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Modular PC Handtop Review
captainJam writes "The Modular PC (MPC) is a device with a simple concept centering around one 'core' that can be used in a variety of 'shells'. While the use of any laptop, tablet or desktop is immediately limited by the design of its components, the MPC can expand on its functionality with the introduction of new shells to house the core which contains the CPU, GPU, etc. Handtops.com has a review of the device and touches on its strengths and weaknesses. Overall, it is a great concept and decently executed, but the price will be prohibitive for most."
The cost is not prohibitive in that many wont be able to afford it but prohibitive in that it just does not make sense. You don't gain anything but you pay a lot more. The core is around $2000. Then the docking station is another $200. The laptop shell is $800. The tablet shell is another grand. So you are paying 3 grand for a laptop, tablet and a docking station. (and you've still got to pay for a monitor and input devices for the desktop part) For that I can buy a laptop, a tablet and probably a touch more for a desktop.
Portable storage is dirt cheap and convenient. So I'm not sure what I would gain. If it were difficult to move data between those types of devices I could really see the appeal. But it's not hard to do anymore. I'd rather just buy the full blown version of each component for quite a bit less (if you got the same processor, etc.).
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
. . . the price is scary. Here's a snip from the article:
.74" (129 x 74 x 18.7mm). It is powered by a 1GHz
Specifications
The Modular PC core is a little under half a pound (9oz) and measures
5.07 x 2.91 x
Transmeta TM5800 CPU with 256MB Ram and comes with a 20GB Hard Drive,
with RAM and HD upgrades available (512MB RAM, 30GB HD). The default
OS is Windows XP Pro.
What is included?
The Modular PC can be bought with a variety of accessories, shells and
options. You will want something more than just the Modular PC core
($1,990 USD) described above in the Specs section.
The Micro Tablet Shell, which comes with a battery pack, AC Adaptor,
Stylus, Screen Protector and Handstrap, can be had for an additional
$990. The docking station is a less costly $190. There is a laptop
shell coming later this year with a battery pack, AC Adaptor and CD
drive, priced at $800. There are also many options, accessories and
kits you can purchase, varying from a Car, Smarthome or Remote
Inspection Kit, to additional software, biometric reader,
ruggedization kit, HD upgrade and more.
Available Shells
Currently, there are only a few shells available. The Desktop Dock and
the Micro Tablet. A Laptop Shell is in the works, but was not
available for review at time of writing.
This thing is crushingly expensive at the moment; the core costs $1990, and the shells to make it a laptop-compatible are almost another $1000. That makes for a $3000 1Ghz laptop running Windows XP. No thanks, I'll wait...
Have you read my blog lately?
;-)
When using your Modular PC Handtop device at the campgrounds, always practice safety. Surround your Modular PC with rocks to keep the fire from spreading. Be sure when you're done with your MPC to put it out with a bucket of water and make sure it has stopped smoking before you leave the area.
Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your Modular PC Handtop from starting a forest fire.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I saw the $1990 pricetag, and I'm not suprized, most of these types of PCs are not attempting to get a deep market saturization, so the price reflects the lack of demand. they need to recoup the initial development costs, and thus it seems pricy. there are some critical applications I could see it used for, such as occupations with a high amount of movement between desktops (IE a person who travels alot for the company) they could have the desktop at the office, and also have a laptop so their workstation goes where they go. also I can see it in the medical field where doctors can walk around and access charts digitally, then dock at a PC to do research. it certainly is not designed with common AOLer use in mind, though I could even see it being really useful on a college campus...
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Did I hear somebody say:
BEST. BIGGEST. MULTI-FUNCTION. REMOTE. EVER.
Dashboard Widgets
...is probably the most often-used comment with this but over $3k all-in? Not much of a take-up I reckon, not with the Transmeta part in it.
I have a tablet with a Transmeta chip and it does indeed crawl sometimes, even with a memory upgrade. And it gets bloody hot sometimes too. Anybody have any experience with Via's chip and would that be a good replacement, specially with the lack of new stuff coming from TM?
I can understand why a gadget site might want to post about this device, they have articles on all kinds of crazy, overpriced stuff. Why give something with such a ridiculous price valuable attention on Slashdot?
