Yeah, I have to agree with that! <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well I have to disagree. For one thing, and the major thing, the freedom to attach any monitor you want makes the Cube a better choice. My Cube has a 17" Apple TFT attached now, but over it's life has had a 10 year old Apple 17" CRT, a used (and cheap) 19" NEC (after the Apple CRT blew), and now happily sports the fine Apple 17" TFT.
Shear elegance; although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my Cube is computer as Art, while in my opinion the iMac is cheap looking. The screen is super, (especially the 17") but the deflated soccer ball look underwhelms me.
I say bring back an updated Cube, along with 17, 20, & 23 inch Cinema Displays to fall between the iMac and IBM 970 powered PowerMacs. Switchers could buy the box alone to use with their current CRT's (and upgrade later to the one of the Apple Cinema's). Options, we like options.
Amorph, when I say Cube redux I don't mean a rehash of exactly the same cube. It would need to be larger and simpler than the old cube. It could even, as you suggest, be a pizza box, though I like a squat little cube better. Something fatter than the cube, but shorter, not a cube really (neither was the first) but rather than elongated, squished. The Shuttle cubes make a good reference point, though I'd make em just a little wider.
<strong>... The case is expensive and difficult to manufacture, and the machine is top-heavy, which makes it grossly unsuited for education (think about kids knocking it around). The square shape limits the size and heat dissipation that any expansion cards can have. The vertical disc drive sometimes has trouble spitting out discs, and it runs slower than a horizontally mounted drive. You have to tip the machine over to plug something in, which is my least favorite aspect of the Cube. Oh, and the power supply is external ...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Seems like you have listed each and every flaw the old Cube had. This is a very good basis to design a new Cube.
Your arguments for a pizza-box instead of a cubish form factor make perfectly sense from a technical perspective. The thing I miss here is the whooa! effect. The iMac (both CTR and TFT), the Cube, the iBooks (toiletseat and new one) and the TiBook had this kind of appeal.
Coupled with my assumption for the need of a display-less Mac with limited or even no expandability at a very moderate price (say $799), I still believe we will see a new model, following the basic form factor of the Cube, soon.
I didn't read all the postings carefully, so if this is a repeated idea, sorry. Most of the cubes problems might be eliminated by making it a little taller and deeper, but not wider. It could be square when viewed from either side, but it would be more like a tiny tower from the front. The CD drive and controls would be on the front, and the connectors on the back. It might allow for a PCI card as well as a video card. I think a lot more could be done with a case of this shape. I would hope Apple could keep the things I like about the cube, such as the power switch and quiet operation. If they could do something like this, I would probably buy it. Otherwise, it is a hard choice between the iMac and the lowest PowerMac.
The CUBE was designed to be square and have a slot loading drive so that it could be fanless. There is a hole in the middle that heat radiates out of. If it was made into a mini tower then a fan would have to be added and you would lose the whole effect.
The CUBE was designed to be square and have a slot loading drive so that it could be fanless. There is a hole in the middle that heat radiates out of. If it was made into a mini tower then a fan would have to be added and you would lose the whole effect.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I said a little taller and a little deeper, and mean two inches at the most. That is also why I said "tiny" tower to describe the shape, not mini-tower. I should have been more exact in describing it. The top could have two vents, to make up for the extra front to back length.
I did think of a drawback to modifying the cube design like this. The cube has a top CD drive and power switch, making it difficult to set something on top, so the vent does not get blocked. If the CD drive and controls are moved to the front, people may be inclined to set things on top, making top venting impractical.
Well I have to disagree. For one thing, and the major thing, the freedom to attach any monitor you want makes the Cube a better choice. My Cube has a 17" Apple TFT attached now, but over it's life has had a 10 year old Apple 17" CRT, a used (and cheap) 19" NEC (after the Apple CRT blew), and now happily sports the fine Apple 17" TFT.
Shear elegance; although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my Cube is computer as Art, while in my opinion the iMac is cheap looking. The screen is super, (especially the 17") but the deflated soccer ball look underwhelms me.
