Slashdot Mirror
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 always dreamed of this...Play a game on one system, when boss/parent/spouse walks in,push a button & pretend you are working...
Now if they can only cram a built in space heater in it to make it perfect. Wait a minute....
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.
TechTV's Screensavers did it. They put a G4 in one of those Antec Cases and then they put a 5 1/4" pc in one of the drive bays.
It was pretty complicated and look largely useless but heh... they did it!
Look back on their site around Oct-Dec to find it.
It's 2 separate PCs, in one case, with a unified PSU and cooling system...
Next!!!
Seriously, this is a bit boring really, isn't it... wake me up when a MoBo manufacturer develops a dual-machine (not dual CPU!) board with a unified disk subsystem, now that I would buy...
TechTV/The Screen Savers did this about a month or two ago. They built a clone mac machine, and then added the PC Parts and processor to it. http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story /0,24330,3413988,00.html
Actually, back in the day, they did. Orange computing used to make a PCI card with an entire pentium 100 computer on it that would share the hard drive on your 604 mac, you could access it through a window on your mac desktop. I think they discontinued them because they were useless; 500 mhz processors were showing up in the marketplace and the Orange card was more expensive than a complete PC.
Already done most of that... can't seem to find that acqua-l3m though :/
Luke-Jr
Way back in the mists of time, i remember two occurances of pretty much the same thing. One was a sega mega drive in the same case as a desktop PC, literally it had a place where you could plug in a cart underneath the CD bay. Also the Amiga was released with the same thing, you had a Amiga 1200 mobo and a Intel mobo in the same case, both sitting on the same scsi chain using the same drives at the same time. It was kinda expensive at the time, but useful for the people who needed both. Screen switching was done via a built in kvm or something. Thinking about it now, i think it was a extension to the Siamese which used a serial leed between two seperate cases.
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.
For years, you've been able to mix a PC and a SPARC in one case, and you can mix AS/400 and PC too. There are many advantages to this kind of configuration. But why would you want to mix a PC and a PC?
1995: LC 630 DOS. 68040 and 486/66 in one case, swap operating systems almost instantly with a key combination. It even exchanged the clipboard contents.
1997: PowerMac 7300/180. Similar arrangement, Pentium 100 or 166
Sheesh, I thought this was "news for nerds", not the "noise of newbies"
You mean like I had in 1990 with my Amiga 3000 running a Bridgeboard card with a 386 CPU and at the same time running the Emplant on the Amiga side to run Mac software?
Fuck, you're a real visionary Taco!
Yeah right. I'll put a Mac and a PC in one case for you the moment you make oil and water mix. Oh wait. They already did that. Nevermind.
Back in 1992, British PC manufacturer Amstrad built a machine that combined a 386/SX PC with a Sega Megadrive.
It was a complete flop, though.
It's a computer and fridge, with water and ice dispenser! Now if only it had a crisper :)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I mean, I'm sure it's alright in some circles to talk about police constables with anoraks being shoved into cases, but I always thought those sort of situations were more the preserve of some of the world's seedier clubs...
Ah well, to each his own.
...though I think I've seen it somewhere else...
There's quite a lively online gaming scene in Poland, but the internet infrastructure is - for the most part - monopoly run by the state telco. One of the telco's largest competitor's (Internet Partners) has been building their own network, and have set it up very well with lots of crossovers to the telco's network.
Anyway, one active scene member managed to hook up 'the scene' (in general) with a place for 2 machines in one of IP's server rooms. The only problem was, how to meet the demand of all of the scene members. Different games, different servers, different loads. The solution was to put together 4 dual processor motherboards into two cases. This let them set up something like 30 different servers for 3-4 different games.
I'll try to find the link to the article (with photos)... I know I had it arround here somewhere.
Err I'm getting black on light grey on Moz1.3b/Win98.. what kinda browser are you using?
Dudes, it must suck to be you...
That brought zero to the state of the art. Talk about being stuck on/in a case.
How about improving component accessibility next time. Your case looked like it was filled with flatulent intestines.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Now if only they could put a mac and a PC in one case
can you imagine the consequences?
Dogs and cats living together...MASS HYSTERIA!
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.
Uhhh it comes up as light grey on black for me. I suggest you change your browsers.
The first real incarnation of this was a weird little thing called a MacCharlie. It took what was then the only form factor of the Mac (what I believe folks today call a 128KE) and added a pair of 5 1/4" floppy drives, a system board, and the keyboard extension needed for the F1-F10 keys and the numeric keypad.
:)
Here's a decent webpage about it. It was manufactured by Dayna, and actually was sort of cute.
I believe it was limited to 80x24 text applications (since in that day, the Monochrome Graphics Adapter was actually an expansion, and if you were -really- inventive, you could get (gasp) a CGA card! Woo!
