”, each “network size network device” measures only 105 mm and built on a 1/12 scale. Server blades are only a few millimeters thick and are modeled after real products from Dell, Cisco, A10 Networks, Furukawa Electric and Fortinet. You can build them, disassemble and connect the different elements. Ethernet ports, cables, rack cooling systems, feeding strips, logos, vents and other details are all meticulously reproduced.
If you are in Japan and you have the chance to find a Gachapon machine offering them, you can get the tiny rack server of your dreams for 500 yen each (about $ 3.50). Also keep an eye on eBay because the Gachapon collections are sold there, but you will pay a bonus.
They can do nothing, but for his enthusiasts or anyone who loves strangely specific and incredibly detailed miniatures, they are strangely tempting. I am not really a collector personally, but they could simply change that.