Better to accept an Ask Slashdot question such as "The MPC is an interesting idea with a stupid pricing scheme. How might one construct something like this on their own?"
Call to hackers, crackers and modifiers..not necessarily in that order. Who's gonna be the first one to design the same thing around a Mac-mini? Seems to me that if you had a touchscreen/battery combo that mated nicely to the Mac-mini you'd have a built in market. And the 'core' would only cost $500. Am I genius crazy or just crazy? ! Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
it leaves one question in my mind.
Why?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
The days of (consciously) lugging around your computer are numbered. But then I'm an incurable optimist ;-)
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I saw it before on a magazine... a modular PC. By that I mean not just cards, but blocks you connecty to turn it into a laptop, media center, etc.
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
I would love to see sony or someone do this kind of thing for consoles. It would be great if you could make a modular game console with easily upgradable parts.
I'd like to be able to replace crap like the DVD player when it acts up, or allow developers to
throw in some cutting edge games without buying a whole new machine.
You'd think from a business perspective this would be a good thing as the companies tend to lose money on the hardware. They could even
charge add-on suppliers a small fee to certify their hardware was compatible.
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I'm trying to think of some uses for this expensive gadget.
Maybe for company with some employees in the office, some on the road, this and that, they can buy a few shells and share among staff?
So the sales guy with his core will take a PDA shell out, and when he's back to the office, he can plug his core into a desktop shell and work immediately without the need to sync data, especially if it is sync'ing into somebody else's desktop.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The custom connectors they developped alone were horribly expensive. And with the price of motherboards and peripherals constantly dropping, there was little point in replacing just the CPU of a machine.
Unless the prices come down dramatically, I see little incentive in adopting this technology.
--
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This seems almost exactly like the OQO, only they tacked on this 'shells' idea. Really this doesn't seem that different than much older ideas, like Apple's PowerBook Duo.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
It does everything that a laptop can do, for only four times the price!
It's exactly the kind of thing I was envisioning for a modular wearable computer... except expensive and bloated : (
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Can it run Linux?
01/20/09
What I want to see is something you can stick on your key chain, slide it into any computer you happen to be on, and have it load up your desktop, files, and applications. Also, I don't want to have it running the OS off the device. Heck, I suppose a USB thumbdrive would work, if someone could figure out how to run applications off one (yeah, you can run exe's, but what about apps that need reg entries?)
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Step 1: Write review of product on site with ad banners
Step 2: Submit review link to Slashdot
Step 3: Profit
OK,
:-(
the price is to much currently and I'm not sure it has mass market appeal. But for the likes of me it would be a great idea. Especially if it had a mips or powerpc module.
Currently I have a noisy half rack of near identical machines except for the cpu
Yes, it is horribly expensive right now, but it's nothing surprising. Almost everything is horribly expensive while new to the market.
But this idea is brilliant, and will be a success - if they will open specyfication and set some kind of standard. If you could buy several different laptop modules (from subnotebook size to ruggadized toughbook-likes), handheld modules etc _and_ different core units from different vendors you will have almost endless upgrade options. That may be true only on on very competitive market, so no vendor lock in.
Does it sound smart? Definitly yes, for me.
This Is Not a Sig
I'm trying too-- but the only way I can see it making a lot of sense is if the shells get to be a lot cheaper than what they replace. If the PDA shell costs more than a full-on PDA it just doesn't make sense. If the laptop shell costs more than a laptop.... you get the idea.
A laptop with a docking station covers 90% of what this would do without all that cost. In fact you can get a more powerful laptop for less than the core alone.
The idea seems to have grown from a need that just doesn't exist anymore. Especially as wireless becomes more and more common. Why carry around a 'core' when I can sync by walking in the room where my base station lives? Oh and I mixed words with numbers in my orginal post and it is 4,000 for all the parts, not 3. So it's just crazy.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
So who exactly are they selling it to? If one needs full function PC, there're plenty of sub-compact sized (thin & light) laptops that has almost full functionality of desktop, which is a bit bigger than these modular PC thingie (thick magazine size vs 200g chocolate bar size) but cheaper. If one only needs basic of email/read-doc...etc. than a PDA suffices. So these stuff trying to fit in 'gaps' where people want more than PDA with size smaller than sub-compact laptop, but also has big pockets. Wow, no wonder selling hardware is a cut-throat business. (side note: I have no clue why there are more laptops getting BIGGER and BIGGER with big wide-screen as selling point, instead of smaller size).
