Slashdot Mirror
Improving Computer Form Factors?
eschasi asks: "Recently we've been seeing some trend towards
smaller footprint machines like the new iMac or the tiny PC system
shown in this
recent article. All these tiny systems have scalability or quality
problems for me, and I don't think it has to be that way. But all the
solutions I see require discarding much of what we think is standard
to desktop/deskside mechanical design for PCs. Apple has been able to
do with much more freedom becuase they own the whole process. PC
makers, however, don't. The last major improvement to PC
motherboard/case design was the ATX design, and that was evolutionary
rather than revolutionary. I think that major improvement can still be
made in an evolutionary way. I want both worlds: I want a small
footprint; I want it in a premium system; I want it to have enough
room for a pair of hard drives, a 5.25" external slot, and a 3.5"
external slot; and I want it using largely off-the-shelf components,
and I don't want to have to re-invent ATX and PCI and ya-da-day to
get it!" Do you feel the same way? How would you improve the
current crop of PC form factors?
"IMHO large chunks of the problem could be solved by taking
advantage of both sides of the motherboard. Put the CPU and most of
the misc. chips on one side, put the expansion slots and RAM on the
other. The case design would have to change but that's quite doable.
Using both sides of the motherboard does more than reduce footprint
by half while returning to full expandability. You also get the
benefit of having the RAM sit directly opposite the CPU, reducing
trace length problems and permitting RAM bus speed increases. Other
timing problems might also be reduced.
I've left aside the rest of my extensive arguements for why this is
or isn't a good idea; what I'm interested in is this:
- Do other people see the same drawbacks with small-footprint systems?
- What seems to be out there on the drawing board for post-ATX systems?"
I'd love not to need to open the case, move all the cables around, and try not to slice my fingers on the case when changing or adding a card. I'd like to see the PCI and AGP internal slots replaced with cPCI cards that slide in on rails from the outside.
The reason ATX has been the last major change in PC form factors in a while is because it was about the last thing we could really need from it. However, I do agree that there should be smaller or larger form factors available, ATX simplifies the whole process by allowing case/power supply builders to create a bulk supply of the same thing. If you want something different, build it yourself, or pay someone to build it for you. It goes back to my old equation. In order to invent something, your need has to overcome the time needed to invent it, and the resources used in creating it.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I think the main problem is cooling; you can jam everything into a surprisingly small volume, you just run into heating problems. What I don't understand is why don't they make laptop-sized desktops? Just make a notebook computer without a monitor; small footprint and it should be relatively cheap (considering that the display is one of the most expensive components in a laptop).
RIBBON CABLES. I hate the things. I would much prefer something where you just plug the drive in like it were a card and off it goes.
All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
I imagine thermal output will have to be looked at closely - since your drives/cards will be much closer than they ever were to that nice new fast and HOT AMD chip. Of course your CPU fan could probably serve to cool the whole system if done right.
If this is going to catvh on it'll have to be standardized - kinda like car stereos - otherwise various sound cards and/or video cards and wires are gonna hit each other.
One last thing - working on these motherboards/systems is gonna be like working on modern cars as opposed to 1970's muscle cars where you could almost sit inside the hood as opposed to today where you almost have to be Plasticman or Mr. Fantastic..
..........FULL STOP.
Some day you'll be able to store all the inside bits in another dimension, much like Dr. Who's police box.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
There are other form factors, such as NTX, that one could build a small computer from. The major problem lies in mass-produced small footprint cases; these can be difficult to come by. Someone pointed me to this cheap chassis at GoogleGear. It might be worth looking in to.
HEAT! HEAT and more HEAT! The smaller it is, the hotter it will be. The smaller it is, the harder it is to cool.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I still like the old, big towers that are about the height of your desk. you can fit so many goodies in there, who cares if you really need them or not, you still CAN have them. Why does everything have to be so small these days? Little tiny cars,pager sized cell phones, cell phone size computers, small PC cases, iMac's and other similar computers (gateway profile etc, basically laptops on sticks). No thanks, not for this guy anyway. I'll keep my big truck, my clunky cell phone, and my 3 foot tall computer case.
Don't Tread on Me
Its called MicroATX and FlexATX. One of which(i cant remember) the FV24 Shuttle system uses. The problem is manufacturers not correctly implimenting the standard, makes for hard interchangability of parts.
Wouldn't a two sided mobo require better manufacturing? I mean look at your average board, most of the traces are on top, and there are solder bumps on the other side. If one were to flip some of the chips, there would be solder bumps on top which would get in the way of top side components. Even the Shuttle has a one sided mobo.
On a related side-note what alternatives are there to the Shuttle miniPC?
With the market like it is in the countries where people will be buying computers, the "footprint" system doesn't make up for in style what it drops in price. Currently, the people who are buying computers are either looking for power or affordability, not a suave appearance.
You might say this isn't true, but the majority of computer users aren't "geeks". Since the computer isn't so widespread that it's in every room of the house - usually, there's one or two an "affluent" household - people can hide them away in offices which aren't going to be seen by your houseguests and the like, making the "style" thing unnecessary. Furthermore, the consumer has gotten so used to the grey-box case that it's still considered "in style".
That's not to say that someday in the future, the smaller, chic computer won't become more widespread. I think the problem is that the consumer isn't willing to spend more AND sacrifice power to do it, and currently, that's what they've got to do.
I'm having trouble getting to the slashdotted article. But let me say how nice it would be to have the audio connections in a convenient place up front. It bugs the hell out of me to have to reach behind my PC, which is a mess of wires.
If a smaller form factor is to succeed, it would need to rely on wireless peripherals. The big problem is the tangled mess of wires in the back. For all the shortcomings of laptaps, at least everything is built into the design rather than relying on peripherals to do everything.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
mofoinasciiartistwannabetroll...er HI! me again. Just wanted to ask the inverse question. What if you want your computer to be big, frightening looking, with lots of blinkinlights?
I mean, granted, a modern minitower is nice.. but two or three lights just arent enough.
I therefore start the campaign for more blinkinlights.
Sun Systems are nice. Large (You have the "Refrigerator Cabinet", "End Table" and "Ottoman" form factors). Adequate blinking lights (ESPECIALLY on 6500's!)..
I want my computer to have lots of lights. I don't care if they do anything. I want my keyboard to sit in the middle of a console with a lot of dials, gauges, digital readouts, switches, buttons, knobs, and things that go "PING!" (a ping light WOULD be good, to think of it.) I want to see my network utilization on a graph led. I want to see my processor usage there, too. I want to see a red light come on each time some PFY discovers WinNuke, or someone tries to NIMDA me. I want to have one of those covered red buttons that may or may not launch a thermonuclear device. I want screens that go "zeeeeeeeerp, zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerp" as text scrolls across it.
I already have three monitors on my desk. Wires strewn everywhere. But what else do i have? An Ultra 5, A beanie baby, and a dell optiplex. And a Dell Keyboard (at least i makes those satisfying *click*'s.). I WANT SWITCHES, dammit.
soo... any suggestions?
[notices steam rising from ears]
err.. teehee..
The computer market reminds me of the way cars are. Older cars had wide open engine areas with plenty of room to work on them, nowadays the engine area is so packed, it makes even changing the oil a real bugger. You want smaller form factor? Then go with a pre built machine. If you want to customise the hell out of it, your pretty much stuck with the older atx form factor. Unfortunately, just like cars the two seem to be mutually exclusive right now.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
What the PC industry needs is an optical motherboard standard. By this I mean a way to have tiny SIMM-like cards, each for the CPU/BIOS, RAM, Networking components, HD/CD interfaces, USB interfaces, etc, and then have them all communicate via one unique serial optical interface. This way the cards can be made VERY small, and each one could be placed in any position (sideways, upside down, flat, vertically) inside almost any motherboard available. As a matter of fact, with this simple innovation anyone could easily copy the iMac (old and new) looks and still have a 100% Wintel machine. So the bottom line: We need a super high-speed "optical motherboard interconnect" technology to solve this problem, and trully revolutionize the PC architecture. I can actually imagine an "inside out" PC where all internal components are actually external components, with only one single special cable carrying optical data and electrical power among them.
Use the smallest technology that we've got and that is constantly used in laptops. Your computer case does not have to be a case, your drives can be packed together in smallest cases. I wonder if over time I will be able to put together my home machine from completely wireless parts. A wireless plasma screen, a bunch of wireless HDs, a wireless CPU unit and a wireless memory bank. Wireless video and sound cards, wireless printers, scanners, mice and keyboard (already are here) and ofcourse wireless network cards. I know, I know - the bus speed is the problem in this setup, but hey, what a convinient system, no more wires. Of-course there will always be nicely configured wired cases. But imagine the possibilities - put your wireless CPU directly into a fridge and do not bother building a cooling system around your case.....