I say bring back an updated Cube, along with 17, 20, & 23 inch Cinema Displays to fall between the iMac and IBM 970 powered PowerMacs. Switchers could buy the box alone to use with their current CRT's (and upgrade later to the one of the Apple Cinema's). Options, we like options.
Have you even seen one of the FP iMacs in person ? i doubt uve taken the time to appreciate it's asthetics. i dont own one myself, but i prefer the subtle smooth curvy surface to the relitavely jagged-edged cold-metallic look of the cube.
i think the analogy for asthetics would have to be ....
Cube = something you show off in the office or your post-modern-catalogue-build-studio-apartment in the city.
iMacFP = something you want at your gettaway in ur beach house in Hawaii.(and it dosent have that annoying powerbrick dangling around)
Although it could do without the tray which will be disappearing in January.
To diss the iMacs design in comparison to the FP iMac is just plain stupid. i dont own either ones and so cannot be partial to either. i do know a better product when i see and use it, and it is in my opinion that the iMacs design is better both asthetically and functionally.
1. you dont have to flip the thing over everytime u need to plug in an external device.
2. the iMac's drive is horizontal so dosent lead to decreased performance...which they traded for a toaster-like/tissue-dispencer feel when making the cube.
3.Power brick is internal in a single unit with the iMac, not so with the cube.
4. Curves are, in my opinion, better than squares and jagged edges.
They're both great designs. The Cube has a beautiful aesthetic spoiled only by the skirt and the 'toaster' grill on top. It's flawed in functionality because of brick, size (for graphic card upgrades...) and components run vertically ie inefficiently. I love the Cube and want a 'low end' to replace the eMac.
You should have the option to choose which display you want and have some upgradability. You shouldn't have to pay £1,395 inc Vat to get it.
The iMac is a superior design. The arm handle and flat monitor is state of the art. It does remove many of the design road blocks/flaws of the Cube...but hey, try upgrading the graphic card or memory or the cpu on a macine costing up to £1,695 inc VAT? Ouch. But ground breaking design in the way the Cube was.
Both have design flaws to some degree. The iMac flat has less of them..?
I still think a ten inch by ten inch all white plastic with vents on the back(!) iCube (minus levitating skirt which I never liked...rubber feet will do thanks... ) and you're getting away from that 'arty' expensive to produce case.
Sell it as a beautiful switch machine for £595 to £895 inc VAT machine. Great edu' machine. Chose yer screen/keep yer crt, non-topple over design... and no grill on top for kids to spill pencils and things down...and still 'small' enough but big enough for expandy-land.
The iCube if prices cheaply would have sold millions. Apple just disappeared up their own cake-whole. Price. Price. Price. (If you wanna go critical mass, Apple, sell the iCube...pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap...)
They're both great designs. The Cube has a beautiful aesthetic spoiled only by the skirt and the 'toaster' grill on top. It's flawed in functionality because of brick, size (for graphic card upgrades...) and components run vertically ie inefficiently. I love the Cube and want a 'low end' to replace the eMac.
You should have the option to choose which display you want and have some upgradability. You shouldn't have to pay £1,395 inc Vat to get it.
The iMac is a superior design. The arm handle and flat monitor is state of the art. It does remove many of the design road blocks/flaws of the Cube...but hey, try upgrading the graphic card or memory or the cpu on a macine costing up to £1,695 inc VAT? Ouch. But ground breaking design in the way the Cube was.
Both have design flaws to some degree. The iMac flat has less of them..?
I still think a ten inch by ten inch all white plastic with vents on the back(!) iCube (minus levitating skirt which I never liked...rubber feet will do thanks... ) and you're getting away from that 'arty' expensive to produce case.
Sell it as a beautiful switch machine for £595 to £895 inc VAT machine. Great edu' machine. Chose yer screen/keep yer crt, non-topple over design... and no grill on top for kids to spill pencils and things down...and still 'small' enough but big enough for expandy-land.
The iCube if prices cheaply would have sold millions. Apple just disappeared up their own cake-whole. Price. Price. Price. (If you wanna go critical mass, Apple, sell the iCube...pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap...)
