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Improving Computer Form Factors? 478

Posted by Cliff from the going-beyond-ATX dept.
eschasi asks: "Recently we've been seeing some trend towards smaller footprint machines like the new iMac or the tiny PC system shown in this recent article. All these tiny systems have scalability or quality problems for me, and I don't think it has to be that way. But all the solutions I see require discarding much of what we think is standard to desktop/deskside mechanical design for PCs. Apple has been able to do with much more freedom becuase they own the whole process. PC makers, however, don't. The last major improvement to PC motherboard/case design was the ATX design, and that was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. I think that major improvement can still be made in an evolutionary way. I want both worlds: I want a small footprint; I want it in a premium system; I want it to have enough room for a pair of hard drives, a 5.25" external slot, and a 3.5" external slot; and I want it using largely off-the-shelf components, and I don't want to have to re-invent ATX and PCI and ya-da-day to get it!" Do you feel the same way? How would you improve the current crop of PC form factors?

"IMHO large chunks of the problem could be solved by taking advantage of both sides of the motherboard. Put the CPU and most of the misc. chips on one side, put the expansion slots and RAM on the other. The case design would have to change but that's quite doable.

Using both sides of the motherboard does more than reduce footprint by half while returning to full expandability. You also get the benefit of having the RAM sit directly opposite the CPU, reducing trace length problems and permitting RAM bus speed increases. Other timing problems might also be reduced.

I've left aside the rest of my extensive arguements for why this is or isn't a good idea; what I'm interested in is this:

  • Do other people see the same drawbacks with small-footprint systems?
  • What seems to be out there on the drawing board for post-ATX systems?"
Krow's comments: Form factor and cute design is all great and lovely but I want to know what can be done to reduce electrical usage for the average geek's home hosting farm collection. Even small usage reductions add up.
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Improving Computer Form Factors? More

Improving Computer Form Factors?

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  • cPCI Cards (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fiori ( 45848 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:50PM (#2838428) Homepage
    I'd love not to need to open the case, move all the cables around, and try not to slice my fingers on the case when changing or adding a card. I'd like to see the PCI and AGP internal slots replaced with cPCI cards that slide in on rails from the outside.

    • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:00PM (#2838506) Homepage
      Why stop at cards? I could also see hard drives and CD-ROM drives going this route as well. For those who have Dell laptops (maybe others do this, too. I'm just mentioning them because I have one) look how they have the hard drive installed. Remove one screw and it slides out of the side, easily replaced or swapped.

      Also, it's been mentioned before but bring back the USB hub in the monitor base. Means I don't have to run long USB cables for my mouse and keyboard. And for that matter, how about speaker outputs and microphone inputs? Heck, IBM for awhile had units that had the CD-ROM drive in the monitor base. Really wouldn't take up that much real estate beneath a CRT that already has a lot of dead space beneath it.

      • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:4, Informative)

        by IntlHarvester ( 11985 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:16PM (#2838606) Journal
        I could also see hard drives and CD-ROM drives going this route as well.

        A few years ago, Intel and Microsoft came up with a spec called Device Bay [1394ta.com] that would allow end users to easily slide-in USB and 1394 drives.

        Never caught on with OEMs though. Probably because of the lack of integrated 1394 controllers, but also because in the white-box market every penny counts, and for things like the iPaq desktop, the vendor would prefer that you buy proprietary parts.

      • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Sawbones ( 176430 )
        It's a plug for the Evil Empire [microsoft.com], but their natural keyboards have a small usb hub built in now. They've also got an array of "Internet Buttons" along the top that are basically useless to me, but I've been using my USB mouse through it just fine.

        Also, the HP machines at the EE department of my alma matter [washington.edu]had headphone and mic ports in them. It may not be as convenient as if they were in the monitor, but then again it's a smaller sting to replace a keyboard than a monitor if things start to flake out.

      • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:5, Insightful)

        by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @07:42PM (#2839018) Homepage
        Remove one screw and it slides out of the side, easily replaced or swapped.

        ...or DROPPED!

        I've seen a Dell hard disk destroyed in exactly this way. Granted, the owner should have noticed the screw missing, but still, I'd say Dell is mostly to blame for having the hard disk held in by a single, tiny screw.

        I'll take a Powerbook any day:

        - Batteries and CDROM are securely held in their compartments by a spring-loaded latch. It's almost impossible to accidentally unlatch them, and if you do, who cares, it's just the battery.

        - The hard disk, memory, and 802.11 card are stowed safely underneath the keyboard. It takes about two seconds to flip down the keyboard, 20 seconds to install an Airport card, five minutes to install memory, and five minutes to swap the HD.

        - *much* sleeker/thinner styling than the Dells, whether Titanium or Bronze.

        Vaios are my favorite PC laptop, but that's not saying much. I can't stand the keyboards on the Vaios. Why does nearly every PC latop maker think they're doing us a favor by putting the arrow keys where the shift key ought to be?

      • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:3, Interesting)

        by PhotoGuy ( 189467 )
        SGI's O2 computers were cool like that. Everything, including power supply, hard drives, etc., popped out in a slidable tray. When you popped 'em all out, it was pretty much an empty shell.

        It would definitely be a nice trend.

        I also like the early Macs (not sure about the current ones), where you could remove all components with tabs and such, no screwdriver required.

        -me

    • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 4of12 ( 97621 )

      Personally, I'd like it if the whole PCI bus was changed from electrical to some kind of optical connector.

      Something in a connector kind of like what you find on newer consumer electronic audio components these days.

      I know that optical BW has got to be sufficient, AFAICT the only issues are the cost of putting the converters on motherboards and the latency of these devices.

      Then, the CPU and RAM would be in a single small quiet cube with a small power supply and fan and a handful of optical connectors.

      These would then connect to CD, DVD, IDE drives, monitors, keyboards, boxes that convert to RJ-45 for copper Ethernet, to USB, IEEE1394 or whatever else in the way of legacy connected devices are still around.

      Then, you could keep the noisy disks in a utility room where they belong and the desktop would be a handful of small quiet cubes with kbd,LCD,mouse instead of this large hulk of a PC case that needs to enclose a populated M/B with wide ribbon connectors, CD drives, disks and the whole doghouse.

      Just dreaming.

      • Re:cPCI Cards (Score:5, Interesting)

        by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @07:59PM (#2839090) Homepage
        Then, you could keep the noisy disks in a utility room where they belong and the desktop would be a handful of small quiet cubes

        There are some products out there which let you extend DVI using fiber optics (100 yards) or electronic repeaters (50 yards). Take a look at www.gefen.com [gefen.com]. You could put your PC off in the closet and have just a perfectly silent monitor+keyboard in your office.

        The fiber equipment is ridiculously expensive - about $3K, but the electrical repeaters are probably a bit more affordable.

        You can't do this with VGA due to the distortion and ghosting, but it works flawlessly with DVI. Also the spec on DVI [ddwg.org] is an interesting read - it was actually designed with optical transmission in mind. The data rates are insane, so it's split across four channels (clock + 3 colors, IIRC) - the total data rate for a 1600x1024 display is something like 4Gbps.
    • Something like that, although practical, won't happen. To do that, it would involve having to lock off a large chunk of the case for rail systems for such "cPCI" cards, even if that space is being used or not. Also, who knows what ribbons/cables/giant heat sinks would be in the way of the PCI card.

      I find that a major problem with small-PC construction is the actual PCI cards themselves. You see, there's no standard for the size of a PCI card. It can be as small as a 3/4" high network card to as big as 4 1/2" tall, as short as 5" or as long as 9" (or larger). Every single small-PC I've come across (LPX, NLX, Flex-ATX, or proprietary) which is less than 4 1/2" tall inside the chasis, either some kind of riser card is needed to place ISA/PCI cards parallel to the motherboard, or using hard-to-find 1/2 height PCI cards. They often get in the way because of their un-proportionate size (ever try to grasp that tiny network card that's placed inbetween two full-size PCI cards?).

      One thing which I think would desparately help PC architecure is to standardize PCI card sizes, as well as offer half-height PCI cards for flex-ATX and mATX motherboards. By getting rid of the irregular size of the PCI card, it lets PC architects to actually plan for efficient PC cases by planning for how much space will be used for PCI/AGP cards, rather than just guessing by wasting a lot of space for it.

  • Where do you want to go today? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Renraku ( 518261 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:51PM (#2838434) Homepage
    The reason ATX has been the last major change in PC form factors in a while is because it was about the last thing we could really need from it. However, I do agree that there should be smaller or larger form factors available, ATX simplifies the whole process by allowing case/power supply builders to create a bulk supply of the same thing. If you want something different, build it yourself, or pay someone to build it for you. It goes back to my old equation. In order to invent something, your need has to overcome the time needed to invent it, and the resources used in creating it.
    • One of the largest problems with the ATX design however (at least for the argument of this article) is the size of the motherboard itself (no pun intended). I mean, even if you said - let me build my own case, you are limited by the size of the MoBo you have.

      From what I am reading from this article is that the writer wants to pursue as whole new motherboard design, lets call it MAT - for Mini AT. With this MAT design, you would be able to still have the current expandabiliy of the desktop, but have it in a smaller system.

      Look at the bulk of current systems - you have a side mounted MoBo. If MAT kept this, BUT was able to use this double sided printed - you could take much of the depth of you case out. The height might not change much. Or you could keep the same depth, but change the height, amd move much of the stuff (like the power supply) to the front where you just vacated much of the MoBo. This would result in a case that is slightly wider than what we see now, shorter, and still just as deep.