You can't handle the truth.
I'm with the submitter that smaller form factors are nice. However one thing that I know they can control right here and now is the presence of HANDLES on the cases.
I'm an avid gamer. I had to buy a third-party (albeit excellent) product from CaseAce to help me carry my box to LAN parties etc. And I got a flat-screen monitor that was easier to carry than my 17" monitor.
But if computer manufacturers would just put a stout handle built in to the case, that would go a long way towards making me happy. Same thing for monitor builders, although I understand the problem is different for them.
For instance, look at the Gamecube. Arguably as much power as the other gaming platforms, but much easier for portage purposes. Why can't computer makers take a hint here?
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
What about changing the way the AGP/PCI/ISA cards fit onto the motherboard? SBC's use cards that stack onto one side of the board. If this was done, you'd save about 4" of height. Just have the AGP stack on one side of the motherboard and the PIC cards stack on the other. Cooling would be a factor, but a single fan would push air more directly over the components, so I think it would work out ok. Laptop sized hard drives could become industry standard in time, and hopefully at some point floppy drives won't be used anymore (I dont have one in my system). Finally, CD/DVD drives could either be made smaller by making them slot-loading, or by using external drives (ala SCSI or USB). I guess that leaves the power supply, which I don't know much about, but it seems like there's a lot of wasted space in that little metal box. :) My computer, using a stacking concept, small footprint motherboard and an external CDR/DVD would probably be able to fit inside a 5"x5"x5" cube.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
For a lot of systems that were made and sold Back In The Day, the power supply was, wisely, in a separate box from the mobo. The CPU is not the only heat source on a PC... Setting the power supply behind your desk, away from the case, might make a small system a lot easier to do.
Also, we have been keeping the keyboard as a separate component ever since the old 8086 days... but is that always the best way to go?
It seems to me that the perfect reduced-footprint destop PC design would look a little like a laptop PC with no screen, a nicer keyboard, and no touchpad... perhaps with a cable output for bridging to an optional stand-alone box for PCI expansion cards (for those who want the flexibility).
The end result: a latter-day C-64. Ahh, nostalgia...
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
A case should only be 1U high. Air could be moved across all boards with fewer fans, and start stacking to get the over all volume down...minimize L x H x W
--
$ whoami
nobody
1) Improve the layout to facillitate air flow. Perhaps if there was a way to vent the cpu, vid card, and power supply and atmospher cool the rest, then perhaps it could be done with fewer fans.
2) Make front-mounted slots a standard so that adding front mounted devices such as the Creative EAX, USB and Firewire ports, headphone jack, could all be done without making custom modifications or using up an external drive bay.
3) Edge-mounted cabling? Nothing bugs me more than having to unplug all of my IDE drives to change ram.
4) How about let's all de-evolve into s-bus computers form factor, then scale by adding cpu-self contained boards (what was that, the compaq 386?) that plug in the bus.
5) screwless drive bays?
6) how about a 1U alternative designed for the home?. I'd think more home appliances things with WiFI could be made with a equipment rack-mounted system if it didn't take up so much room.
The idea of puting all the chips on one side and slots on the other, while it sounds easy is a real nightmare for HW designers. Many of these chips have 500+ pins (PGA) or 1000+ ball (BGA) these are all comming from a chip less than 2" on a side (PGA) and 1"+ for BGA and all those wires need to go somewhere, the PGA devices have to have holes in the board and can only get wires out from underneath, by going between pins and often only 2 wires fit so another wire has to use another layer. The problem is layers increase cost much faster than additional area, so the boards being bigger than they have to be saves money. There have been specialty technologies developed to get higer denisties, but these are majorly expensive and not realistic for consumer level products. The most impressive I've heard of is IBM super-computer technology, which used a 57 layer board, getting 8 layers to line up is expensive and there is a 30% scrap rate (IIRC) they had to make 100+ boards at 57 layers to get just a couple of working boards. The best way to make smaller machines is to go multi board and stack, the intel processor modules go along way in this direction as do the PCI adapter board that have one slot that you plug a board into that has multiple PCI slots. The heat is going to be the bigest problem no matter how hard you try, smaller means less air and as clock speeds increase less air isn't the right answer. Water cooling, or the electric coolers could help, but its always a how much do you want to pay to get small, fast etc...
I'm in the IT department of a company that handles calls for other companies. With PC's getting smaller and smaller, a problem arises with preventing theft. (I'll try not to rant about people not doing their jobs.) Supervisors are apparently too busy to watch their people who are all sitting on the same 2 rows. The PC's we're using now, are small enough to fit into a large backpack. Security can't search everyone as they leave the building, and metal detectors and such are quite an expense/hassle.
The last center I was at before transferring to Arizona had large towers. There was no way someone was going to walk out with one of these without someone seeing them. The only reason we had large towers, is because the systems were old (166's). From that perspective, I regret that it is more difficult to order large PC's in bulk. Sure we could order the chassis and put all the parts in them ourselves, but that takes a lot of time, too.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
I'd love to see a modular case, whereby you could add components as you see fit while at the same time EXPANDING the case. Maybe it would use Firewire or USB2 internally, as well as PCI and IDE. With a sleek, modular design, you could make it look good, and you'd never run out of expansion slots again.
but not the XBox, it doesn't solve any size problems. I like the idea that I don't have to open the computer to change cards. But I would also like to not have to fiddle with ribbon cables. I want all my drives 5.25 and 3.5 to be hot swap. Just slide in and out while the computer is on, and they get auto configured like USB. Also nix the PS/2, serial, and paralell ports. I want like 8 USBs instead of 2. And on RAID boards with 4 IDE plugs put them all next to each other. Not two in the normal spot and two over by the PCI slots.
Putting stuff on the other side of the board has advantages and disadvantages, but however you do it a shrink in board size will rock. You will no longer need a full tower case to get a bunch of drives in. Mid tower cases will be able to hold as many drives as full towers do now if you shrink the board.
As for cooling, look at other small computers, like console systems. Especially the GameCube. It has one fant blowing air in on one side, out on the other. Because of it's small size, it becomes easier to cool, not harder. You have less fans, moving more air.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Really. Legos.
I was given the idea by looking at the original Google server in the basement of the Stanford CS department. Its case is built from Legos (or, maybe Duplos in reality... they're pretty big).
But why not start with a small form factor for the mobo+busses+limited drivespace. Then, anything you want to add on gets clicked together with another piece. Need two external 5 1/4 bays? Use a 2H piece. Build it as you see fit.
The real issue at that point is a standard bus architecture to bridge the components, but I think the flexibility potential is immense. Got too many devices? Click in an additional 1H powersupply. Need to move your CDRW between boxes? It's a "snap" (insert "hardy-har-har" here).
The drawbacks are of course heat and redundancy. Each module whould have to be self contained at the start, but I can even envision a series of holes bridging components as well... like those old hamster tubes worked. Need more flow because you've got a stack of 43 devices? Add an extra fan module somewhere along the path.
Anyway, it's not here yet, nor will it likely ever be, since it's not mass-marketable (I think). But, it would allow flexibility to grow, a small footprint and size for home users, and massive physical component compatability.
Legos were always the answer when I was 12, too. Some things never change.
The number of layers required to make the board two sided would be so high that the added expense would definitely be noticable. Like 3 TIMES more, at least. Just going from 4 to 6 layer pcb design makes manufacturing more expensive, and also increases defect rates, further increasing the costs or the board. I don't think most slashdotter's (or pc users in general) will want $300-$400 system boards.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Apple makes some nice hardware, but their range of designs and form factors is very limited in comparison to the PC world: a big box, an iMac, and two sizes of laptops (well, three if you count the two iBooks). You could always get something similar in the PC world (even when it comes to the iMac, the IBM Netvista X series is similar in form factor, though not style).
Basically he wants a computer box that has the same priciples as the Tardis, bigger on the inside, then the outside.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A good choice for a small box is the NLX form factor, pictured here.
The NLX form factor is widely used for "enterprise" PCs, aka cubical PCs, where space is a premium. For example see the Gateway E series.
The NLX has a 5.25" bay for CD-ROM/DVD and four half-height 3" bays (two accessible from the front panel). Up to 3 PCI cards plug into the riser card.
The result is a very nice little box with as much performance as you need.
There already is a further evolutionary move towards smaller PCs. Just not for premium users.