Lemon Bon Bon
</strong><hr></blockquote>
lots of this reigns true, but i do not think a cube in any form is a good .edu machine, and this has been discussed to some extent. Schools want few to no wires and durable computers. The cube design, imo is not the most durable design.
if apple wants to appeal to edu in a non AIO fashion, they need a simple beige running moderately quickly that is pretty cheap, partly because of older hardware and partly because little money was put into R&D to develop some kind of super aestitically pleasing ultra quiet machine. but of course jobs won't "stoop" to beige.
That's a broad catch all. Ive's not one to be 2nd guessed. 'Any form'. Gee, all the possibilities...still, I guess I've got an imagination...
The Cube itself is quite tough and sturdy.
A redesign could many of its problems. Edu' market?
Well, I work in schools and I can tell you most things don't stand up to the kind of hammer kids give them. The Cube's design (bar the silly 'asking for it' grill on top...and equally silly skirt...)
I'm looking forward to the kids dropping those tablet pcs we're getting in...
I still think a ten inch by ten inch all white plastic with vents on the back(!) iCube (minus levitating skirt which I never liked...rubber feet will do thanks... ) and you're getting away from that 'arty' expensive to produce case.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately, you can't just move things around like that. The Cube is architected around one principle: Silence. Apple settled on convection cooling, which means vents at the bottom and at the top, and air flowing upward (heat rises). That means everything's oriented vertically so as not to block airflow. That, in turn, means all the plugs are either on top (yeccch!) or on the bottom. But if they're on the bottom, you need the skirt. And if you have the skirt, you're effectively suspending the computer from the top of the case, and so you want the case to be as compact as possible to reduce stress, which aggravates all the above problems. Don't think for a minute that Apple didn't spend blood, sweat and tears getting that machine designed and into production. There are reasons it has the flaws that it has, and fixing them means reengineering the whole machine.
I still think the pizza box is unbeatable as a low end, headless configuration. It would not be ideal for education, but it would be as close as you could get for a headless machine, allowing for the necessary wires sticking out.
Also, keep in mind that as soon as you bring in expansion cards (never mind side vents), you bring in fans. It's awfully hard to engineer a silent machine that accounts for a large empty space and the same space filled with an arbitrarily hot PCI/AGP card, the location and intensity of whose heat sources is unknown. You can't even use the PCI bus power as a cutoff for how much heat to expect, because the really hot cards plug directly into a wall socket. You can make sure the cards cool themselves, but then you end up like me, with a custom version of the RADEON just for the Cube, with a (loud, buzzy, thrice-damned) fan whining away atop the GPU, that can't just be replaced with any old video card (even if a standard card would fit...).
Hardware design - interesting hardware design, anyway, is not simple. Food for thought.
I still think the pizza box is unbeatable as a low end, headless configuration. It would not be ideal for education, but it would be as close as you could get for a headless machine, allowing for the necessary wires sticking out.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You seem to prefer the pizza box shape. What is the advantage of that over say a tiny tower design? As I look at my desk, a pizza box would use up a lot of scarce real estate, whereas a tiny tower would not. To keep the monitor as low as possible, I prefer to have it on the desk surface, rather than on top a computer.
I see a tiny tower being about 9 or 10 inches both tall and deep, and about 6 or 7 inches wide. Such a footprint would fit on my desk fairly well. It would be nice to have no fan, but it is possible to keep fans reasonably quiet, especially in a lower powered consumer product where there is less heat generated. I know a mechanical engineer who says the secret of a quiet fan is to use a big one and turn it slowly. Maybe he's right.
Oh but it can be simple, perhaps not easy, but simple.
In redoing the cube, Apple need only do a few simple things. Use the space efficiently, use a strong fan and thick (sound deadening) case.
One daughtercard, one PCI slot, one AGP, One optical (front mount) and one HDD bay. Easy solutions to all your problems, with just a little care.
First, the cube must be larger.
The Mobo goes on the bottom of the cube. the AGP, PCI and daughtercard slots arise out of the mobo on each of the three upright faces of the cube, the front is open to accept drives and the fascia slides out core reactor style just like the old cube used to, just in front this time. The entire interior volume remains empty for the two drives and the PS. RAM plugs in underneath the mobo like an iMac (2 layer PCB). Like the iMac, the chassis acts as a heat sink for the CPU. Heat pipes cool it against a large finned metal bulwark at the rear of the chassis. All the cards face the exterior of the cube. Between the chassis and the plastic outer case, air flows over each of the cards. A fan in the top portion of the cube, draws air through the center of the cube, through the chassis, between the case and out the back of the machine, perforated like the powermacs. It can be done. Shuttle might be loud, and Apple wouldn't be silent, but neither would it have to be obtrusive.
