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New Dual System PC
An anonymous reader writes "ExtremeMhz.com has released an article on how they designed and built a PC containing dual systems. One system is a supercooled Intel and the other is a water chilled AMD. This PC features Dual SCSI storage subsytems also.
Looks like some crazy stuff." Now if only they could put a mac and a PC in one case ;)
Well, there have been PC cards for Macintosh machines for a long, long time, so I guess you can cram an expensive 'PC' (we'll call it 'an IBM' for the old time Mac Zealots) in a Mac case.
It's possible because the PC is an open architecture.
I can imagine the screaming and sputtering and legal injunctions that would stream out of Steve Job's office, though, if someone tried to implement and market a PowerMac on a PCI card that could be plugged into a PC. It's closed hardware, you see.
If I'm not mistaken, there was a range of computers built by (or called) Siamese. They had amiga, atari, mac and PC, and any combination of many others all in the one system, all used through the one monitor and keyboard. I'm not sure about sharing drives however
I understand this has some coolness factor, but does it have any purpose at all? One might as well just grab two cases and duct tape them together. The only time sharing a case would be cool is if they could share other components as well (monitor/keyboard don't count).
When I first heard about the PC and mac combo I thought someone might have found a way for two computers to share components and was wildly disapointed. I'll start getting interested in this stuff when the computers can share a hard drive or a video card. Otherwise it's merely a case mod.
Help I'm a rock.
Asus and many others already do this, it's called dual CPU motherboards. if you want 2 environments, VMware is out and MSoft is planning a similar software built in.
I thought about this myself, not impressed with it's technical feat, I choose to just run a 2ghz machine and a dual monitor system.
Usefull if you can't afford/aquire another case, but I can't see how this changes the world any more than putting a computer in a 1920's taster case (which I'm trying to do now anyway). I hope I don't wind up on slashdot frontpage.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Now that would be swank.
As for conformal coating, if you want to try this heed this well meant advice: use the brush on stuff. It is much less likely to get into connectors from BELOW (masking doesn't cover the holes on the board side of the connectors) and it is easier to apply around devices that have heat sinks or just need some air exposure.
I may be wrong but I am going to hazard a guess that a lot of this water cooling stuff is far bigger than necessary in order to look impressive - but that does not improve the performance, neither is a thick walled tube less likely to leak than a properly sized thin walled tube. Computers do not have high levels of vibration and cables and pipes crossing one another or rubbing on metal like they do in the more badly designed cars.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Unfortuntely, these cards are no longer offered - perhaps the power requirements got too obscene for the PCI bus to provide power. I bet nobody thought of hooking up a drive connector to a PCI card back then (as with a Radeon 9700)
I would definetly be in the market for this, as its one less @#$#$#@ box under my desk. I don't need more than a ~1Ghz Pentium III pc (or two). A dual Centrino on a PCI card would be a bonus. Yes I would like to bring it up as a window under os X or X (or optionally full screen cheap but decent 2d-accelerated video out the back of the card)
Anybody going to make that card for me? I believe the highest performance model ever offered by any of the manufacturers was the OrangePC (OrangePC 660 - AMD K6-2/400 @100 MHz bus, L2 cache) That's too pokey for today, plus there's no driver support for doing things between modern versions of the OS, or support for newer macs than a B&W G3.
The VirtualPC route has never interested me too much - every time I've demoed it, its never been quite fast enough for the tasks I wanted it for - like compiling for win32 or a developer install of sql server, etc.
Anyone seen my low uid? last seen 10 years ago while panning the #@$# out of Taco's 'web based discussion system'
Perhaps they ought to put all the stuff in (i.e., RAM, cards, cables, then dip the thing in that protector stuff.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
As huge as that case is, I don't see how it would be difficult to put two complete PCs inside. If it were the size of a standard full-tower (aka, not a doublewide, like it appears to be), or were something engineered along the lines of the Mini-ITX form-factor, I would then be impressed. With how they have it, I'm not.
My old DEC Alphaserver 1000a is smaller than that, and if I took out the raid array section and replaced the power supplies with standard size supplies, I could easily fit two motherboards into the case. I can't see why I'd want to.
If someone is really interested in having an enclosure with multiple PCs in it, I'd recommend getting one of those equipment units that musicians have for sound equipment (one of the deeper ones), and going with 19" rackmount stuff. It's more durable, more standardized, and at this point. the cases can be found from anywhere between $60 and $100, depending on how fancy you get. If you want more than that, get a standard 19" telco cabinet, and put all of your systems, network equipment, etc, in there. It's not difficult.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
they used to cohabitate way before the mac/pc combo.. the old apple ][ had a cp/m card made by microsoft in the early 80's.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.