The MicroATX/FlexATX/WhateverATX form factors are the latest steps towards a smaller PC. You can reuse most of the ATX parts for a smaller system. Of course, the problem is that most people who like premium computers want lots of slots, so that doesn't happen.
So the market of people who want small PCs who aren't willing to buy an already made low-profile PC from someone, who want good parts, is too small to be useful.
Now, eventually motherboards will get smaller for the simple reason that as speeds go up, traces need to be shorter. And when there isn't room for improvement, parts will be integrated. Think of disk controllers, serial controllers, etc.
The main reason why you don't like the Shuttle low-profile system is probably video, which is right now too much of a moving target. Eventually, video will settle down and people will be able to get great 2D/3D for a $25 chip. At least, until they find a new area to push video cards with.
Now, it probably WOULD be possible to attach components to both sides of a motherboard. But you wouldn't want any user servicible parts on the bottom, because that would increase the difficulty of upgrades. This won't give you a perfect reduction in motherboard size simply because the motherboard layout is subject to a lot of finicky tollerences that mean that certain parts need to be in certain places.
I suspect that the ATX form factor could use some changes. I'd like to see explicit support for front-mounted jacks, better management of the LED/Speaker/Etc jumpers, standardized front-mounted ethernet activity lights for rackmount, etc. But remember that the ATX form factor is best extended over time with compatable changes instead of going through massive changes all at once. That's the beauty of FlexATX/MicroATX -- they didn't require massive retooling of assembley lines to the new standard, and you can always stick a FlexATX or MicroATX motherboard into a regular ATX case, in a pinch.
Gentoo Sucks
Laptops have everything integrated and to upgrade anything, if possible, you have to buy it from the manufacturer (namely the CD/DVD/whatever).
:)
The Shuttle SV24 allows you to use one PCI card, a 5-1/4" bay and your choice of processors (okay, maybe not _any_ processor, but still, you have more choice than with most laptops). You're not stuck with the relatively low-res display that the laptop has and you can use your preferred monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's also nice to have the keyboard disconneced from the display so you can get a more ergonomic setup.
Yeah, if you've got a USB keyboard and mouse, you don't really have to worry about that, but then you'll need to get a hub. And you can plug your external monitor into the laptop, but why spend the money on a laptop anyway? For the built-in UPS/battery?
No, Tom's Hardware has it right- the only problem with the Shuttle design is the integrated graphics (and possibly the audio too), but for most people, that's a pretty reasonable compromise for a small unobtrusive system.
Yeah, I'd like to wait and see what might come out with the nVidia GeForce chipset in the Flex-ATX form factor.
Interestingly, notice how no one cares about where to put a floppy drive?
Increasing the voltage won't help you cut power consumption. Power consumption is measured in watts. Changing the voltage of something does not change the wattage. A 60 Watt light is a 60 what light no matter which side of the pond you are on.
There are some advantages to running things at 200+ volts in a server enviornment, but it has more to do with physical building wiring than with power consumption.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
I think yyou mean NLX form factor and not NTX. In any case, you make a valid point. These flexATX boards are a nice idea, however they are a hack job of a standard (ATX) that wasn't designed with compactness in mind (in my opinion). Shrinking the ATX form factor comprimises expandability--typically a tiny ATX board has only one PCI slot and integrated everything. Also, the small flexATX cases strike me as not very serviceable (cramped, awkward layout, cooling issues and so on).
The NLX form factor was designed for compatness, serviceability and flexibility in mind. The mainboard itself is very small and has no expansion slots--rather it has a card edge that plugs into a special slot on a backplane. The backplane contains the mainboard slot plus one or more PCI slots (the only drawback I see is that I havent found an NLX backplane that has an AGP slot--other than that it would be an ideal form factor!). The typical mini-desktop might only have one or two PCI slots, but with this form factor largger cases or industrial racks could have a backplane with many more slots (expandability).
Also, since the mainboard plugs INTO a slot rather than having slots with cards in them it makes expandability/serviceability MUCH easier--it you need to expand memory, upgrade or replace the motherboard, etc. you simply unlatch the board and pull it out the back of the case, without removing any cards or disassembling the chassis. The prime drawback, as sachmet mentions, is the lack of mainboards and cases sold in this form factor. Consequently they fetch larger prices. Why this is is beyond me--I guess it's the inertia of maintaining a modicum of compatibilityh with the 20 year old PC form factor...
Maybe its just me but I think they should take a clue from William Gibson's Idoru where the decks were in all sorts of odd cases: hand-carved hollowed-out nuts and clear plastic gel.
I'm compute from one desk anyway and I don't move much so I want something that is decoratively interesting: tesla coils, neon, blinking lights, smoke effects, lasers, and gysers of flame!
What is music when you despise all sound?
It's not specifically about a small footprint. It's about improving the usability of the hardware.
;) So how can we improve hardware usability for people who work inside and expand their systems.
Apple improves usability by making it "just work" out of the box for 90% of computer users. But obviously Slashdot power-users are in the other 10%
DeviceBay was a spec for hard drives and other components that would slide in and out of the chassis, and connect using FireWire or USB (so you could swap things on-the-fly). It was mostly for rack-mounter server farms, but would have made everyone's life easier. Unfortunately, it never went anywhere.
Back in the early 90s Apple and a few design firms were playing with ideas for a computer that looked like a rail, or a backplane. Components, cards, drives, were hung on the rail or slotted into the backplane.
Manufacturers (besides Apple) don't really seem to care about the usability of the box, though. If they did they would have ripped off the PowerMac G4's side door well and pronto (Dell's attempt at it can most charitably be described as "half-assed").
If you put premium commodity (PC) components in a diddy little case, you will generate just as much heat, but you will need to use smaller fans, running faster to dissipate the heat. These fans, will be both noiser and higher-pitched, where we are more sensitive to sound.
As an example, as I type, my girlfriend's laptop (K6-350 or so) is in the room, and I am typing on my mid-tower Athlon (which I have fitted low noise fans to). If you stand in the middle of the room, the screech of her computers fans is far more offensive than the low whirr of mine.
You may make your computer as small as you want, but if it makes a noise like a jet engine, it's still going to be an offensive object to work around.
not_cub
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
Isn't it about time we had a single, standard connector for all the LED's in the case.. and the power switch.. and the reset switch. .and the suspend/sleep/hibernate switch.. etc etc
:/ gah..
rather than the huge jumble of cables.. the connectors on which usually don't fit the motherboard pins for them anyway
As far as I can see this is a fact that the rest of the PC industry has never caught onto properly. If you sensibly match all the components in a machine then most users will never need or want to change a thing.
This is different to the /. crowd who want to do this all the time but we are hardly a random sample are we.
Kelv!
First, there are a few limitations to this that should be discussed.
CPU The cpu needs room to breathe. Athlons and p4s output lots of heat. The heatsink cannot be obstructed... Period! An obstructed cpu is an accessability pain, as well.
Drive bays 1 internal 3.5 bay and 1external 3.5 and 1 5.25 would be plenty. Very few users have 2 hard drives (most geeks do, but this is geared twoards end users. If they do, they can sacrifice their floppy drive, and possibly buy a usb fdd). Adding an extra internal bay wastes precious space... Of course, there could be exceptions made to the specification for some cases with more bays. Anyhow, firewire drives are getting dirt-cheap nowindays...
Now, for my suggestions
45 degree expansion slots. Probably my most radical argument. It's pretty self explanitory: PCI and AGP slots are on a 45 degree angle, thus reducing the amount of space needed. This is assuming that the motherboard has 3ish slots to begin with. It's not as efficent for pcs with only 1 or 2 slots.
"Unspecified hole" On the rear ports template, place a rectanglar "hole" there, where the motherboard maker can place any extraneous ports it wants (s-video, extra usb or firewire ports, video capture, scsi.. etc).
Rear template The rear template needs more connectors then a regular pc. This is becasue these compact pcs will have few expansion cards in them. This is where ATX really falls on its face. The ports it should have are
4 usb
2 firewire
2 ps/2
1 ethernet/modem (hole big enough to fit either/or)
2 serial/video
1 parallel (legacy, my friend, legacy)
4 sound (for s/pdif or rear channel)
Game port?? This seems rather extraneous with the rise of USB joysticks. Perhaps a bracket should be provided instead. Any die-hard gamers will have a dedicated sound card, anyway...
CPU at the BOTTOM of the board Place all the cool-running components at the top of the case, under the drive cage and PSU, and put the cpu and the connectors at the bottom. Sheesh. Didn't the ATX people think of this... It's also a shorter fall when your heatsink falls off. Possibly put the IDE connectors at the bottom too??