You seem to prefer the pizza box shape. What is the advantage of that over say a tiny tower design? As I look at my desk, a pizza box would use up a lot of scarce real estate, whereas a tiny tower would not. To keep the monitor as low as possible, I prefer to have it on the desk surface, rather than on top a computer.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, they're designed to be slipped under the monitor, saving desktop real estate. If you don't use it that way, then yes, it would chew up a fair amount of space.
Other advantages (thinking here of educational environments as well): They can be opened from the top, LC style, or from the front, Xserve style, and everything's laid out flat - allowing the machine to be expanded and serviced in place more easily than a tower can be. The shape can hide a full-length (12") PCI or AGP card. Convection cooling this form is easy, and Apple's been doing it since the Apple //c. If you want to draw air up through the base and out the top, then having the base and the top be the largest surfaces is a Good Thing(TM).
[quote]<strong>I see a tiny tower being about 9 or 10 inches both tall and deep, and about 6 or 7 inches wide. Such a footprint would fit on my desk fairly well.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's about the size of the Cube, so it would have to be packed about as densely as the Cube. But if you're throwing in slots, and setting it up horizontally, then there will be fans. However, as the iMac and the PowerBook demonstrate (and the Cube doesn't), it's quite possible to mute them well enough. I don't think the result would be as easy to maintain or expand as a pizza box could be, either.
Well, they're designed to be slipped under the monitor, saving desktop real estate. If you don't use it that way, then yes, it would chew up a fair amount of space.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
With wider and larger LCD monitors being used, it seems the pizza box case will become more and more of a drawback. I'm not stuck on any particular design, but I would like it to use less desk area. Guess I was not thinking about video cards when I suggested a size and shape for a cube replacement. Maybe 12.5 or 13 inches is the smallest front to back dimension that should be considered. If it is 8 inches tall and 8 inches wide, it could be called the stretch Cube.
I go along with your goal to have it easily serviceable. I'd likely buy any smallish Mac Apple builds without a monitor, provided it does not take up too much desk space.
Comments
<strong>
Yeah, I have to agree with that! <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well I have to disagree. For one thing, and the major thing, the freedom to attach any monitor you want makes the Cube a better choice. My Cube has a 17" Apple TFT attached now, but over it's life has had a 10 year old Apple 17" CRT, a used (and cheap) 19" NEC (after the Apple CRT blew), and now happily sports the fine Apple 17" TFT.
Shear elegance; although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my Cube is computer as Art, while in my opinion the iMac is cheap looking. The screen is super, (especially the 17") but the deflated soccer ball look underwhelms me.
I say bring back an updated Cube, along with 17, 20, & 23 inch Cinema Displays to fall between the iMac and IBM 970 powered PowerMacs. Switchers could buy the box alone to use with their current CRT's (and upgrade later to the one of the Apple Cinema's). Options, we like options.
...
[ 12-12-2002: Message edited by: Aphelion ]</p>
<strong>... The case is expensive and difficult to manufacture, and the machine is top-heavy, which makes it grossly unsuited for education (think about kids knocking it around). The square shape limits the size and heat dissipation that any expansion cards can have. The vertical disc drive sometimes has trouble spitting out discs, and it runs slower than a horizontally mounted drive. You have to tip the machine over to plug something in, which is my least favorite aspect of the Cube. Oh, and the power supply is external ...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Seems like you have listed each and every flaw the old Cube had. This is a very good basis to design a new Cube.
Your arguments for a pizza-box instead of a cubish form factor make perfectly sense from a technical perspective. The thing I miss here is the whooa! effect. The iMac (both CTR and TFT), the Cube, the iBooks (toiletseat and new one) and the TiBook had this kind of appeal.