      What I envision when I am thinking about what the auther is talking about is to take the MoBo and do a top mounted design (you will see why in a bit). The processor and most of the chips would reside on the side of the MoBo that faces UP. You would mount your cards on the other side (probably same size cards). Your power supply and drives could be mounted at the bottom of the system, under the cards. The main issue would be venting - and with that, I would propose vents along the TOP back of the system, with the MoBo doing most of the channeling of air. It would direct air in a way that it would have to go to the front of the case, OVER the MoBo and then out the back - this would HOPEFULLY displace the rising air off of the CPU and other chips. You could use a number of fans to input air from the lower side of the system. Overall, you would end up with a wider, but possibly shorter and not nearly a long front to back.

      This would be a very interesting project to undertake. But while making a case would probably be easy to do OR get done, making a MoBo that would fit to these standards is probably beyond the range of most people who are reading this.

      -RonB

  • hmm (Score:3, Redundant)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <`nomadicworld' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:51PM (#2838439) Homepage
    I think the main problem is cooling; you can jam everything into a surprisingly small volume, you just run into heating problems. What I don't understand is why don't they make laptop-sized desktops? Just make a notebook computer without a monitor; small footprint and it should be relatively cheap (considering that the display is one of the most expensive components in a laptop).

    • Why I don't want a laptop (Score:3, Informative)

      by huie ( 148646 )
      Laptops have everything integrated and to upgrade anything, if possible, you have to buy it from the manufacturer (namely the CD/DVD/whatever).

      The Shuttle SV24 allows you to use one PCI card, a 5-1/4" bay and your choice of processors (okay, maybe not _any_ processor, but still, you have more choice than with most laptops). You're not stuck with the relatively low-res display that the laptop has and you can use your preferred monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's also nice to have the keyboard disconneced from the display so you can get a more ergonomic setup.

      Yeah, if you've got a USB keyboard and mouse, you don't really have to worry about that, but then you'll need to get a hub. And you can plug your external monitor into the laptop, but why spend the money on a laptop anyway? For the built-in UPS/battery?

      No, Tom's Hardware has it right- the only problem with the Shuttle design is the integrated graphics (and possibly the audio too), but for most people, that's a pretty reasonable compromise for a small unobtrusive system.

      Yeah, I'd like to wait and see what might come out with the nVidia GeForce chipset in the Flex-ATX form factor.

      Interestingly, notice how no one cares about where to put a floppy drive? :)

    • Cappuccino & Espresso anyone?? (Score:4, Informative)

      by TMLink ( 177732 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:33PM (#2838688)
      Have we forgotten about these [arstechnica.com] two beauties [arstechnica.com] already? It's already been done. Don't know if there has been another updated version of these to come back out, but I assume you can still get the Cappuccino machine.

      Great little machine, if you've got the money for it, and have a reason for wanting it...(easy machine to haul around for gaming sessions). But this machine's exactly what you're looking for.

  • I know what I'd get rid of... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by codetalker ( 245862 ) <mobersne@@@chat...carleton...ca> on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:54PM (#2838458)
    RIBBON CABLES. I hate the things. I would much prefer something where you just plug the drive in like it were a card and off it goes.
    • So? Get a SCSI SCA bay and some decent SCA trays and there you are. Works like a charm.
    • I would much prefer something where you just plug the drive in like it were a card and off it goes

      It's been done. Look up microchannel architecture (or better yet, open up an old IBM PS/2). Everything slid in and out on rails, and where other computers would use screws, they used fat plastic pins. Drives connected to the contoller by a riser card with edge connectors.
    • This will be possible as soon as drive manufacturers get around to building hard drives and the like with a native (or at least semi-native) FireWire (aka IEEE1394) interface. Most FireWire cards I have seen have that mystery internal connector. FireWire might even provide enough power to power the drive itself. How does daisy-chaining internal drives with one cable sound?

      I haven't read much into Serial ATA, but that sounds promising also.
    • The good news is that the technology to do this is cheap, proven, popular, and available now. [1394ta.org]

      The bad news is that the motherboard and drive manufacturers are largely ignoring it in favor of standardizing on an ugly, unproven and untested hack [serialata.org] that won't be available in consumer kit until 2004 at the earliest.

      Why? You got me, captain. As far as I can tell, because they prefer paying patent licensing fees to Maxtor rather than Apple.

      If I sound bitter, it's only because of the blood I've shed having to route IDE cables inside my Wintendo box.
    • Ribbon cables give you flexibility in locating the drive connectors. Mechanically, sliding drives into a fixed connector doesn't work unless everyone makes the drives the exact same size put the connector in the exact same place. You can get that in SCSI racks (I'm not sure about interchangeability between brands), but it's pricey. It's cheaper to make the drive only as tall and long as needed, and put the connector wherever is easiest to reach the internal connections.