ATX power supply It ain't broke, it seems to work fine, the units aren't horifficly big, either. An idea would be to have super-compact units accept d/c power with an external a/c adapter...
Non-conductive motherboard mount points. It's quite annoying when you're installing a motherboard, and it requires washers at the mount points, in order to function. This adds about $0.25 to the manufacturing process.
Drive rails. Every case should have these. Sure, it's a luxury... but, it's a nice one. So are thumbscrews, and removable motherboard trays, etc...
All in all, we have a case that is signifigantly smaller then normal ATX cases, yet not too small to loose it's functionality... I got a bit carried away, and it looks like some of my specifications would possibly add size.... oh bother! Did i forget something?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
You don't want to use both sides of the motherboard - it makes production a nightmare.
Consider a single sided board:
Solder screening deposits solder paste on board
Pick and Place machines place the parts on the board. They are held in place by the surface tension of the solder paste.
IR reflow melts the solder. Any misalignment of a part is handled by the surface tension of the liquid solder.
Board cools.
Smoke test.
Ship it.
Now, consider a two sided board:
Screen solder on backside.
Pick and place parts, using small daubs of glue to hold the parts on the board (surface tension won't hold a part against gravity).
IR reflow backside. Because parts are not free-floating, any misalignment stays.
Flip board over.
Screen solder on top of board
Pick and Place parts.
IR reflow. Solder on bottom of board melts too, hence the glue.
Smoke test.
Swear, since the parts on the bottom of board are out of alignment and board doesn't work.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Ahh, I remember my Amiga 500 fondly. It was designed as you suggest, a big keyboard, floppy on the side, power supply in a big brick on the floor.
What always amazed me about that design was if you looked at the back all the cables for external floppy, serial, video, printer, and so on had ways that you could screw the cables in so that they would not accidentally come loose.
That was really quite thoughtful of them, there's nothing like having a peripheral accidentally come unplugged to ruin your day.
It's just too bad the power supply cable wasn't similarly attached. Pull the computer forward... *pop* there goes the power.
This one's easy, although it's not really the form factor of the case.
Why don't laptop manufacturers include wireless mice? Almost everyone hates trackpads, eraser heads, etc. when compared with real, scrollable, optimal mice.
Yes, I know that wireless mice exist, but why not put the receiver *inside* the laptop itself. So a little mouse is the only extra part outside of the case.
You might say the people would lose them, but then again, manufacturers could make a killing with replacements for dumb users who can't keep track of their mice.
I have some different perspectives based on what I am doing at the time...
1) The guts have to be easy to work with. I thing that single-sided boards are probably mandated by air flow for cooling.
2) There are too many cables inside the machine. You have cables going from cards to drives (such Sound Card to CD or DVD) or the motherboard to drives. There are a boatload of cables from the power supply to the drives. I should be able to just slide a drive in from the front and have it make data and power connections. You have one big fat cable dropping down from the drive support along the wall to the motherboard, and another for power daisy-chained along the sides of the drives. Now cooling is a lot easier, and you don't trace amorphous gray ribbon cable around inside or get the twist just so to make the far reach around the other cabling.
3) Too many outside cables. The printer, the keyboard, the mouse, the modem, the gamepad or joystick. Egads, let's make some of this wireless. The case should support lots of wireless devices. The standard case should be able to support a bunch of wireless devices within 5 or so feet (maybe even 10) of the computer.
Great little machine, if you've got the money for it, and have a reason for wanting it...(easy machine to haul around for gaming sessions). But this machine's exactly what you're looking for.
Every time a guy gets a threesome, somewhere in heaven an angel gets his wings. --Cary Tennis
Now fast forward to today. I've been eyeing the smaller cases, but have been unwilling to buy one of the "Book PC's" which is typically a Flex ATX case. They wanted $100 for a case. With only a 150watt power supply to boot. But as of a month ago the Aopen flex ATX cases are in the $35-40 range, and I'm getting ready to make the leap. The remaining hurdle for the Flex cases is the availability of motherboards for the AMD line of processors. It is easy to find a flex ATX motherboard with the Intel 810 chipset, but you get cheap video with a poorly performing Celeron processor. Another minor drawback is that most of the current flex ATX cases/book PC's can only take a Pentium 1Gz because of heating and inadequate power supply wattage. Which will also kill idea of putting several hard drives inside the case too. Those drives take about 30-50 watts at startup time (each). I'd much rather have a Duron with a TNT2 or GeForce video card in the one available slot, but they aren't available yet. Nforce would be great for this application too, but they have just started to ship the full size boards. The "niche" flex ATX market will have to wait for probably another 6 months, but it will come.
So summary. Wait a little, it is coming.
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
If you want smaller, you'll have to give something up. Like you, the last thing I want to give up is standardized components. I like reliability, and don't want some of the bare-bones small systems I've seen sold.
I made a simple layout with a std ATX PSU over & blocking the PCI slots (horrors!) but leaving one and the AGP slot clear. 3.5" drive in front, CDROM/DVD over the DIMMs & the CPU clear. About 12 x 12 x 5 inches. Clamshell case for better accessibility.
I've seen that in Dell tower models. Once you figure out what's going on (:-), it's very easy to just slide out the card cage, install cards, and slide it back in, making sure to seat the big honking connector correctly. Beats banging up your fingers trying to work in a small space.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Expandability is highly overrated. At work, where I'm a "power user", the only "expansion" of eight PCs in the last six years was extra memory.
In all other cases by the time I need a bigger hard drive, I also need a faster CPU, more memory and a better monitor.
At home, where the usage is less demanding (web surfing), I upgraded modems twice, replaced one hard drive, and added memory. This is of seven computers I had.
All in all, IMHO expandability is something that the average user does not need (beyond swapping components), and the advanced user thinks will need but doesn't either (a few devoted hackers excepted).
I've posted this before, but if you want a use-specific case, you often have to do it yourself or pay $$ for a custom job.
If you are looking for something small and easy to move around yet is upgradable, consider doing something like this:
my server
Built into a small briefcase, I can carry it to school and have it running without even opening it. Running linux I can ssh in and do everything I need. It runs a generic Slot1 mobo with 3 pci slots so you can conceivably throw in your favorite PCI Radeon or GF2, a 1 gig PIII, 3 slots worth of RAM, and have a pretty good machine.
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
hmmm, a major pain in the ass?..... why not just fold the motherboard in half? sure you'd probably have a 1/8 inch gap between the 2 sides, but you would barely have to change a single thing about the design, just point the pci slots in a different direction
(since when did good engineers complain about things being a "major pain in the ass"?)
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
your suggesting something sort of like the 'trapdoor expansion' slots that Amiga 500/600/1200's had?
like so?
(that's kinda a poor picture, but you get the idea)
Serial ports and keyboard go? How? Sure I can lose the parallel port, USB's better for printers and SCSI for scanners. The RTC isn't on the ISA bus, it's part of the CPU chipset. Floppy I don't want to lose, they're too convenient for small things that don't merit burning an entire CD-R for. Serial ports, if I don't have one where am I going to connect the GPS unit for the clock? Or the modem for FAX and fallback if the cable/DSL goes out ( and before you mention PCI internal modems, outline how to power-cycle it without power-cycling the entire computer )? Keyboard and mouse could conveniently go on USB, as long as the BIOS knows how to talk to them during boot, but you probably need a seperate USB bus for them so that stupid USB devices like scanners and Webcams that send lots of data don't lock the keyboard out ( annoying to have a broken scanner hosing the system and you need to kill the process reading from it but you can't because the keyboard can't get bus time because the scanner's hogging it ).
I wouldn't mind losing the ISA bus, as long as I don't lose the devices in the process.
hell yeah!!!
what are they more likely to steal, a 5 lb laptop or a 100lb monolith???
i've been weighing mine down with lead, cement and chains for just this reason. Aluminum lightweights- phaw!
-f
www.blackant.net
The nice thing about current motherboard fab processes is that they are cheap. Populating both side of the board is possible, but rather expensive. It requires more layers (which make the board more expensive to make and more difficult to debug). Also, it requires very different physical manufacturing facilities, since the presence of components on the reverse side makes putting pressure on the topside difficult. When the robots punch down components on the top, they could squash, crack or bend componets on the other if the board isn't sitting on a specially designed caddy. As you might imagine, it's possible to do the same thing when you have the board at home when installing componets. (Zero insertion force my foot!) There are also issues of cooling, since a the board would require airflow on both sides (which could mean a bigger case in a worst-case situation!).