Coupled with my assumption for the need of a display-less Mac with limited or even no expandability at a very moderate price (say $799), I still believe we will see a new model, following the basic form factor of the Cube, soon.
<strong>I just want the old cube + PPC 970 + Radeon 9700 + 19" 1600x1200 Apple Studio Display + CHeap price + Fanless!
Well... If I remove the 'cheap price' and insert 'reasonable price', then it still does sound awesome...
[ 12-12-2002: Message edited by: snoopy ]</p>
<strong>
The CUBE was designed to be square and have a slot loading drive so that it could be fanless. There is a hole in the middle that heat radiates out of. If it was made into a mini tower then a fan would have to be added and you would lose the whole effect.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I said a little taller and a little deeper, and mean two inches at the most. That is also why I said "tiny" tower to describe the shape, not mini-tower. I should have been more exact in describing it. The top could have two vents, to make up for the extra front to back length.
I did think of a drawback to modifying the cube design like this. The cube has a top CD drive and power switch, making it difficult to set something on top, so the vent does not get blocked. If the CD drive and controls are moved to the front, people may be inclined to set things on top, making top venting impractical.
<strong>
Well I have to disagree. For one thing, and the major thing, the freedom to attach any monitor you want makes the Cube a better choice. My Cube has a 17" Apple TFT attached now, but over it's life has had a 10 year old Apple 17" CRT, a used (and cheap) 19" NEC (after the Apple CRT blew), and now happily sports the fine Apple 17" TFT.
Shear elegance; although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my Cube is computer as Art, while in my opinion the iMac is cheap looking. The screen is super, (especially the 17") but the deflated soccer ball look underwhelms me.
I say bring back an updated Cube, along with 17, 20, & 23 inch Cinema Displays to fall between the iMac and IBM 970 powered PowerMacs. Switchers could buy the box alone to use with their current CRT's (and upgrade later to the one of the Apple Cinema's). Options, we like options.
...
[ 12-12-2002: Message edited by: Aphelion ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Have you even seen one of the FP iMacs in person ? i doubt uve taken the time to appreciate it's asthetics. i dont own one myself, but i prefer the subtle smooth curvy surface to the relitavely jagged-edged cold-metallic look of the cube.
i think the analogy for asthetics would have to be ....
Cube = something you show off in the office or your post-modern-catalogue-build-studio-apartment in the city.
iMacFP = something you want at your gettaway in ur beach house in Hawaii.(and it dosent have that annoying powerbrick dangling around)
Although it could do without the tray which will be disappearing in January.
To diss the iMacs design in comparison to the FP iMac is just plain stupid. i dont own either ones and so cannot be partial to either. i do know a better product when i see and use it, and it is in my opinion that the iMacs design is better both asthetically and functionally.
1. you dont have to flip the thing over everytime u need to plug in an external device.
2. the iMac's drive is horizontal so dosent lead to decreased performance...which they traded for a toaster-like/tissue-dispencer feel when making the cube.
3.Power brick is internal in a single unit with the iMac, not so with the cube.
4. Curves are, in my opinion, better than squares and jagged edges.
Comparing the design of Cube vs Flat Panel?
They're both great designs. The Cube has a beautiful aesthetic spoiled only by the skirt and the 'toaster' grill on top. It's flawed in functionality because of brick, size (for graphic card upgrades...) and components run vertically ie inefficiently. I love the Cube and want a 'low end' to replace the eMac.
You should have the option to choose which display you want and have some upgradability. You shouldn't have to pay £1,395 inc Vat to get it.
The iMac is a superior design. The arm handle and flat monitor is state of the art. It does remove many of the design road blocks/flaws of the Cube...but hey, try upgrading the graphic card or memory or the cpu on a macine costing up to £1,695 inc VAT? Ouch. But ground breaking design in the way the Cube was.
Both have design flaws to some degree. The iMac flat has less of them..?
I still think a ten inch by ten inch all white plastic with vents on the back(!) iCube (minus levitating skirt which I never liked...rubber feet will do thanks...
Sell it as a beautiful switch machine for £595 to £895 inc VAT machine. Great edu' machine. Chose yer screen/keep yer crt, non-topple over design... and no grill on top for kids to spill pencils and things down...and still 'small' enough but big enough for expandy-land.