Maybe this specific product is overpriced? Ok its definatly overpriced! Assume that in 5 years the technology becomes smaller and cheaper especially for a large company who is ordering them by the hundred. I think its not a fundamentally flawed idea in the long run but is a flawed product at the moment.
Ok, this might seems a bit ignorant but how exactly is this different from the mac mini? This thing is slightly smaller than a mac mini, and comes with Xp.. thats the only thing I can think of. The extra add ons can be added to a mac mini if someone were to build it.
is working on what you want.9 2.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Smart-USB-7
Users were promised the capability of launching applications directly from the Flash drive, besides the storage feature. Drive-owners would be capable of transporting a full application while keeping access to all history, personal settings and contacts associated with that software solution.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I've always envisioned the ultimate end of personally portable computing to have a device about the size of a deck of cards which I can plug into any office or public terminal and have that terminal immediately bring up my desktop and run all of my programs. When designing this kind of system, you have to decide which of the pieces you want to replicate vs. which of the pieces you want to lug around.
At one end of the spectrum is the laptop, where you lug around darn near everything. You have to replicate some things, like printers and wall sockets, and often wind up replicating other things like a big monitor and comfortable keyboard, but for the most part it's an entirely integrated unit.
On the other end of the scale is the thumb drive. Nothing more than a highly portable storage device for all of those things you can't replicate. You can jack one of these babies into any full system that has an adequate set of tools and be on your way. It's small enough that you can attach it to your keychain and forget it exists.
This product seems to be somewhere in the limbo between those two. For any concept like this to work, you have to be fairly certain that you can find the components that you don't carry around with you wherever you go. With a laptop, this is easy because you need so little. Portable storage in the form of floppies and CD's have made the other end quite available.
As it stands, there doesn't exist adequate infrastructure to make this device useful. Oh, and did I mention that it's preposterously expensive for what it provides?
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
This solution is exactly the opposite of what I want. I don't really want to lug a computer around with me. I really want to take my data with me, and just use whatever computer is handy nearby. I use a laptop because that is the smallest computer that fits my needs that I'm willing to carry everywhere. However, I would happily have a system where I could use the data on my laptop on any other machine I use as well, just by connecting my laptop (or my laptop's drive) (something more elegant than making my powerbook a dumb firewire drive at least).
However always having the same RAM/CPU/GPU in every machine I use, and just changing the shell? Why? What's the point? Where is the advantage? The whole point of a desktop is the embarrassingly large number crunching power. If I never needed to run big FEM simulations or large VR environments, I would never even bother with a desktop.
Impossible = A fun challenge
I like the idea of shells, but I'm not sure how much I like the idea of having to use the same processor & memory in each shell. Why not keep the processor & memory in the shell, so that the processor is appropriate to what you're trying to do? If I'm walking around just looking at an e-book or surfing the web, I might only need a 1 GHz CPU, not much RAM and maybe a garden-variety graphics card. If I'm using a laptop for traveling, I'd want to use a faster CPU with on-chip wifi (a la pentium M) and maybe a slightly better graphics card. If I'm gaming at my desktop, I'd want a really juiced CPU and scads of low-latency RAM plus a pretty powerful graphics card. The use cases are different in each shell-type, as I see it.
What's common among all the shells is that the data on disk would be great to stay the same. So, in my estimation, the key part to put in the base unit is the hard disc. There's be a bunch of other crap in there, sure, to be able to successfully operate in different power and CPU circumstances as needed by the shells, but the data you march around with or move from shell to shell would be the best thing to stay the same.
I have a vision of a base unit that's something like an iPod, and you slap that thing into whatever shell you happen to need at the time. It'd be even cooler if you could outfit the shells with your own componentry picks (RAM, Processor, and graphics). The cost of barebones shells would be considerably less, I'd guess.
