I still have scars on my hands from working on those old compaq boxes. I remember having to take out half of the stuff inside the case just to change the CPU chip. Not only were they really tight fits they didn't dull the edges of the sheet metal.
I saw a compaq about two years ago and it look fairly normal so I'd suspect that their hardware is no longer proprietary. Thought I know the software / firmware is. (ever wonder why theres a 20 meg partion on them? )