The iCube if prices cheaply would have sold millions. Apple just disappeared up their own cake-whole. Price. Price. Price. (If you wanna go critical mass, Apple, sell the iCube...pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap...)
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>Curves/edges. Subjective.
Comparing the design of Cube vs Flat Panel?
They're both great designs. The Cube has a beautiful aesthetic spoiled only by the skirt and the 'toaster' grill on top. It's flawed in functionality because of brick, size (for graphic card upgrades...) and components run vertically ie inefficiently. I love the Cube and want a 'low end' to replace the eMac.
You should have the option to choose which display you want and have some upgradability. You shouldn't have to pay £1,395 inc Vat to get it.
The iMac is a superior design. The arm handle and flat monitor is state of the art. It does remove many of the design road blocks/flaws of the Cube...but hey, try upgrading the graphic card or memory or the cpu on a macine costing up to £1,695 inc VAT? Ouch. But ground breaking design in the way the Cube was.
Both have design flaws to some degree. The iMac flat has less of them..?
I still think a ten inch by ten inch all white plastic with vents on the back(!) iCube (minus levitating skirt which I never liked...rubber feet will do thanks...
Sell it as a beautiful switch machine for £595 to £895 inc VAT machine. Great edu' machine. Chose yer screen/keep yer crt, non-topple over design... and no grill on top for kids to spill pencils and things down...and still 'small' enough but big enough for expandy-land.
The iCube if prices cheaply would have sold millions. Apple just disappeared up their own cake-whole. Price. Price. Price. (If you wanna go critical mass, Apple, sell the iCube...pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap...)
Lemon Bon Bon
lots of this reigns true, but i do not think a cube in any form is a good .edu machine, and this has been discussed to some extent. Schools want few to no wires and durable computers. The cube design, imo is not the most durable design.
if apple wants to appeal to edu in a non AIO fashion, they need a simple beige running moderately quickly that is pretty cheap, partly because of older hardware and partly because little money was put into R&D to develop some kind of super aestitically pleasing ultra quiet machine. but of course jobs won't "stoop" to beige.
That's a broad catch all. Ive's not one to be 2nd guessed. 'Any form'. Gee, all the possibilities...still, I guess I've got an imagination...
The Cube itself is quite tough and sturdy.
A redesign could many of its problems. Edu' market?
Well, I work in schools and I can tell you most things don't stand up to the kind of hammer kids give them. The Cube's design (bar the silly 'asking for it' grill on top...and equally silly skirt...)
I'm looking forward to the kids dropping those tablet pcs we're getting in...
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>
I still think a ten inch by ten inch all white plastic with vents on the back(!) iCube (minus levitating skirt which I never liked...rubber feet will do thanks...
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately, you can't just move things around like that. The Cube is architected around one principle: Silence. Apple settled on convection cooling, which means vents at the bottom and at the top, and air flowing upward (heat rises). That means everything's oriented vertically so as not to block airflow. That, in turn, means all the plugs are either on top (yeccch!) or on the bottom. But if they're on the bottom, you need the skirt. And if you have the skirt, you're effectively suspending the computer from the top of the case, and so you want the case to be as compact as possible to reduce stress, which aggravates all the above problems. Don't think for a minute that Apple didn't spend blood, sweat and tears getting that machine designed and into production. There are reasons it has the flaws that it has, and fixing them means reengineering the whole machine.
I still think the pizza box is unbeatable as a low end, headless configuration. It would not be ideal for education, but it would be as close as you could get for a headless machine, allowing for the necessary wires sticking out.
Also, keep in mind that as soon as you bring in expansion cards (never mind side vents), you bring in fans. It's awfully hard to engineer a silent machine that accounts for a large empty space and the same space filled with an arbitrarily hot PCI/AGP card, the location and intensity of whose heat sources is unknown. You can't even use the PCI bus power as a cutoff for how much heat to expect, because the really hot cards plug directly into a wall socket. You can make sure the cards cool themselves, but then you end up like me, with a custom version of the RADEON just for the Cube, with a (loud, buzzy, thrice-damned) fan whining away atop the GPU, that can't just be replaced with any old video card (even if a standard card would fit...).