Of course, if these issues can be addressed with a sane form factor standard, I think everyone would be happy to have smaller computers. Smaller is better, so long as it doesn't apply to things that would require you to buy an expensive car to compensate.
Personally, I think one of the major limitations of the ATX standard is the breakout. If there were a standard IO block that connected to the motherboard with a cable, you would have a lot more freedom when it came to positioning the board inside the case. Old AT motherboards did this for everything except the keyboard connector, I seem to recall. It would be a little more complicated to install, but I think it would be better.
Or, we could just make mass market PC104 stacks for everything.
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
The good news is that the technology to do this is cheap, proven, popular, and available now.
The bad news is that the motherboard and drive manufacturers are largely ignoring it in favor of standardizing on an ugly, unproven and untested hack that won't be available in consumer kit until 2004 at the earliest.
Why? You got me, captain. As far as I can tell, because they prefer paying patent licensing fees to Maxtor rather than Apple.
If I sound bitter, it's only because of the blood I've shed having to route IDE cables inside my Wintendo box.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
What is it about the slashdot crowd that wants everything at the cost of nothing. Maybe they get it from using Linux far too long. You can either get efficiency or you can get scalability with a very small range between the two. For efficiency look at gaming consoles, they sacrifice the ability to scale in order to have a tight nit efficient system. Another entrant into this catagory is/was Cyrix's Media GX chip and Intel's 810 chipset. The cost and waste of the system is lowered by putting more components in the same packaging. On the side of scalability look at the Mac 9600 with it's 12 memory sockets and 6 PCI slots. Of course just about any PC or workstation class system falls into the scalable classification, the 9600 is just an example of sheer expandibility. The marrige of these two is something like the G4 Cube which is hated in many circles. It was small and fairly efficient yet had the ability to be upgraded a little bit. However it came at the cost of not being able to use widely abvailable standard sized expansion card (a video card upgrade costs beaucoup cash because you can only get it from Apple). Slashdot folks want something that can fit a half dozen components into off the shelf yet be compact and efficient. It isn't going to happen unless somebody releases a system with a "computer on a chip" plugs directly into a backplane that links it to other components. Even then people would bitch because the COC components weren't up to their expectations.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
except for the slide in hot pluggable AGP and PCI cards.
t's called PC-104 form factor. tiny, modular, expandable.
the problem is that it's horribly expensive.
a 486 pc104 card with processor is $500.00 a pentium unit is about a grand.
it's not because they are super expensive or difficult to build. in fact it is 100% identical to engineer and build your asus board as a pc104 board or a laptop board.... it's demand.. pc104 is only used for industrial or fringe computing (wearable, mobile,sattelites)
you wanna build a PC that looks like the new Imac? no prob... pc-104 and some lamp parts. it'll cost you about 6-7 grand though without the lcd panel.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The problem is NLX stuff is rare, outdated, and expensive. It didn't catch on. I've a NEC machine with an NLX design sitting next to me. Nice in theory, and quite a clean design. But upgrades are not possible at all.
No sig is worth reading.
IMHO large chunks of the problem could be solved by taking advantage of both sides of the motherboard. Put the CPU and most of the misc. chips on one side, put the expansion slots and RAM on the other.
First, many people would say that you should get rid of the card slots and hang any add-ons outside the box on the USB or Firewire boxes. I'm not going to address that -- it's OK for those who won't do much with their 'puters, and it would save $10 to $30 in parts, but I want those slots!
The change to the case is rather minor: tall standoffs for MB mounting, make the case an inch or two thicker but smaller in other dimensions. There would be resistance from people who were worried about being able to get a new MB to fit that case when needed, but this hasn't stopped case evolution before. And I do see a trend towards shorter, more cube-like towers. However, there are some real manufacturing & physical difficulties. They're solvable, but might run the costs up:
1. The CPU heatsink has to change considerably, because you won't want to waste the two+ inches of space needed for a conventional heat-sink/fan. How about a liquid cooling bag using that side of the case as the radiator? Does that cost a lot more?
2. Most motherboards presently use bus and RAM connectors with wave-soldered through-hole pins. That is, the MB end of the connector is male pins, which go through holes on the board, then they are soldered all at once by pumping liquid solder up to the bottom of the board as it goes down a conveyor. You cannot put the CPU socket through this, and it's probably not a good idea to put the chipset's giant IC's through the wave either. (Small capacitors and resistors are OK on the wave-solder side, and it's quite common to find them on the bottom of a MB.)
3. Also, if you are using through-hole connectors and a board not much bigger than required to hold the connectors, where do you put the CPU and other big chips that don't conflict with a through-hole pin?
The solution to #2 and #3 is obviously to change to surface-mount (SMT) connectors. They cost more now, although that would change if more MB manufacturers ordered them. But at present they are also more trouble-prone than the through-hole parts. There's been more than 60 years of work done on improving wave-solder yields, and about 20 on SMT, so we get more defects in SMT, and the testers aren't as good at finding them.
Finally, bus connectors take quite a lot of force when inserting and removing boards. There's no chance of through-hole connectors pulling loose from that, because the holes in the board were plated with copper, and the solder goes all the way through and broadens out like a rivet at each end. It's not going anywhere unless the solder breaks at one end and the copper separates from the board everywhere else; I have no idea of the breaking strength of the pin/solder connection, because if I hook a hydraulic puller onto a through-hole connector either the connector body or the fiberglass-epoxy board will break first.
SMT has a lot less inherent strength; the pads are just laminated onto the top of the board, and can pull off. So the connectors have to also have pegs or screws that go through the board and are fastened on the other side. In a PCI connector, you can only put pegs at the end, so the connector body has to be rigid enough that the middle won't pull up. This is another reason (besides lower production volumes) that SMT connectors are more costly -- extra plastic is expensive.
OTOH, we put the through-hole connectors in by hand and the SMT by machine. All the issues are potentially solvable (sometimes by spending more on parts and machines and less on labor), and I expect that in another 10 years pure SMT will become cheaper than the present SMT/throughhole hybrid technologies. It just hasn't happened yet, and I have no idea what PC's will look like by the time SMT bus connectors do become common.
The EMI between the two pieces of the board would make the board an absolute nightmare to route traces on. You'd have to provide some sort of shielding between the two boards...adding to the cost. In my work as a simulation engineer, I've seen several motherboards come along that canted their DDR DIMM sockets at 45 degrees to provide a 1U-sized server board, but the interference between the board and the DIMMs made the whole thing a very shaky proposition. Putting two sections of board with high frequency traces parallel to each other is just begging for trouble.
Also, I'm not sure I see where that saves any space...maybe you can save some height, but then you're stuck with a wider footprint. Remember, there still has to be room for the cards, and, just as important, room for air to flow over heat sensitive components.
I've looked at some MicroATX boards and cases. That seems like an excellent alternative, although, much like early ATX boards, adherance to the standard seems to be a little iffy.
-h-
Why?
Easy interfacing.
It is super, ultra simple to interface your own custom electronics to the ISA bus or hang them off the parallel port. It is also cheap.
The PCI bus is *hard* to design for, simply because of the speed at which it operates necessitates a quality design from the get-go - you can't just hack a circuit and drop it in, and expect it to work. I have no problem with making it look good, but for most fun things, function overrides form, so to speak.
The only saving factors in all of this have been USB interface chips (which makes it easier to interface to USB ports), and "bigger" microcontrollers (like PICs and BASIC Stamps, among others), which allow you to do a lot of hardware hacking, but in a much smaller and easy to use package.
Of course, I know I am "tilting at windmills" - the ISA bus, serial and parallel ports will be doomed in the end...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The ugly box with standard, interchangeble parts
will always be cheaper and more powerful than
something fancy.
I am curious if Microsoft will sell a tablet
computer, e.g. a large, flat touchscreen
with the rest mostly hidden.
The thing about the current design of PCs and PC components (specifically, ATX and the size of attached components) is that it makes for an extremely modular system. Once you downsize the case, you lose a lot of space to do modular things in, and suddenly you find yourself telling yourself to "be careful what you wish for".
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
if used in a desktop capacity, most laptop hardware would not be any less reliable than desktop hardware.
Most of the problems with hardware in laptops that i've experienced is due to space constraints, motion, heat (due to space), or poor enclosure design leading to flex of various things (mainboards) that shouldn't be flexing.
If you took all the components of a business class laptop, and put them in a tower (you'ld need to get some longer cables) with a nice fan, you'ld still have high cost, and performance issues, but not any problems with reliability
Need a Catering Connection
I revive old PC's for charities and churches and such, and have done my share of component swapping, building 3 good PC's from 5 dead ones, etc.