  • Box design (Score:2, Insightful)

    by spineboy ( 22918 )
    I imagine thermal output will have to be looked at closely - since your drives/cards will be much closer than they ever were to that nice new fast and HOT AMD chip. Of course your CPU fan could probably serve to cool the whole system if done right.
    If this is going to catvh on it'll have to be standardized - kinda like car stereos - otherwise various sound cards and/or video cards and wires are gonna hit each other.
    One last thing - working on these motherboards/systems is gonna be like working on modern cars as opposed to 1970's muscle cars where you could almost sit inside the hood as opposed to today where you almost have to be Plasticman or Mr. Fantastic..

  • TARDIS case (Score:2, Funny)

    by giminy ( 94188 )
    Some day you'll be able to store all the inside bits in another dimension, much like Dr. Who's police box.

  • Other Form Factors (Score:3, Informative)

    by sachmet ( 10423 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:55PM (#2838475)
    There are other form factors, such as NTX, that one could build a small computer from. The major problem lies in mass-produced small footprint cases; these can be difficult to come by. Someone pointed me to this cheap chassis [googlegear.com] at GoogleGear. It might be worth looking in to.
    • I think yyou mean NLX form factor [formfactors.org] and not NTX. In any case, you make a valid point. These flexATX boards are a nice idea, however they are a hack job of a standard (ATX) that wasn't designed with compactness in mind (in my opinion). Shrinking the ATX form factor comprimises expandability--typically a tiny ATX board has only one PCI slot and integrated everything. Also, the small flexATX cases strike me as not very serviceable (cramped, awkward layout, cooling issues and so on).

      The NLX form factor was designed for compatness, serviceability and flexibility in mind. The mainboard itself is very small and has no expansion slots--rather it has a card edge that plugs into a special slot on a backplane. The backplane contains the mainboard slot plus one or more PCI slots (the only drawback I see is that I havent found an NLX backplane that has an AGP slot--other than that it would be an ideal form factor!). The typical mini-desktop might only have one or two PCI slots, but with this form factor largger cases or industrial racks could have a backplane with many more slots (expandability).

      Also, since the mainboard plugs INTO a slot rather than having slots with cards in them it makes expandability/serviceability MUCH easier--it you need to expand memory, upgrade or replace the motherboard, etc. you simply unlatch the board and pull it out the back of the case, without removing any cards or disassembling the chassis. The prime drawback, as sachmet mentions, is the lack of mainboards and cases sold in this form factor. Consequently they fetch larger prices. Why this is is beyond me--I guess it's the inertia of maintaining a modicum of compatibilityh with the 20 year old PC form factor...

  • One word (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 )
    HEAT! HEAT and more HEAT! The smaller it is, the hotter it will be. The smaller it is, the harder it is to cool.

  • Big Cases. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Heem ( 448667 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:56PM (#2838481) Homepage Journal
    I still like the old, big towers that are about the height of your desk. you can fit so many goodies in there, who cares if you really need them or not, you still CAN have them. Why does everything have to be so small these days? Little tiny cars,pager sized cell phones, cell phone size computers, small PC cases, iMac's and other similar computers (gateway profile etc, basically laptops on sticks). No thanks, not for this guy anyway. I'll keep my big truck, my clunky cell phone, and my 3 foot tall computer case.

    • I think, also, that CFO types like to think they get something for their money. Our IT heads would always get the full enclosed rack for servers so they could point to "something big." If the back of the rack was ever opened, you'd find something the size of a tower PC.
      Under cold rational thought, does it make sense. No. But it sure make getting six digit purchase orders through.

      They whole issue of size is as much a question of psychology as geometry. (Must stay away from Freud jokes)

  • Uhhh... we already have a small standard. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Phosphor3k ( 542747 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:57PM (#2838483)
    Its called MicroATX and FlexATX. One of which(i cant remember) the FV24 Shuttle system uses. The problem is manufacturers not correctly implimenting the standard, makes for hard interchangability of parts.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • With the market like it is in the countries where people will be buying computers, the "footprint" system doesn't make up for in style what it drops in price. Currently, the people who are buying computers are either looking for power or affordability, not a suave appearance.

    You might say this isn't true, but the majority of computer users aren't "geeks". Since the computer isn't so widespread that it's in every room of the house - usually, there's one or two an "affluent" household - people can hide them away in offices which aren't going to be seen by your houseguests and the like, making the "style" thing unnecessary. Furthermore, the consumer has gotten so used to the grey-box case that it's still considered "in style".

    That's not to say that someday in the future, the smaller, chic computer won't become more widespread. I think the problem is that the consumer isn't willing to spend more AND sacrifice power to do it, and currently, that's what they've got to do.
  • I'm having trouble getting to the slashdotted article. But let me say how nice it would be to have the audio connections in a convenient place up front. It bugs the hell out of me to have to reach behind my PC, which is a mess of wires.