Hardware design - interesting hardware design, anyway, is not simple. Food for thought.
[ 12-13-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>
I still think the pizza box is unbeatable as a low end, headless configuration. It would not be ideal for education, but it would be as close as you could get for a headless machine, allowing for the necessary wires sticking out.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You seem to prefer the pizza box shape. What is the advantage of that over say a tiny tower design? As I look at my desk, a pizza box would use up a lot of scarce real estate, whereas a tiny tower would not. To keep the monitor as low as possible, I prefer to have it on the desk surface, rather than on top a computer.
I see a tiny tower being about 9 or 10 inches both tall and deep, and about 6 or 7 inches wide. Such a footprint would fit on my desk fairly well. It would be nice to have no fan, but it is possible to keep fans reasonably quiet, especially in a lower powered consumer product where there is less heat generated. I know a mechanical engineer who says the secret of a quiet fan is to use a big one and turn it slowly. Maybe he's right.
In redoing the cube, Apple need only do a few simple things. Use the space efficiently, use a strong fan and thick (sound deadening) case.
One daughtercard, one PCI slot, one AGP, One optical (front mount) and one HDD bay. Easy solutions to all your problems, with just a little care.
First, the cube must be larger.
The Mobo goes on the bottom of the cube. the AGP, PCI and daughtercard slots arise out of the mobo on each of the three upright faces of the cube, the front is open to accept drives and the fascia slides out core reactor style just like the old cube used to, just in front this time. The entire interior volume remains empty for the two drives and the PS. RAM plugs in underneath the mobo like an iMac (2 layer PCB). Like the iMac, the chassis acts as a heat sink for the CPU. Heat pipes cool it against a large finned metal bulwark at the rear of the chassis. All the cards face the exterior of the cube. Between the chassis and the plastic outer case, air flows over each of the cards. A fan in the top portion of the cube, draws air through the center of the cube, through the chassis, between the case and out the back of the machine, perforated like the powermacs. It can be done. Shuttle might be loud, and Apple wouldn't be silent, but neither would it have to be obtrusive.
<strong>
You seem to prefer the pizza box shape. What is the advantage of that over say a tiny tower design? As I look at my desk, a pizza box would use up a lot of scarce real estate, whereas a tiny tower would not. To keep the monitor as low as possible, I prefer to have it on the desk surface, rather than on top a computer.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, they're designed to be slipped under the monitor, saving desktop real estate. If you don't use it that way, then yes, it would chew up a fair amount of space.
Other advantages (thinking here of educational environments as well): They can be opened from the top, LC style, or from the front, Xserve style, and everything's laid out flat - allowing the machine to be expanded and serviced in place more easily than a tower can be. The shape can hide a full-length (12") PCI or AGP card. Convection cooling this form is easy, and Apple's been doing it since the Apple //c. If you want to draw air up through the base and out the top, then having the base and the top be the largest surfaces is a Good Thing(TM).
[quote]<strong>I see a tiny tower being about 9 or 10 inches both tall and deep, and about 6 or 7 inches wide. Such a footprint would fit on my desk fairly well.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's about the size of the Cube, so it would have to be packed about as densely as the Cube. But if you're throwing in slots, and setting it up horizontally, then there will be fans. However, as the iMac and the PowerBook demonstrate (and the Cube doesn't), it's quite possible to mute them well enough. I don't think the result would be as easy to maintain or expand as a pizza box could be, either.
[ 12-13-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>
Well, they're designed to be slipped under the monitor, saving desktop real estate. If you don't use it that way, then yes, it would chew up a fair amount of space.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
With wider and larger LCD monitors being used, it seems the pizza box case will become more and more of a drawback. I'm not stuck on any particular design, but I would like it to use less desk area. Guess I was not thinking about video cards when I suggested a size and shape for a cube replacement. Maybe 12.5 or 13 inches is the smallest front to back dimension that should be considered. If it is 8 inches tall and 8 inches wide, it could be called the stretch Cube.
I go along with your goal to have it easily serviceable. I'd likely buy any smallish Mac Apple builds without a monitor, provided it does not take up too much desk space.