Half-Depth cases for new Macs (?)
There has been a lot of speculation on the case likely to accompany Apple's next generation desktops. Much of our attention has gone to color, material, port locations, and cooling techniques. However, of particular interest to me will be the rough, overall dimensions of the new case.
Apple seems to put much thought into form-factors and has been willing to break with convention. The original 128 was mind boggling small when released as was the pre-Mac hardware. Case handles have been included on much of the hardware. The iMac and G4 iMac, while not perfect, exhibit some of the best industrial designs ever produced.
So my question is, if a team at apple were to sit down and start from scratch, what would they determine to be the optimal overall shape for a monitorless computer?
We are all familiar with desktops, pizza boxes, towers, mini-towers, cubes, AIOs and the new iMac?s shape. However, there is another shape that would prove superior for most work environments. (IMHO)
Half-Depth™ towers and desktops
As LCD screens become more prevalent, desk-depth considerations should be rethought. I would put my tower on my desk, but it is too obtrusive, sticking much farther into the room than anything else on the desk. This forces keyboards and mice to the side or requires a deeper desk. Basically, this is why towers are called towers and not desktops.
Desktop computers exhibit the same problem when placed beneath a screen. They force the keyboard to close to the front of the desk, making poor use of available desk space.
It really seems as if most workspaces are not well suited to computers that are deeper than they are wide. Wouldn?t we be better off with a shallower footprint? A half depth tower could easily fit to the side of a CRT or LCD. A half depth desktop would fit nicely beneath the screen with room left over for wires in the back and a keyboard in the front. The computer only needs to be as deep as a standard 5.25? drive enclosure or long PCI card.
Mark me down as hoping that the elongated motherboard rumors pan out? and soon, we?ll all be driving Half-Depth™ computers.
Apple seems to put much thought into form-factors and has been willing to break with convention. The original 128 was mind boggling small when released as was the pre-Mac hardware. Case handles have been included on much of the hardware. The iMac and G4 iMac, while not perfect, exhibit some of the best industrial designs ever produced.
So my question is, if a team at apple were to sit down and start from scratch, what would they determine to be the optimal overall shape for a monitorless computer?
We are all familiar with desktops, pizza boxes, towers, mini-towers, cubes, AIOs and the new iMac?s shape. However, there is another shape that would prove superior for most work environments. (IMHO)
Half-Depth™ towers and desktops
As LCD screens become more prevalent, desk-depth considerations should be rethought. I would put my tower on my desk, but it is too obtrusive, sticking much farther into the room than anything else on the desk. This forces keyboards and mice to the side or requires a deeper desk. Basically, this is why towers are called towers and not desktops.
Desktop computers exhibit the same problem when placed beneath a screen. They force the keyboard to close to the front of the desk, making poor use of available desk space.
It really seems as if most workspaces are not well suited to computers that are deeper than they are wide. Wouldn?t we be better off with a shallower footprint? A half depth tower could easily fit to the side of a CRT or LCD. A half depth desktop would fit nicely beneath the screen with room left over for wires in the back and a keyboard in the front. The computer only needs to be as deep as a standard 5.25? drive enclosure or long PCI card.
Mark me down as hoping that the elongated motherboard rumors pan out? and soon, we?ll all be driving Half-Depth™ computers.
Comments
Imagine the size of the Apple logo you could have on it.
Now if I could just remember the SKU from IKEA for their new Xserve table legs...
;^p
Originally posted by dfiler
A half depth desktop would fit nicely beneath the screen with room left over for wires in the back and a keyboard in the front. The computer only needs to be as deep as a standard 5.25? drive enclosure or long PCI card.
Just so you know, a full size PCI card is 12" long.
Originally posted by Anders the White
What about really really flat computers. No thicker than half an inch but the size of a office table.
Interesting idea. Of course they'd have to be waterproof and capable of withstanding the type of abuse typcially taken by your work surface.
But I don't think this would prove as suitable for most people as a half-depth computer. While thin, there is still a break of the work surface at the sides of the computer. An ultra-thin pizza box might appear small visually, but it still intrudes into a user's workspace in the same manner as a pizza box computer. Also, it probably wouldn't look quite right on a wide selection of desk sizes and surface materials.
Originally posted by Amorph
Just so you know, a full size PCI card is 12" long.
yea, I was thinking the same thing.... although it would be possible to have the PCI cards vertically mounted... but then you have any connectors on those cards either on the top or bottom of the case
Originally posted by applenut
yea, I was thinking the same thing.... although it would be possible to have the PCI cards vertically mounted... but then you have any connectors on those cards either on the top or bottom of the case
Me three.
Powermacs are listed on Apple's site as 18.4 inches deep so without some even more clever engineering, my half-depth computer might end up being two-thirds-depth.
Sticking the ports out of the side of the case is one way to maintain full PCI compatibility... But this is obviously non-optimal or at least not very elegent and not an improvement over current designs.