:(
Talk all you want about sexy stuff like sliding rails and things like that, all I want is a standard on screw sizes.
The last PC case I opened had 4 (count 'em, FOUR) different types of screws all doing the same job. One size kept the cards in place, one size kept the hard drives in place, one size kept the floppy in place and one size kept the cover on. All the same length, all the same head type (thank God) but different gauges and thread types. They look amazing similar in a pile on the desk, however...
And there is a special place in Hell for the guy that insists on putting slot-head screws in ANYTHING.
Something like that, although practical, won't happen. To do that, it would involve having to lock off a large chunk of the case for rail systems for such "cPCI" cards, even if that space is being used or not. Also, who knows what ribbons/cables/giant heat sinks would be in the way of the PCI card.
I find that a major problem with small-PC construction is the actual PCI cards themselves. You see, there's no standard for the size of a PCI card. It can be as small as a 3/4" high network card to as big as 4 1/2" tall, as short as 5" or as long as 9" (or larger). Every single small-PC I've come across (LPX, NLX, Flex-ATX, or proprietary) which is less than 4 1/2" tall inside the chasis, either some kind of riser card is needed to place ISA/PCI cards parallel to the motherboard, or using hard-to-find 1/2 height PCI cards. They often get in the way because of their un-proportionate size (ever try to grasp that tiny network card that's placed inbetween two full-size PCI cards?).
One thing which I think would desparately help PC architecure is to standardize PCI card sizes, as well as offer half-height PCI cards for flex-ATX and mATX motherboards. By getting rid of the irregular size of the PCI card, it lets PC architects to actually plan for efficient PC cases by planning for how much space will be used for PCI/AGP cards, rather than just guessing by wasting a lot of space for it.
Modular System links
Changing a cliché:
One of the big problems of modern PC design is cooling. Perhaps the answer is in plain sight - the side of the case.
Just provide a thermal path from the CPU to the side of the case. This may not be easy, but is solvable.
Ideas:
Heat pipes. Overclockers have used them, spacecraft use them - they're proven. A heat pipe with rounded ends and mounts with rounded receptacles and a bit of thermal paste. Conduct heat to the side of the case, and allow for variations of the CPU location.
Thermal strap. Some spacecraft use these, too. They conduct heat well. They are not as multidimentionally adjustable as above, but can be worked out.
At least one side of the case would have to be thermally conductive. Aluminum or copper would suffice. The case side could then be made flat or ridged. The "side" could also be the upper panel of the case, provided you don't really want a big, heavy monitor on top of it. Just imagine a sculpted, polished copper case sitting on top of your desk. A pain to clean, put purty.
The idea takes the concept of shrinking the PC, and also answers another problem - noise. One can eliminate a fan (or more, extend the idea to other components) and gain coolness.
I think I may start designing a case for myself.
As you and another poster mentioned, the stackable option is a VERY logical method for building a PC. Think of a stereo rack. Nobody seems to mind the look of them.
:) We wouldn't need the big black stacks of electronics anymore to watch a movie.
I'd say something about 10"W X 10"D X 2-3"H in size.
It would look like a stack of books -- hell, you could be artistic and actually make them look like books.
I'd imagine something like this:
Layer one (bottom): the power supply. With its own intelligent controller of course.
Layer two: the processor and RAM. A nice AMD chip and some standard video, networking, and sound built in, just in case you don't have:
Layer three: the sound/and/or/video box: contains a powerful video card and mahap sound as well.
Layer three: Hard drive. Of course, you could have many of these. Stack 'em high. RAID? no problem, built-in. IDE? Why bother? Use Firewire: it's Good Enough, as Pournelle would say. As an alternative, for a lot more money, you could have a RAMdrive module instead of a spinning disk. Choices are fun. Want more memory in your RAMdrive? Pop the unit open, add RAM. Or just add a new RAMdrive unit for a few bucks.
Layer four, optional: NIC. Or router, or a switch; the networking module in general. Hell, put the firewall in this box. Want to change your PC to a server? Drop this module onto the stack. The PC autoconfigs and makes it so.
Layer five thru infinity: CD-ROM. DVD. Burners. Tape machines. Audio tape unit. Minidisk. How about this: a VHS tape drive, so you could rip your videos.
The cool thing is that as new media are created, you could simply drop the new add-on "book" to your stack.
As you have said, you could use Firewire for most of this. I know, AGP and other busses don't work that way, but maybe video and such should migrate to a new bus.
Something I could originally add here would be more pie-in-the-sky, but how about this: the units could communicate by ruby laser. Every unit, when stacked, would have a port pointed up on the top side, and a port pointing downwards on the bottom. The lasers would align when the Lego(TM) pegs snap together. No matter how you rearrange the stack, communication establishes and everything works.
And yes, you'd use Linux, of course.
The stack idea works in home entertainment systems. Could work nicely in PCs. To think of it, if you have a mini stack with a monster CPU, hard drives, audio, DVD video, VHS player, audio cassette tape, Minidisc, AM/FM tuner, TV tuner, you name it... what the hell do we need the old home entertainment system for? Okay, add an amplifier to the stack, and you are rocking.
I think that my last point might explain why Sony et al don't make stacking PC systems
I'd guess from other posts that some manufacturers make things like what we imagine, but mostly for industrial use.
A PC built like this could be as cheap as $200 US, for just the processor/power supply/HDD stock, or as expensive as you want to make it.
Hmm. Could hardware make the transition to Open Source as well? Could the bus could be generic Firewire 2, and could we roll our own hardware?
You all tell me.
Well, I must have been somewhat right because you at least assumed I was an engineer. I'm a programmer. I know NOTHING of electrical engineering. I'm just basing everything I say on what I consider to be common sense inferences.
BTW, "major pain in the ass" can also be taken to mean "it would cost a million dollars and would only get us half a million in return".
Screw form factor. I can deal without that one square foot. What *I* want is for case manufacturers and motherboard manufacturers to agree on some sort of standard for hooking up chassis LED/switches.
Yeah, I know. It sounds trivial. But with a lot of motherboards, it takes more time to futz around with those little wires than it does to install the motherboard, CPU, and memory. There's something inherantly wrong there.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
> Unless you want to replcae pci
PCI is slated to be replaced anyway.
>and have a crappy system, you can't get it much smaller than it is.
Why not? Are you saying that all notebooks are crappy? look inside a computer case. Nearly all of the space is empty. With a little bit of thought, you can reduce a *lot* of that. Think that will make cooling hard? Not necessarily. If done right, it can *increase* cooling ability.
>PCI could be replaced with something smaller, but that won't work, because nobody will be making products for your new bus
Like I said, it's going to be replaced anyway. If they used something like Infiniband (which can be used for accessories, memory, processors, anything you want), it's just a matter of hooking up another fiber or two. Faster, smaller, cooler, more reliable, and draws less power. How can you lose?
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I remember the 'Jonathan' design prototypes Apple developed in the 80's. Essentially the computer would consist of modules that plugged into a common backplane, extending the plane as it went.
It looked a lot like a row of books standing on a desk. Working out the various buses would be an interesting challenge, (just put everything onto fiber optics?) but it could be very small or large, depending on user tastes and what hardware they'd acquired. And parts could easily be reused or replaced.
Naturally, being a really cool idea, nothing came of it. (particularly since Apple was considering opening the standard to everyone)
There's some pictures in the book "Apple Design" but I haven't seen any online.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Instead of the all-in-one box of today the parts would all be sold separately and connect using standard cables. The "PC" would just be a case with the CPU and RAM. The graphics card would be it's own box, the hard drives their own boxes, the same for DVD/CDs. All would require a single cable providing a super highspeed bus with data, clock, and electrical supply. Think PCI-X meets Firewire. Breakout boxes would be handle external connects like network, speakers, keyboards and mice (or their wireless boxes at least.)
Why would I like this? One lots of folks are scared of ever opening up their PC - this would just be simple foolproof cables. Second would be the ability to reconfigure a system on the fly - need more drivespace plug it in, unplug it and carry it there, upgrade the video with another box, CPU the same way. This would also move prodicts to the audio-components model where one assembles the various parts that best suit one's needs and not the pick-a-vendor-now-pick-one-of-four-models that most folks use today (yes I know that /.'ers aren't supposed to do that - I'm talking 99% population.)
