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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 always dreamed of this...Play a game on one system, when boss/parent/spouse walks in,push a button & pretend you are working...
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/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.
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"
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.
It's a computer and fridge, with water and ice dispenser! Now if only it had a crisper :)
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
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.
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/
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.