    If a smaller form factor is to succeed, it would need to rely on wireless peripherals. The big problem is the tangled mess of wires in the back. For all the shortcomings of laptaps, at least everything is built into the design rather than relying on peripherals to do everything.
  • I don't know if using both sides would actually reduce footprint, at least as far as width is concerned. While you _could_ reduce height by moving components normally stacked on top of each other to opposite each other, these components now occupy twice the horizontal length. Still not bad if you can stick the monitor on it instead of on a monitor stand (and cool it sufficiently).

    psxndc

  • Simi-OT What about the Inverse? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AnalogBoy ( 51094 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @05:57PM (#2838493) Journal
    mofoinasciiartistwannabetroll...er HI! me again. Just wanted to ask the inverse question. What if you want your computer to be big, frightening looking, with lots of blinkinlights?

    I mean, granted, a modern minitower is nice.. but two or three lights just arent enough.

    I therefore start the campaign for more blinkinlights.

    Sun Systems are nice. Large (You have the "Refrigerator Cabinet", "End Table" and "Ottoman" form factors). Adequate blinking lights (ESPECIALLY on 6500's!)..

    I want my computer to have lots of lights. I don't care if they do anything. I want my keyboard to sit in the middle of a console with a lot of dials, gauges, digital readouts, switches, buttons, knobs, and things that go "PING!" (a ping light WOULD be good, to think of it.) I want to see my network utilization on a graph led. I want to see my processor usage there, too. I want to see a red light come on each time some PFY discovers WinNuke, or someone tries to NIMDA me. I want to have one of those covered red buttons that may or may not launch a thermonuclear device. I want screens that go "zeeeeeeeerp, zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerp" as text scrolls across it.

    I already have three monitors on my desk. Wires strewn everywhere. But what else do i have? An Ultra 5, A beanie baby, and a dell optiplex. And a Dell Keyboard (at least i makes those satisfying *click*'s.). I WANT SWITCHES, dammit.

    soo... any suggestions?

    [notices steam rising from ears]

    err.. teehee..
    • find an old Irwin Allen computer prop(those where all those computer wqith blinking lights a spinning tapes in shows like 6million dollar man, Lost in space, etc...) then stick a PC in it. Be sure to take pictures of the people who first see your "killer" box..

    • I want my computer to have lots of lights. ... I want to see my network utilization on a graph led. I want to see my processor usage there, too.

      Check out Matrix Orbital's collection of LCDs and VFDs [matrixorbital.com]. They're pretty snazzy-looking, and lcdproc clients for processor usage, network usage, are already around. I have two of their VFDs (a 20x2 and a 20x4) and they are good blinkenlights. LinuxCentral [linuxcentral.com] sells them.

      I know this isn't an answer to all your needs, but it should help a little.

    • At one of my old jobs, they had a "console" for an old mainframe. An Amdahl IIRC. Anyway, it was basically the size of a desk with a dashboard of lights and switches along the back of the desk. It was easily big enough to use as a normal desk if you wanted to, as it had a ton of flat space on top. But the best part was it had an honest-to-god mechanical odometer in the dash part which counted CPU hours (I think.) Anyway, I always wanted to liberate it and take it home, as it sat there unused for years because no one wanted to move it. But alas, it disappeared before I had the chance. Would've made a great desk. Oh well. At least I have my Sun 3/160 end tables.
    • > I therefore start the campaign for more blinkinlights.

      Take the filter on the fan grill on the front of the case. Stick a blue LED behind it. Hook the blue LED up to either your NIC's network-use light.

      Next to the blue LED, get one of those traffic-light-green LEDs (regular green LEDs are lame. The traffic-light-green ones look like the green stuff behind the heads of Borg drones), and hook it up to your hard drive use light.

      The ventilation holes (you don't have ventilation holes in front of your case? drill some ;-) will then be backlit by a diffuse (by the fan's filter) green/blue source, and flicker eerily, changing color as you use more network or disk resources.

      Similar hacks for other stuff - modem RX/TX pins on your serial port, or a graphic equalizer hooked into your sound card - are also feasible.

      Use the guts of one of those little outdoor thermometers to give yourself an LCD "case temperature" display.

      Your blinkenlights are out there, you just gotta work at finding 'em!

  • The computer market reminds me of the way cars are. Older cars had wide open engine areas with plenty of room to work on them, nowadays the engine area is so packed, it makes even changing the oil a real bugger. You want smaller form factor? Then go with a pre built machine. If you want to customise the hell out of it, your pretty much stuck with the older atx form factor. Unfortunately, just like cars the two seem to be mutually exclusive right now.
  • What the PC industry needs is an optical motherboard standard. By this I mean a way to have tiny SIMM-like cards, each for the CPU/BIOS, RAM, Networking components, HD/CD interfaces, USB interfaces, etc, and then have them all communicate via one unique serial optical interface. This way the cards can be made VERY small, and each one could be placed in any position (sideways, upside down, flat, vertically) inside almost any motherboard available. As a matter of fact, with this simple innovation anyone could easily copy the iMac (old and new) looks and still have a 100% Wintel machine. So the bottom line: We need a super high-speed "optical motherboard interconnect" technology to solve this problem, and trully revolutionize the PC architecture. I can actually imagine an "inside out" PC where all internal components are actually external components, with only one single special cable carrying optical data and electrical power among them.
  • Use the smallest technology that we've got and that is constantly used in laptops. Your computer case does not have to be a case, your drives can be packed together in smallest cases. I wonder if over time I will be able to put together my home machine from completely wireless parts. A wireless plasma screen, a bunch of wireless HDs, a wireless CPU unit and a wireless memory bank. Wireless video and sound cards, wireless printers, scanners, mice and keyboard (already are here) and ofcourse wireless network cards. I know, I know - the bus speed is the problem in this setup, but hey, what a convinient system, no more wires. Of-course there will always be nicely configured wired cases. But imagine the possibilities - put your wireless CPU directly into a fridge and do not bother building a cooling system around your case.....