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
If they could get both computes to share the same SCSI buss I would be impressed.
I rember back in 1991 or so I had a friend that did this. He even wrote a program so the computers could pass network data over it.
It never worked that well IIRC, but was a interesting proof of concept.
Now that would be swank.
The two *are* sharing a disk.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
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.
I get the nasty colours too- I am running safari, so it is only a beta.
Ed Chauvin IV
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'
No, no, you got that backwards :-]
</fuelforfire>
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
Not quite like that. Your Amiga setup was actually probably better in many ways. Most of the Amiga's hardware was used by the 386 - at least the hard drive and the monitor were. The same goes for the Emulated Mac. Best of all though, you could run apps for all three systems at the same time on the same screen!
There's only a few (good) reasons to do something like this: push price down per performance/application, push performance up per price/application, or push new technological applications per price/performance. This thing doesn't do any of those.
Outside of the usual overclocker zeal, I really don't get it.
vk.
Just two systems? I've got 6 systems in one box. A 386sx, 386dx, 486sx2, 486dx4, CYRIX 686,and a Pentium. It's got a big label on the front too:
Obsolete Hardware
Hmm, I wonder if I could get on the front page if I posted some photos on the web?
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
now there would be a good combo, forget the mac
A computer without two systems is like a duck without a wooden handle.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
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...
My left mouse button sends ctrl-alt-del. I double-click a lot.
-FF
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats explained.
This is truly an amazing feat of boredom, but isnt this why they invented rackmounts?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I remember a Sega Megadrive and a 386DX(?) were once merged into a single PC-like box in the early '90s. The Megadrive was great for gaming, but sadly the two systems were completely separated. You couldn't program the gfx chips of the Megadrive through the 386. And Sonic the Hedgehog looked much better on a big TV screen anyway ;-)
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
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.
Tech TV's show The Screen Savers put a MAC and PC in the same box. It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be, but it worked.
RenderCube does 4, they also build in a KVM and a 100Mbps Ethernet switch, it looks quite nice too
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story /0,24330,3413988,00.html
i think that 301 little pc belongs on my dash, rather than in a custom mac case
As to your comment about wishing they could put a Mac and PC in the same case, well its been done by mastermind Kevin Rose of the Screensavers! He even used a Samsung SyncMaster 171MP picture-in-picture monitor and a KVM switch that allows you to see and control both on the same screen! Also check out Yoshi's Boxx, with every game sytem you can think of crammed together:
so, wouldnt the best idea be to implement some sort of hardware standard where the motherboard is just a connceting device where you can just plug in these other boards that contain whole computer systems, it would be good... (imagines what it would be like) mmmmmm... tasty, just imagine, any kind of processor you could put in your computer... it would be universal... i dont really have teh money or skills to prusue that right now, but if anyone has some vc they want to give me, i would try to make it happen... :P
sig is broken try again tomorrow
First things first. These people have done nothing clever; they've just shoved two independent computers in one big box. Big deal. My hamster could have thought of something more useful... like running round his wheel.
Now, what IS clever is to put two simple motherboards together in a normal ATX case. It can be done. Just a processor, LAN and some RAM... and run OpenMOSIX / MOSIX software. Clustering on the cheap. So it's not dual-proc, but it's much cheaper, and you also get loads of PCI slots, IDE headers, serial ports - the works.
Presumably one can do something clever with Xinerama and the two VGA-outs. Any X-perts here?
Ebuyer in the UK (now the US also) sell a fully-featured motherboard for 35ukp. Just add some RAM, a CPU and some power and stick it into your case. Double the power of your PC for 150ukp.
http://blog.grcm.net/
though they seem to have disappeared, they built a modular architecture. want x86? slap in an x86 processor daughter board. Want a sparc? slap in a sparc daughter card.
too bad apple didn't want to play. they were all ready to go with MAC daughter cards too.
sadly they now appear to be no more.
>x_x
comment directly in my journal
Brilliant stuff. Now where can I get my dream case from - one with all the drives and IO and switches on the SAME SIDE so I don't have to keep turning the damn thing 180 every time I want to fiddle with something?
And I thought the original Franken-system was the old DEC Robin. I gotta admit, this one is a LOT faster.
Not to mention the VIA mini-itx boards, Shuttle spacewalker flex-atx boards, PCs that fit in a 5 1/4" bay. If I win lotto I'll make a cluster out of a backplane and a bunch of PC cards :)
Check it out here.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Eyetech have sold combined x86/Amiga systems to the Amiga market for years and Siamese Systems announced, though never sold, the 3-Pack and 8-pack Amiga/Alpha-based systems.