Then again, maybe I'm full of it.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Nobody has mentioned performance. The modular PC has a 1 GHz Transmetia Processor, 256MB of RAM, and a 16MB Graphics Acclerator. Do those specs sound like something you would want to pay $2000 for? A 1GHZ Transmetia doesn't beat a 650 MHz PIII in some measures of performance, 256 MB of RAM is barely enough to run XP smoothly, let alone multitask, and the 16 MB graphics adapter is a relic from another age, probably not even DirectX 7.0 compliant. That is one slow system, especially for big bucks. Now, if you plan to only use the Handheld PC Shell, the specs are about what you would find on similar products, but in a desktop or laptop configuration, the thing is just not powerful enough to justify it. Plus, because of the modular nature of the device, the handheld shell is bigger than its competitors. This may be the first modular design on the market, but it seems horribly impracticle to me. What we need is a nice P4 in there, that will underclock to 600MHz in a handheld, 2.0 Ghz in a laptop, and run at a full 3.6 GHz in a desktop. Heat wouldn't be a problem in any of them, because the underclocked processor would run cool enough to work with the heating solution in each of the docks. Make the graphics adapter part of the dock, so that a handheld could include a low power, low performace adapter for its SVGA screen, and the desktop dock could have a PCI-E 16X slot for a GeForce 6xxx or ATi X8xx. Why not have a flash drive for the OS and some important files on the modular device, and have full harddrives on the docks. That way a handheld could have full flash shock resistance, and laptop could have a small slow 2.5" 60 GB drive for work files and music, and the desktop could have a 400 GB SATA disk for storage of recorded TV shows. I guess everyone will eventually figure out that putting everything but the monitor and input devices in the modular piece justs doesn't make much sense.
The first PC's were expensive too. Some of us early adopters are not price sensitive. Cutting edge designers and engineers can make millions by anticipating and driving the next trend in computing.
Very soon now computers will be so small and cheap the form factor of the CPU will be irrelevant; think sewn into clothing or even disposable. Combined with wireless broadband and increased battery life wearable computers are going to transform the industry. What sort of new uses will computers be put to when this happens? How will lifestyles change? What things need to be done to make it happen?
For example, one big thing that needs to happen is a new type of mobile display technology that allows a high resolution display to float hands free in front of the user. A prototype computer that allows you to easily play with this idea is quite compelling.
This 'Shell' concept is like the Swiss Army Knife: in theory, it can do everything; in reality, it doesn't work well enough at any single task to replace cheaper, specialized instruments. The last time you cut a steak or used a toothpick, did you reach for your Swiss Army knife, or for your steak knife and your toothpick?
My cellphone does things my desktop couldn't do 10 years ago, and it's cheap enough that when it breaks, I don't bother repairing it; I just donate it to a charity. Laptops are getting that way fast; and my data can be carried around easily on USB-compatible memory devices. So why would I want a "shell" unless it was as cheap as a cellphone?
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I almost see the thing looking like it's almost a step towards being able to build your own laptop. They have a core module with all the independent parts of the PC, then they tack on all the i/o devices that make it a laptop, desktop or tablet machine. If they would take it a step further, and allow as many components to be customized like a desktop would, then maybe you could have a laptop that's a lot more to your liking (CPU/GPU, network, display) without having to arm-wring a manufacturer to do it (or have to worry about a Lenovo situation).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Don't worry, the cost will be more realistic when the company goes under and the surplus companies start selling them on ebay.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
This sounds like a decent idea. At least, I've long wanted something very similar to this. I carry an iPod with me everywhere, and I'd love to be able to plug a keyboard into it and use it to enter notes on the go.
Or better yet, I've always thought that the best setup would be an iPod with the UI of a Palm device (I call this a "PalmPod", when I occasionally rant about all the stuff I carry around). You could do basic stuff with just the PalmPod, but it would sync and be a decent-sized hard drive.
Too bad this Modular PC costs a small fortune -- it seems like a pretty close approximation of what I'm looking for.
-Esme
Psssh, big deal. Someone call me when the can make one that is not only modular, but actually can complete the trifecta of "cellular, modular, and interactivodular" like the bananaphone!
This, to me, is a very old idea of modular. How long have docking stations, and even PDAs been around? Forever. This is what I'd like...
Something like this machine, but when you plug it into a desktop docking station that station has additional RAM, a better video card, more processors and additional storage.