  • Attention chassis manufacturers: HANDLES (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mojotooth ( 53330 ) <mojotooth.gmail@com> on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:01PM (#2838511) Journal
    I'm with the submitter that smaller form factors are nice. However one thing that I know they can control right here and now is the presence of HANDLES on the cases.

    I'm an avid gamer. I had to buy a third-party (albeit excellent) product from CaseAce [geargrip.com] to help me carry my box to LAN parties etc. And I got a flat-screen monitor that was easier to carry than my 17" monitor.

    But if computer manufacturers would just put a stout handle built in to the case, that would go a long way towards making me happy. Same thing for monitor builders, although I understand the problem is different for them.

    For instance, look at the Gamecube [nintendo.com]. Arguably as much power as the other gaming platforms, but much easier for portage purposes. Why can't computer makers take a hint here?

    • Why can't computer makers take a hint here?

      Apple got the hint about 3 years ago, with the blue 'n' white cases. They were butt-ugly, but extremely functional. And the latest Mac towers have fixed the butt-ugly problem.

      Drop by a CompUSA (don't worry, you don't have to buy anything -- you won't even be able to find a salesman if you want one) and feast your eyes on the Macs.

    • *Ahem* [apple.com]

      I'm sorry. I really couldn't help myself. It was too easy. :)

      But seriously, I have seen a few third party ATX cases with handles built in, and a few bolt-on handle kits.

  • Stackable components (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:02PM (#2838517) Homepage Journal
    What about changing the way the AGP/PCI/ISA cards fit onto the motherboard? SBC's use cards that stack onto one side of the board. If this was done, you'd save about 4" of height. Just have the AGP stack on one side of the motherboard and the PIC cards stack on the other. Cooling would be a factor, but a single fan would push air more directly over the components, so I think it would work out ok. Laptop sized hard drives could become industry standard in time, and hopefully at some point floppy drives won't be used anymore (I dont have one in my system). Finally, CD/DVD drives could either be made smaller by making them slot-loading, or by using external drives (ala SCSI or USB). I guess that leaves the power supply, which I don't know much about, but it seems like there's a lot of wasted space in that little metal box. :) My computer, using a stacking concept, small footprint motherboard and an external CDR/DVD would probably be able to fit inside a 5"x5"x5" cube.

  • Old School (Score:3, Funny)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:03PM (#2838521)
    Some of the features that have been inherited from the old IBM's and Compaqs should probably be reconsidered.

    For a lot of systems that were made and sold Back In The Day, the power supply was, wisely, in a separate box from the mobo. The CPU is not the only heat source on a PC... Setting the power supply behind your desk, away from the case, might make a small system a lot easier to do.

    Also, we have been keeping the keyboard as a separate component ever since the old 8086 days... but is that always the best way to go?

    It seems to me that the perfect reduced-footprint destop PC design would look a little like a laptop PC with no screen, a nicer keyboard, and no touchpad... perhaps with a cable output for bridging to an optional stand-alone box for PCI expansion cards (for those who want the flexibility).

    The end result: a latter-day C-64. Ahh, nostalgia...

    • Ahh, I remember my Amiga 500 fondly. It was designed as you suggest, a big keyboard, floppy on the side, power supply in a big brick on the floor.

      What always amazed me about that design was if you looked at the back all the cables for external floppy, serial, video, printer, and so on had ways that you could screw the cables in so that they would not accidentally come loose.

      That was really quite thoughtful of them, there's nothing like having a peripheral accidentally come unplugged to ruin your day.

      It's just too bad the power supply cable wasn't similarly attached. Pull the computer forward... *pop* there goes the power.
  • A case should only be 1U high. Air could be moved across all boards with fewer fans, and start stacking to get the over all volume down...minimize L x H x W

  • Few things stick out in my mind (Score:3, Interesting)

    by joeflies ( 529536 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:04PM (#2838538)
    Most of my things don't have to do with the board form factor but rather irks about cases that mount the board.

    1) Improve the layout to facillitate air flow. Perhaps if there was a way to vent the cpu, vid card, and power supply and atmospher cool the rest, then perhaps it could be done with fewer fans.