Another option, as mentioned, would be to orient the slots vertically. However, this has its own set of problems since cords would need to come out the top or bottom of the box... or would they?
There are a number of alternatives that would work even if they seem impratical at first. Here is a solution that wouldn't cost more to manufacture. Nor would it involve additional or fragile parts.
A half depth tower case with the mother board mounted on one of the sides. PCI slots would run diagonally from the bottom-front to the middle-back at roughly 30 degrees from horizontal. Simply put the slots diagonally on the mother board.
At first this may sound as if it makes connections difficult by obscuring the ports, making them hard to access, or requiring custom hardware. But I think they'd be easier to access since the back panel would be tilted 30 degrees from vertical.
Picture a minutely recessed pannel looking slightly up at you from the back of the case. It would have the four normal rectangular holes cut in the standard shapes. In the stock configuration, one would be filled with the back side and ports of a graphics board and the other three slots would be covered with the standard metal tabs.
I know... I know... diagonal expansion slots? What the hell is dfiler thinking?
Yet, it doesn't seem like they would waste internal space, complicate manufacturing, or even make plug management more inconvenient. So... I'm going to still keep my fingers crossed, waiting for half-depth computing.
Originally posted by applenut
yea, I was thinking the same thing.... although it would be possible to have the PCI cards vertically mounted... but then you have any connectors on those cards either on the top or bottom of the case
well, the cube did this. what you'd essentially have is a taller cube.
Originally posted by MacRonin
Now if I could just remember the SKU from IKEA for their new Xserve table legs...
Escher
Originally posted by pesi
well, the cube did this. what you'd essentially have is a taller cube.
I was thinking the exact same thing... A double or triple height cube...
it would have my money...
Why not make an L-shaped case? That'd be cool. Even cooler if you could rotate it to put the optical drive(s) on the left, right, or centered like a normal case.
Originally posted by MacRonin
Uh, they call those Xserves...
Now if I could just remember the SKU from IKEA for their new Xserve table legs...
;^p
you mean you haven't seen this: ?
I still prefer the idea of a Cube-like CPU (only horizontally rather than vertically oriented) with some sort of fast link to expansion chassis that hold PCI cards or internal drives. That way, if all you want is a workstation, all you get (and all you have on your desk) is a workstation. It can be made silent. If you want more features, they take up more room — but you could buy a chassis with 9 PCI slots, or with 8 drive bays, for example, and get far more expansion than a tower allows if that's what you need.
There could be a tower model for people who want the tradeoff between size and expandability that a tower represents.
Originally posted by pesi
well, the cube did this. what you'd essentially have is a taller cube.
well, i am guessing that it would also have to be considerably wider thus reducing much of the benefit of the new design.
the tower can certainly be trimmed down but to half, would be very difficult without sacrifices to expansion
Originally posted by fred_lj
I thought it had been the consensus that vertically-mounted optical drives had too much torsional force acting on them (basically craps them out sooner)?
apple will change their story and marketing BS to whatever design they think is coolest.
doesn't matter.
Originally posted by dfiler
I thought they were talking about this...
Pefect! Where do I pay??
I would love this machine...
Originally posted by pesi
you mean you haven't seen this: ?
Damm thats funny looking!
Originally posted by Amorph
Diagonally mounted slots would leave rather impractical spaces for things like internal drives.
I still prefer the idea of a Cube-like CPU (only horizontally rather than vertically oriented) with some sort of fast link to expansion chassis that hold PCI cards or internal drives. That way, if all you want is a workstation, all you get (and all you have on your desk) is a workstation. It can be made silent. If you want more features, they take up more room — but you could buy a chassis with 9 PCI slots, or with 8 drive bays, for example, and get far more expansion than a tower allows if that's what you need.
There could be a tower model for people who want the tradeoff between size and expandability that a tower represents.
Good points. With firewire800, external expansion chassis become quite reasonable. Previously, external drive arrays weren't hot swappable and the cord had to be annoyingly short. Yet I think most people will still prefer a single box to two boxes.
Back to the full length PCI boards, which are currently a computer's deepest component.
Car engines have been crammed into increasingly small spaces over the years. Open up an old hood and you can see the ground through various holes in the engine compartment. Many new car engines are so well engineered to a compact size that there is no line of sight through to the ground. This has necessitated a number of strangely oriented parts. Rectangular air filters are mounted and strange angles as are many ducts and belts.
Diagonally mounted PCI boards would offer expansion without dropping support for full length boards or requiring a change to the PCI standard. The motivation of course would be to make smaller computer cases possible. Smaller cases are possible just as car engine compartments have become smaller and better utilized.
The triangular cylinders on the sides of diagonally mounted boards could be used for smaller components with a bit of room left over for air flow and wires. I'll try and make a side-view photographic-frakenstein mockup... It doesn't seem as if diagonally oriented components are really that much of a problem.