I tested this device for a couple weeks as a candidate for running some software I was developing. This was last summer, mind you. The results were awful. The MCC (modular computing core) can run in one of two "shells". One is a hand-held, passively cooled device (TFA calls it a "Micro Tablet") with a touch-screen LCD and a couple USB ports. It has a velcro strap that lets you easily carry it in one hand by strapping it around your palm. The other "shell" is a desktop docking-station with a fan for cooling and keyboard/mouse and VGA connectors. TFA calls this one the "Desktop Dock".
/.), it was still unbearably slow.
Let me tell you that this thing ran *hot*. After working with it for a few minutes in the handheld, my hands became so sweaty that I worried it was going to slip out of them. Also, since it's sensitive to heat, it would throttle the CPU back to 300MHz, and Windows XP would slow to a crawl. I found that I could lock the CPU in a 1000MHz frequency, but then it just got even hotter.
The desktop docking station was no better. I tried playing a DivX movie in both modes, and the playback ran at about 1 frame per second. I would expect a 1000MHz CPU to do better. Obviously, this thing has other bottlenecks.
Even for regular productivity applications, like MS Word and friends (err, enemies, this *is*
In short, this thing is a great idea in concept, but failed to pan out in reality for me.
How is this device "modular"? Inside the "core", you have a non-modular combination of CPU, RAM, VPU and HD.
What I would like to see is small modules:
A cpu module, a ram module, a VPU module, an HD module.
Then you could connect them all together using some sort of standardtized connectors.
Want to have more memory? Just add another memory module.
Want more CPU power? Add or replace a CPU module.
Each module will include various general connectors:
Data with various bandwidths, power, some sort of cooling solution (maybe a heat pipe, which will be connected to a cooler somewhere)
Obviously the video module would have video out connectors, the sound module will have audio out and the network module/s will have ethernet connectors etc...
I remember reading that IBM was working on such a system, other than the fact the modules were bigger, each box including at least one processor and the modules were "a stack of CPUs", "a stack of hard drives", etc.
This is what I could call modular.
This will also lead to interesting module configurations, optimized for specific needs....
^_^
I had the same exact idea and have been saving up my nickles to try and build one (was going to try and use the mini itx-12volt board as a start-maybe, hadn't decided yet really), glad to see someone actually did it. It makes sense in a niche way. You have your PDA, Laptop and Desktop all combined, but as portable or as full featured stuck in place as you want. From my perspective it should have been *cheaper* than buying all three separate though, that's the real point #2, because the main computing functionality you only need to buy *once*, not three times.
I hope it takes off and the price drops more, that's all. If they can get it down to a grand for all three devices (core/PDA and the laptop shell and desktop dock) they'll have a winner.
But think ahead, after a few years of R&D, the general idea is you get a nice little PDA that you dock and have a full-blown computer. You work in your home you have all your apps/files/etc, you get on the train and you have all the same apps/files/etc, and you get to work and you still have all the same apps/files/etc. No syncing, no crappy-PDA-versions of your apps that don't work properly-- you're computer just goes with you. If the idea/design is finessed a bit, it might actually end up being cheaper than buying a laptop, PDA, and desktop, because of bunch of the components are only purchased once (hard drive, processor, RAM, etc.). You'd just be buying keyboards/mice/monitors.
Or they could also modularize the laptop "shell" itself. I remember IBM was working on something recently (I don't know if it was ever released). It was a Thinkpad where the screen and full-sized keyboard detached from each other somehow, and the screen could be elevated.... I don't remember exactly how it worked, but the idea was that you could separate the laptop out to be like a desktop PC.
Or how about this: have something like a PDA/iPod, where is carries one limited OS/interface for portable purposes, but hard-drive-based. The hard drive doesn't have the OS and the device doesn't have all the GPU/ports/whatever, but it has your /home folder and applications. So you plop this device into whatever computer, and you get all the same apps/documents/whatever.
So you would achieve something similar, except the device, by itself, would have limited capabilities until it was put into a "shell". However, it seems like you need a specialized OS/interface for small devices anyway, so it might not be such a downside. Plus, it'd be easier to engineer an effective and small device this way.
So what I'm talking about in general is, the more people play with these ideas, the more likely someone will make a device that is practical, so it's not "foolish" to make an attempt. Imagine 5 years from now, and imagine Apple keeps shrinking the mini to the point that it'll fit in an iPod. Wouldn't you want someone working on these things?