    2) Make front-mounted slots a standard so that adding front mounted devices such as the Creative EAX, USB and Firewire ports, headphone jack, could all be done without making custom modifications or using up an external drive bay.

    3) Edge-mounted cabling? Nothing bugs me more than having to unplug all of my IDE drives to change ram.

    4) How about let's all de-evolve into s-bus computers form factor, then scale by adding cpu-self contained boards (what was that, the compaq 386?) that plug in the bus.

    5) screwless drive bays?

    6) how about a 1U alternative designed for the home?. I'd think more home appliances things with WiFI could be made with a equipment rack-mounted system if it didn't take up so much room.

  • Board design doesn't work that way. (Score:4, Informative)

    by pagercam2 ( 533686 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:04PM (#2838539)
    The idea of puting all the chips on one side and slots on the other, while it sounds easy is a real nightmare for HW designers. Many of these chips have 500+ pins (PGA) or 1000+ ball (BGA) these are all comming from a chip less than 2" on a side (PGA) and 1"+ for BGA and all those wires need to go somewhere, the PGA devices have to have holes in the board and can only get wires out from underneath, by going between pins and often only 2 wires fit so another wire has to use another layer. The problem is layers increase cost much faster than additional area, so the boards being bigger than they have to be saves money. There have been specialty technologies developed to get higer denisties, but these are majorly expensive and not realistic for consumer level products. The most impressive I've heard of is IBM super-computer technology, which used a 57 layer board, getting 8 layers to line up is expensive and there is a 30% scrap rate (IIRC) they had to make 100+ boards at 57 layers to get just a couple of working boards. The best way to make smaller machines is to go multi board and stack, the intel processor modules go along way in this direction as do the PCI adapter board that have one slot that you plug a board into that has multiple PCI slots. The heat is going to be the bigest problem no matter how hard you try, smaller means less air and as clock speeds increase less air isn't the right answer. Water cooling, or the electric coolers could help, but its always a how much do you want to pay to get small, fast etc...
  • I'm in the IT department of a company that handles calls for other companies. With PC's getting smaller and smaller, a problem arises with preventing theft. (I'll try not to rant about people not doing their jobs.) Supervisors are apparently too busy to watch their people who are all sitting on the same 2 rows. The PC's we're using now, are small enough to fit into a large backpack. Security can't search everyone as they leave the building, and metal detectors and such are quite an expense/hassle.

    The last center I was at before transferring to Arizona had large towers. There was no way someone was going to walk out with one of these without someone seeing them. The only reason we had large towers, is because the systems were old (166's). From that perspective, I regret that it is more difficult to order large PC's in bulk. Sure we could order the chassis and put all the parts in them ourselves, but that takes a lot of time, too.

  • Stackable! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jathos ( 170499 )
    I'd love to see a modular case, whereby you could add components as you see fit while at the same time EXPANDING the case. Maybe it would use Firewire or USB2 internally, as well as PCI and IDE. With a sleek, modular design, you could make it look good, and you'd never run out of expansion slots again.

  • Look at consoles (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:08PM (#2838558) Homepage Journal
    but not the XBox, it doesn't solve any size problems. I like the idea that I don't have to open the computer to change cards. But I would also like to not have to fiddle with ribbon cables. I want all my drives 5.25 and 3.5 to be hot swap. Just slide in and out while the computer is on, and they get auto configured like USB. Also nix the PS/2, serial, and paralell ports. I want like 8 USBs instead of 2. And on RAID boards with 4 IDE plugs put them all next to each other. Not two in the normal spot and two over by the PCI slots.

    Putting stuff on the other side of the board has advantages and disadvantages, but however you do it a shrink in board size will rock. You will no longer need a full tower case to get a bunch of drives in. Mid tower cases will be able to hold as many drives as full towers do now if you shrink the board.

    As for cooling, look at other small computers, like console systems. Especially the GameCube. It has one fant blowing air in on one side, out on the other. Because of it's small size, it becomes easier to cool, not harder. You have less fans, moving more air.

  • Legos are the answer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nsample ( 261457 ) <nsample AT stanford DOT edu> on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:09PM (#2838564) Homepage
    Really. Legos.

    I was given the idea by looking at the original Google server in the basement of the Stanford CS department. Its case is built from Legos (or, maybe Duplos in reality... they're pretty big).

    But why not start with a small form factor for the mobo+busses+limited drivespace. Then, anything you want to add on gets clicked together with another piece. Need two external 5 1/4 bays? Use a 2H piece. Build it as you see fit.

    The real issue at that point is a standard bus architecture to bridge the components, but I think the flexibility potential is immense. Got too many devices? Click in an additional 1H powersupply. Need to move your CDRW between boxes? It's a "snap" (insert "hardy-har-har" here).

    The drawbacks are of course heat and redundancy. Each module whould have to be self contained at the start, but I can even envision a series of holes bridging components as well... like those old hamster tubes worked. Need more flow because you've got a stack of 43 devices? Add an extra fan module somewhere along the path.