This deconstruction would also allow folks to put the parts they need where they need them. CPU, hard drives, etc. can all go in the drawer or on on the floor. However I want my DVD/CD on my desk at hand. Should next week I stop coding and instead do some gaming then I unplug my trusty 2D card box and hook in a new fast 3D one - total time for switchout 1 minute and one unplug, a plug, and that's it.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
> One of the biggest components are the power supplies. They also fail a lot
So far, in over a decade and countless machines, I haven't had a single power supply go out - but I've had plenty of power supply FANS go out. I think that even an extra $5 fan could increase the MTBF of most all non-industrial-strength power supplies.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I would like to see thin computers. It's possible to make the whole thing 2 centimeters tall spreading over a larger plane area.
So it could be attached to walls, doors, etc.. Inside them also.
I think these are unused places, and could save desk and office spaces.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Rah
Ack
Mah
Ount
everyone is happy. hell make a desk with a rach built in.
Come on say it with me.
Rah Ack Mah Ount
Rah Ack Mah Ount
Rah Ack Mah Ount
Rah Ack Mah Ount
Rah Ack Mah Ount
It's like a little prayer!
This
[QUOTE] I like the concept of the Flex-ATX case in Tom's review, except for the lack of an AGP slot.[/QUOTE]
Don't know about the shuttle case, but most low-profile *ATX cases, like the AOpen H300 series, can actually accomodate standard-size MicroATX motherboards, many of which do have AGP slots. The only caveat is that they can only take low-profile expansion cards. You can get decent low-profile AGP cards (for instance, all most all reference GeForce2 MX cards fit in low-profile slots with the proper bracket) but the very newest, fastest technology usually isn't available.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
You want small and yet still expandable?
The do the expansion externally. Sun did this with many of their systems -- you can't fit too much into a pizza box, after all -- and the SCSI bus was convenient. The IPX(?) and its peripherals were nicely stackable, but the user could rearrange 'em as they saw fit.
Personally, I'd find it more important to make the systems _quiet_. I don't need, or want, loud fans. Leave the fancy cooling to the overclockers...
(Which brings up an interesting viewpoint -- if we exclude the fancy cooling, and ran systems ONLY at speeds that could be cooled by nothing more than passive heat-sinks, what would the 'average' clock-speeds be?)
These days the fast-data bus of choice seems to be Firewire. So it seems sensible that any expansion to the system should be done via external boxes and firewire...and, indeed, this is what apple appears to be doing.
After all, it makes sense. You can better tune the power requirements (why do you need a 350W P/S in a PC? Because you *might* added a bunch of hard-drives and suchlike. Far more sensible to add power capacity as you add components, isn't it?), too. You can configure the system how you like (so long as the component cases are well-designed as well)...
The old PC or XT or AT's, can't remember which ones, had a whole second case that you would hook up and a cable that interconnected the two. This is how you would expand. I don't remember that much about it - other than PC's that stood as tall as the Karakoram range.
However, if we had a small form factor case with the proper expansion connector, we could have the best of both worlds. A small case for the average consumer, and the ability to add all your expansion cards, etc... in an add-on case.
Only problem I see is that in effort to cut costs, manufactuers will just cut out the expansion module ability. Either that or everyone will have different expansion "cases" and it'll be a mess!
What about the PIC? I thought that was ISA. Then again modern boards have APICs so maybe one could do without a legacy PIC. I don't know nearly enough about the deep magic of IRQ routing to say for sure.
I agree - so get a USB floppy drive (usually advertised as a "digital camera"). A bit more expensive than an ISA floppy drive but what the hey. Keep a few around the office and plug one in when you need it, which for most people isn't often.
Alternatively, floppy drives come in SCSI, or they used to (some SGI boxes have them). And who could forget the (ATAPI) Superdrive?
Agreed, I need serial ports. If you really want to go legacy-free, lots of people will sell you a USB->serial dongle.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
To start out, I'm not some crusty old geezer. I'm 26, and I just have a good memory. My first computer experience scarred me forever, since it was a Vax, and I was 5. The thing looked like it could eat me, and I swear those tape drives looked like big eyes. Since then, though, it's all been uphill.
Commodore Vic 20, C-64, Timex Sinclair 1000 (w 64k add on module!), and then, my first x86. Up until the x86 box, which weighed roughly as much as I did at the time (solid steel construction is NOT a bad thing at that age), every machine I had free reign with had one thing in common: modules.
The Vic20/C64 had slap in terminal emulators, modems, the sinclair had add on cartridges as well. The big change with the x86 is that the case was screwed shut, and I tended to get in trouble when it came to wielding a screwdriver. Over the years, as computers progressed, and geeks began emerging in force, we weren't afraid to tear open a machine, adjust jumpers to tweak an IRQ or address setting when the new Soundblaster conflicted with the modem you'd put on IRQ 5 because you could. The huge push of PC's into the broad consumer market has landed machines on desks around the world, but the number of people tearing into them remains pretty much low. I bought the shirt from ThinkGeek that says 'No, I will not fix your computer,' and people find it hysterical, and then ask anyway. People are afraid to crack the case and look under the hood.
So let's run with this double sided board idea for a bit. Ever crack open a Sparc Ultra 5, with the PCI riser? They mount in both directions to preserve a low form factor. Getting cards in and out is relatively easy, with a single-screw lock bar holding things in. In my experience, and obviously from others, tool-less box work is a plus.
Considering form factor, does it really need to be fully enclosed? Your biggest heat producers are the CPU, GPU, and hard drives, typically, so good consistant airflow is important. Why run a full case at all? I'm running a 3D Cool mid tower, double side fans, single fore and single aft case fans, plus power supply. Sounds like a jet turbine, but that intimidates the clue resistant, so they leave it alone. All of it is to promote airflow inside a large chamber. So, ditch the chamber.
Absent the double sided concept, package the motherboard itself for a modular base. Snap-around plastic casing that provides air channels along the bottom. Change the board's power connection to something more suitable, like the cradle connections on a PalmV.
For the expansion cards, remove the connections from the back and standardize them, putting them onto the base, easily accessible from the front (or back, for permanent things likes monitors, and ethernet), and treat expansion cards, for lack of a better term, like Atari 2600 cartridges. With standardized I/O, expansion modules work as subprocessors.
Looking back at the double sided thing, you could run the motherboard vertically, in a nicely supported bracket, and add SPU's on either side. Vertically oriented drop bays for hard drives, going with the docking station style connector idea. Hell, you could even slap an adaptor on the end of existing drives for backwards compatibility.
I'm sure there are some holes in the idea, but that's nothing some implementation work wouldn't address.
In closing, this post constitutes prior art. If and when I see these product ideas in the wild, and someone is stupid enough to patent them, you'll be eating my shorts for breakfast.
End of line.
- billn
No - that wasn't a troll (that was ME) - because the way the guy talks about it - 220V will make everything run cooler - HUH? The only part affected is the power supply which is NOT where all the heat comes from in PC's. The rest of the PC runs on DC voltages created by the supply and they won't change.
Further - the way the guy wrote it - it literally looks like "use 220" D'oh!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
While doing a study of energy consumption, it became obvious that notebooks are far more energy-efficient than ATX desktops, and are widely used in mostly-fixed applications. (My office PC is a Stinkpad, with an external kbd and mouse.) They are however virtually unexpandable. A form factor that I would like to see takes the best of both worlds:
.13-Duron or the like, clocked down, to do the trick. This isn't AMD's strong space.) It would be cool, quiet, light, and not take up much space. A handle on top might be nice, as would a place for an antitheft locking cord (like notebooks have).
The case would be smaller than a micro-ATX, a bit bigger than the SV24 (which seems rather hard to work on). The motherboard would support a couple of slots, perhaps riser-style. Sound and "good for most" video would be on the mobo. (This isn't a gamers' system but an office/home/general one.) The CPU would be a low-power one, like Crusoe, C3 or Intel's low-power line but socketed. There'd also be a little battery. Not to run it for 3 hours on a plane, but to do the "UPS" role. The power supply might be external, but a small one might fit inside. It would have a small fan, and room for a regular 3" HD and 5" CD/DVD. Even a floppy might fit.