How about this:
And then - price the basic box at under $500. Make it the Soekris of portable and desktop computing.
i have had the same idea floating around in my head for about 6 months now. but to make it worth the money every part of it have to add value.
rather then having the base unit just being a dumb box it should be a pda on top of a HD. but when plugged into laptop or desktop config the config should bring with it more cpu ram and so on so that the "pda" turns into a storage device.
so if you need to take notes, break out the laptop and plug in the pda (maybe allow the laptop to fold into tablet form). just need to add a meeting? no need to bring out the entire laptop.
need some graphical or other horsepower, plug it into the desktop config and get to work.
maybe allow the laptop and desktop configs to work as thin clients (bootable over a network connection) if the pda isnt docked.
one should allso be able to dock more then one pda so that one can access files on all of them at the same time. therefor the dock should basicly be usb or firewire, maybe even wifi. i may be streching the term docking here tho...
the thing is, no part of the setup should be dead weight without any other part.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
The Transmeta CPU in this thing is a clear mistake. Just like the VIA processors, it may have a comparably high MHz rating, but it'll perform worse than an Intel/AMD CPU at half the MHz. Should have gone with a mobile Intel/AMD proc.
Personally, I'd like to see customizable portable computers at the other extreme... Instead of one core where you can replace everything, I'd like to see a Laptop with almost everything, where you can replace the keyboard, mouse, etc. Establish standard dimentions for keyboards/mice modules that every Laptop will use, so you could just get one Laptop keyboard, and put it on any similar-size Laptop you might get in the future. That's all I want.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Check out http://www.intermec.com/eprise/main/Intermec/Conte nt/Products/Products_ShowDetail?section=Products&P roduct=CMPTRCN30 for an interesting implementation of this concept.
just have your storage portable (eg. "my documents"), and plug it into any computer you use.
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It reminds me of PDA's in general. They're cool. I want the newest features.
/using my Ipaq as an ebook reader /sorry about the fark slashes
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As seen in the article, the Modular Computing Company logo is almost a dead ringer (except in typeface) for the Delorean Motor Company's: http://bttfportugal.no.sapo.pt/DMC_logo_B.jpg
Lets see, an incredibly esoteric product from an esoteric company with little business experience?
They've got three things in common, it'll be four to four if their CEO pops up on the news in a coke bust.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Here is a nice web site that discusses ultraportables computers: http://ultraportables.net/
At the moment we have 4 main formats of computer used by average Joe - desktop, laptop, pda and cell phone. each of those currently uses different methods of doing the same tasks, and require data syncing, learning curve, upgrade cycle and so on. before long, thanks to maturing wireless communication, multi-platform integration and so on, those computers are going to start sharing common resources like storage, ports and devices, and eventually processing resources and power supplies
The latest iPAQs etc are almost laptops. they have the CPU speed and RAM to run XP, they have wifi, primitive graphics cards, they are starting to put in HDs instead of flash mem, and flash memory filesystems are getting there too. You can get bluetooth keyboards and mice for them too.
Before the release of longhorn, PDAs will be ready to run Linux or Win CE level OSs for use stand alone, and Win XP level OSs under x86 emulation for use in laptop cradles , thin clients, desktop docking stations, car systems etc.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
Ingredients:
1. Usb enabled monitor (requies no video card)
2. USB hub
3. USB Keyboard
4. USB Mouse
5. UBS to cat5 network link
6. USB disk or flash card
6. PocketPC, Ipaq, palm, etc PDA
The current crop of PDAs are faster than the whole PC of 3 years ago and should be quite capable of running XP or even the XP thin client os.
I have had an idea for a while now about creating a device that is essentially an LCD with a SIMPLE network interface. Think palm with a larger screen and a network connection. This device would be able to provide an X/VNC/RDP connection to a main computer that has tons of processing power. Your wireless network supplies the connection. The device runs an embedded Linux. These would be fairly inexpensive to produce. I have everything but the X/VNC/RDP piece sitting on my workbench now. 9" LCD, 400Mhz Intel Xscale CPU, 802.11B/G wireless. Total cost so far in single quantity $500.
Nothing is impossible. It just hasn't been figured out yet.