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Front Ports for PCs?
Vassily Overveight asks: "After the 400th time hauling my PC out from under my desk in order to mess with the cabling, I'm wondering if there's a better way. I'd like to find a means of bringing frequently-accessed I/O ports to the front of the machine so that I can attach/detach things like my palmtop, digital camera and camcorder, microphone, headphones, etc. with ease. Frontx has made a good start with a drive-bay installable set of ports for multimedia (audio-in, earphone, microphone, and game port), with promises of other port types in the future, but I'd like to find out if there're any other offerings already available (particularly in the form of an external box) that also provide front access to serial, parallel, USB, firewire, etc."
Typically your desktop is under your monitor, raising the height of your monitor. Well I have a 21" monitor, which means that if I want to open a desktop case, I have to lift this roughly 75 pound beast and put it somewhere else on my desk. And I'm a geek, which means that I'm unable to do that without endangering the monitor, endangering myself, and endangering my desktop.
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About 5 years ago I saw at an amature radio show a little box that mounted in a (empty) 5-1/4 disk drive bay. It then had everything you need to put headphone a headphone jack on the front of your case.
Personally I'd buy a USB hub (and other USB gear, see other posters) and put it on my desktop. Then I'd head to radio shack and rig up a sound hub on my desk.
What someone needs to do is build a case where the MB is turned around, and the externally accessible drives are mounted on the same side of the case as the ATX serial ports. Requires a redesign of the case, but shouldn't be too hard. Just flip the board around so the serial ports point toward the front, mount the CDROM and floppy on the same side, and move the HDDs and power supply to the new back.
Only drawback is the reduction of the number of available external drive bays. And the ugly. Now you have to look at the cables that so many people try so hard to cover up.
Compaq does some strange stuff. Their servers seem to be pretty decent. We've had fewer problems with them at work than the HP's, and especially the IBM boxes. (Your own experience will vary.)
However, the product line they sell for home users can only be described as flaming garbage. We bought several at my old job (as sort of minimalist PCs), and they were plagued.
It's strange that a company would willfully choose to sell one product line that's good, and another that destroys their credibility.
even so, I noticed the latest set of "internet ready" keyboards we got from HP had a set of extra wires to go in the soundcard (mic and spk) which led to sockets on the keyboard case. you could do something similar with joystick and serial/parallel ports (most of which have off-the-shelf extensions or switches)
In addition, my tower-case's motherboard ports are mostly on extension wires from the motherboard to a standard-slot carrier. assuming the wires would reach, you could mount them on a drive-bay blanking plate reasonably easily....
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-=DaveHowe=-
Most cases today are designed such that all ports are in the back. With the older AT motherboard layout, you could have long internal cables connecting the appropriate motherboard connector to a front panel one, but the ATX motherboards have the ports rather firmly attached at the rear.
A possible solution is to develop a generic case that has front plate mounts, and hope it is adopted as a standard. Then people can have a comm port, USB connector, and firewire port on the front as standard (as well as add-in connectors for audio jacks and the like).
However, until a standard appears, anything possible will likely be a hack that won't work the same on similar boxes.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I have all my computer eqiupment setting on some wire racks. I put casters on it, so now when I need to acces the back I just roll it away from the wall. It is the best setup I have ever found, I built a keyboard tray that is 3' wide for it, set of the racks to match the level I want the monitor and presto, I have a modular setup and all it cost we was 250, which would have been half the price if I had thought to look at sams when I bought the rack. No other setup even rack mount that I have found works as well and it is very inexpensive. Also think about leaveing enought space behind your desk for you to walk behind. I did that with my Home theater set up. I just cut access hole in the back and left enough space so I can walk behind it. Best of all this method is free, and works with all standard equiment.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Even if you had easy access to front-of-case ports, you'd still have to get down on the floor, crouch, squint, wish you hadn't misplaced that flashlight, etc. while attaching cables. At least, you have to do those things if you're as old and half-blind as I am.
What I'd like to see is the ports on the TOP .
Think about it. If the ports are on top of a tower case, you can put the case in one of those desks that holds a tower case on a pull-out tray. The combo would be about perfect; pull out the case/tray and there are the cables, right on top, ready to be futzed with. I won't even have to get out of my seat to plug/unplug stuff.Another thought: Cut off the top leading corner of the case at a 45-degree angle and you'd have the perfect spot to mount the floppy, CD and maybe DVD drive. You wouldn't have to pull out the case to get to them and they'd be lots more convenient in that sort of top corner placement where they sorta face up at you. To me, this placement would be far better than the current situation with those drives on the front of the case and (inevitably it seems) always just an inch or two too close to the floor to be easy to reach.
Surely someone has done this before. It just seems so...so...obvious.
They haven't? Where's the name of that patent attorney...?
:-)
I've thought about using a Dremel to cut holes in a spare drive-bay cover to mount some serial ports. I'd need to get ports with longer cables to make them reach, and there'd be some difficulty in mounting the port on the plate. Glue could work, or a metal plate could be attached to the back of the plastic one and the port could be mounted in it. A newer case (where the drive bay panels have metal plates already installed, for RF shielding) would make this easier.
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If you're going to do that, you may as well buy the Frontx unit and make new holes in it for whatever additional type of ports you want. They leave some blank areas for their future port types. (Come to think of it, maybe that's what I ought to be doing
The problem isn't the computer, it's the case. Nearly every factory-standard case on the market is a design disaster area. I currently have some rather nice limed oak, fretwork and a couple of leaded lights in the garage awaiting a spare moment. Thirty seconds with a brace and bit and I can have ports wherever I damned well please, and the whole thing *looks* like it belongs in my study. After that, the antimacassar for the mouse and a monitor with brass detailing. Sorted.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.