Typical power consumption would be >30W. (I am an Athlon user, but this design would need a
BTW, "lunchboxcomputer.com", noted above, builds big costly heavy industrial lunchboxes. But they did claim the name first.
i seem to remember seeing it in a book at design school, maybe this one. it was an idea for either the first macintosh or the macII line that never got produced. maybe it was by frogdesign, or it might have been apple industrial design *shrug*
anyhow, it consisted of a bunch of smallish - 6 inches or so square and different thicknesses as necessary - black boxes that plugged together with something akin to PCI (or i guess NuBus at that point). to install, you would pop off a panel that covers the port on the top of the existing component, then plug the bottom of the new component into it, stacking up little black boxes.
you would buy the CPU component, that had the CPU and power supply in it, and a couple of ports on the back, (and a monitor, keyboard and mouse, etc) and then add on other black boxes for hard drives, floppy disk, etc. to add on another drive, you just buy another black box and pop it on the top. add another serial port or four, external SCSI, another video card? pop. pop. pop. this way, you built a tower if you needed one, or a minitower if that's all you needed. a hardcore user could build a box as tall (or long, if you sat it on its side) as he wanted...
what i remember reading - and anybody who owns the book in question, please correct me - was that the technology was really experimental, the expansion ports could only address a certain number of components (like scsi, but more than 3 bits, methinks), and to go beyond that limit would require another epansion box. it looked really cool, and the concept was completely unlike anything at the time.
but of course, it never got produced, though there was at least a prototype or models made (hence the photos in the design book). anybody out there that can back me up on this, or at least correct my highly fallible memory?
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Why? I don't need my chunky case anymore.
Cabinet:
2x5 1/4" - CD burner and DVD drive (combo drive works, but I'd rather get a simple DVD I can disable RPC2 on). Cyberdrive CW068D (36x12x48x) and a plain vanilla 16x48x DVD drive (depends on which can be region free) looks good.
2x3 1/2" - Floppy crap and WD1200JB harddrive (already seen it in stock). Potentially a second harddisk later, but sometimes a floppy is nice for those BIOS upgrades and other crap that needs a plain old DOS.
CPU: The most heat-friendly one in some (Athlon)CPU series. Current candidate would be Athlon XP 1.33Ghz (1500+), or by the time I actually build it possibly a "value" class which will still fly.
Mobo:
Not sure, as long as it takes care of LAN I'm happy.
AGP Slot: Geforce Ti200 (or whatever works the best at the time, Ti500 is overpriced)
PCI #1: WinTV Theater
PCI #2: SB Audigy
PCI #3: Empty, for expandability
Most of what's in my case now is there for legacy reasons.. old but perfectly good harddisks, a RAID card, a SCSI controller, my ISDN card (already obsolete, me and a friend got 3 together, all of us moved to better things) etc.
That said, the miniATX isn't the perfect solution... here's what I'd drop:
Serial ports.
My steering wheel runs on USB. So does my mouse. Serial cable? You got to be kidding me.
Parallell ports.
My printer also runs on USB.
PS/2 ports.
Right now my keyboard runs on PS/2, but I'd drop it for a USB keyboard any day of the week. One connection to fit them all.
Ribbon cable.
My SCSI burner (And it buffer underruns too with IDE disks anyway, so I'd rather have a cheapo IDE burner now and leave it alone the two minutes) has an even larger cable than my IDE cables. SerialATA, internal Firewire, internal USB2.0, anything but standard ATA. Round cables help but I don't buy that when I got perfectly working cables included with the mobo. And this also goes for the floppy drive.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
or atleast compact AT
sorry fellas, hard to have it all
I'd settle for quiet.
I'm not certain what to do about expansion slots, but for most of these ultra-small PCs, I guess it doesn't matter very much, since you won't have a wealth of slots to deal with anyhow. I do, however, have a problem with all-in-one PC motherboards, having been burned a couple times with crappy integrated audio and video components (and all the integrated ethernet interfaces I have seen have been based on the abominable Realtek chipset). At least the iMacs use half-reasonable components for the integrated stuff.
So long as the micro-ATX boards use crappy components and require the end result to be a simple box, I'm not too interested.
Would have two parts and be liquid cooled.
.125" diameter porous tubing terminating in a dead end. The porous tubing will be made so that its pores expand from heat. The builder will secure portions of the tubing in a sinusoid pattern over potential hot spots like the CPU. The builder does not have to worry about exactly how much cooling each spot needs. If a part of the porous tube is too hot, its pores will open causing more of the pressurized cold fluid to be released at the hot spot. Likewise, the portions of the tube traversing empty (and relatively cold) space will have their pores closed and will not leak any fluid. It's a self-regulating system, requiring only that a reasonable number of folds of tubing be attached near each hot spot.
The box under the desk contains the power supply, amplifier, subwoofer, pump, heat exchanger and fluid reservoir. The box on the desk can be compact, silent and cool. The connecting umbilical is a large hose conveying positive pressure coolant from the pump. Contained within this hose are power supply conductors (with feedback wires to compensate for the long cable), audio output wires for the audio amp, and a return hose to return hot coolant to the exchanger.
The connectors and cable will be standardized so you can buy the under-box desk, cable, and computer from three different vendors and expect them to interoperate.
When the unit is powered off and cooled down, the coolant would fall back through the return hose into the reservoir, leaving the top case dry for easy maintenance.
Within the top case, the positive pressure line will be connected to a six foot piece of special
For high-density placement of many computers, there will be special base units that have large pumps, multiple connectors, and a heat exchanger to a facility chilled water feed. They probably won't have an amp and subwoofer.
I've got this old full-tower AT form factor case that I'd love to be able to put in an AT motherboard that would handle an Athlon processor. I don't want to mangle the case.
Is there anyone out there making "high speed" AT mobos?
Yeah, I've seen wirewrap boards running OK in the 8MHz ISA slot. For PCI. you not only have to do a clean layout of a custom board, you've probably got to do a multi-layer board (need those power and ground planes).
However, AFAIK it would be very easy to interface custom circuits to the USB bus. The software will get more complex than running a custom ISA bus card under DOS by directly accessing the registers was, but driving that ISA card from Windows isn't easy, either. USB 1.0 is somewhat slower than even the original IBM PC bus was (4.77MHz x 8 bits is better than 12MHz x 1 bit), but USB 2.0 sounds like it's going to be very, very fast.
a large, flat touchscreen
with the rest mostly hidden.
That's been the obvious next step in computers for so long that everyone forgot all about it. Duh!!! Yes, tablet computers are what I really want for the typical desktop/laptop work. That is, flat touchscreen about the size of letter paper, MB and drives under the screen, you can carry it around and use handwriting or voice recognition, or prop it up on the desk and plug in a keyboard. But if I could get everything I wanted, that wouldn't be my _best_ machine.
I'm an engineer that sometimes gets into serious hardware design. The best machine to do CAD on would be a gigantic (2 x 3 foot minimum) touchscreen, mounted on an adjustable tilted table. Like the old drafting boards. The ergonomics of that system were pretty good, except that when you drew with ink on paper, you really hated to have changes come along and have to re-draw it all. But it would be great to do CAD with a stylus on a drafting board...
Of course, underneath that touchscreen drafting table would be a big old tower box, where there was room to add anything I wanted...
Coming from the embedded world, there are a lot of nifty boards available in the PMC form factor. It's bigger than pcmcia and not hot swapable, but it offers comparably much more connector area (such as a dongle-less SCSI 68-pin connector, or 4 RJ45 connectors) in a size that will still fit many power-user-type laptops. I wouldn't want to replace pcmcia, but it would be handy add-on. Some examples
.. an extra 2.4 GFLOPs in your laptop
Quad DSP processors
Fibrechannel, Video, reconfigurable FPGA coprocessors, an Alpha processor
8 serial ports
And of course, T1 interfaces, analog, parallel, dual ethernet, and many more custom functions. And, for designing your own custom boards, the package height and case restrictions are a lot easier with PMC than pcmcia.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
A USB floppy might be OK, but I don't want an external box cluttering up the shelves any more than they already are. Floppies are internal devices in tower/desktop boxes. And digital cameras tend to use Compact Flash or Memory Sticks or Smart Media, which won't work in a bog-standard floppy drive obviously, so you need a real USB floppy drive.
As for USB->serial dongles, that's fine for a modem, maybe, but you don't do sub-microsecond latencies over USB. For a clock you need a serial port right on the computer's main bus, be it ISA or PCI or the main chipset to keep the delay down to where it needs to be for accurate clock signals.
hell make a desk with a rach built in.
I actually saw something like this when we were evaluating furniture last time I changed offices. It was designed for music studios and the like; a desk with a standard 2-shallow-and-a-deep drawer setup on one side and then a standard rack on the other. Supposed to be for audio gear, but I know a couple people who'd happily throw their server machines into something like that.
--saint
Actually, I don't know that would be so hard to emulate now -- the thing with the IBM system was that the cable was proprietary. All you'd have to do to create a decent non-proprietary version would be as follows:
-Separate monitor and desktop box
-bootable Firewire connection
-USB for keyboard
-combined USB/Firewire cable with a connector that's actually a combination of the two connectors so you can replace the cable easily
I'm surprised no one's done that...
/Brian