    Anyway, it's not here yet, nor will it likely ever be, since it's not mass-marketable (I think). But, it would allow flexibility to grow, a small footprint and size for home users, and massive physical component compatability.

    Legos were always the answer when I was 12, too. Some things never change.

  • Two sided doesn't work (Score:4, Informative)

    by afidel ( 530433 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:09PM (#2838567)
    The number of layers required to make the board two sided would be so high that the added expense would definitely be noticable. Like 3 TIMES more, at least. Just going from 4 to 6 layer pcb design makes manufacturing more expensive, and also increases defect rates, further increasing the costs or the board. I don't think most slashdotter's (or pc users in general) will want $300-$400 system boards.
  • What's wrong with the BookPC form factor? There are several manufacturers making them, and they usually have both a 3.5" and 5.25" bay and one or two PCI slots. If that's too big, get a laptop. With FireWire, Bluetooth, and USB they are about as expandable as you might want them to be. Or build a PC104 system. If you run Linux, a handheld can be an even tinier system.

    Apple makes some nice hardware, but their range of designs and form factors is very limited in comparison to the PC world: a big box, an iMac, and two sizes of laptops (well, three if you count the two iBooks). You could always get something similar in the PC world (even when it comes to the iMac, the IBM Netvista X series [ibm.com] is similar in form factor, though not style).

  • Basically he wants a computer box that has the same priciples as the Tardis, bigger on the inside, then the outside.
  • A good choice for a small box is the NLX form factor, pictured here [intel.com].
    The NLX form factor is widely used for "enterprise" PCs, aka cubical PCs, where space is a premium. For example see the Gateway E series [gateway.com].

    The NLX has a 5.25" bay for CD-ROM/DVD and four half-height 3" bays (two accessible from the front panel). Up to 3 PCI cards plug into the riser card.

    The result is a very nice little box with as much performance as you need.

  • My thoughts... (Score:3, Informative)

    by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:12PM (#2838581) Homepage
    There already is a further evolutionary move towards smaller PCs. Just not for premium users.

    The MicroATX/FlexATX/WhateverATX form factors are the latest steps towards a smaller PC. You can reuse most of the ATX parts for a smaller system. Of course, the problem is that most people who like premium computers want lots of slots, so that doesn't happen.

    So the market of people who want small PCs who aren't willing to buy an already made low-profile PC from someone, who want good parts, is too small to be useful.

    Now, eventually motherboards will get smaller for the simple reason that as speeds go up, traces need to be shorter. And when there isn't room for improvement, parts will be integrated. Think of disk controllers, serial controllers, etc.

    The main reason why you don't like the Shuttle low-profile system is probably video, which is right now too much of a moving target. Eventually, video will settle down and people will be able to get great 2D/3D for a $25 chip. At least, until they find a new area to push video cards with.

    Now, it probably WOULD be possible to attach components to both sides of a motherboard. But you wouldn't want any user servicible parts on the bottom, because that would increase the difficulty of upgrades. This won't give you a perfect reduction in motherboard size simply because the motherboard layout is subject to a lot of finicky tollerences that mean that certain parts need to be in certain places.

    I suspect that the ATX form factor could use some changes. I'd like to see explicit support for front-mounted jacks, better management of the LED/Speaker/Etc jumpers, standardized front-mounted ethernet activity lights for rackmount, etc. But remember that the ATX form factor is best extended over time with compatable changes instead of going through massive changes all at once. That's the beauty of FlexATX/MicroATX -- they didn't require massive retooling of assembley lines to the new standard, and you can always stick a FlexATX or MicroATX motherboard into a regular ATX case, in a pinch.

  • Idoru (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 )
    Maybe its just me but I think they should take a clue from William Gibson's Idoru where the decks were in all sorts of odd cases: hand-carved hollowed-out nuts and clear plastic gel.

    I'm compute from one desk anyway and I don't move much so I want something that is decoratively interesting: tesla coils, neon, blinking lights, smoke effects, lasers, and gysers of flame!

  • Swappable hard drive etc. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HawaiianMayan ( 550426 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:18PM (#2838619)
    It's not specifically about a small footprint. It's about improving the usability of the hardware.

    Apple improves usability by making it "just work" out of the box for 90% of computer users. But obviously Slashdot power-users are in the other 10% ;) So how can we improve hardware usability for people who work inside and expand their systems.

    DeviceBay was a spec for hard drives and other components that would slide in and out of the chassis, and connect using FireWire or USB (so you could swap things on-the-fly). It was mostly for rack-mounter server farms, but would have made everyone's life easier. Unfortunately, it never went anywhere.

    Back in the early 90s Apple and a few design firms were playing with ideas for a computer that looked like a rail, or a backplane. Components, cards, drives, were hung on the rail or slotted into the backplane.

    Manufacturers (besides Apple) don't really seem to care about the usability of the box, though. If they did they would have ripped off the PowerMac G4's side door well and pronto (Dell's attempt at it can most charitably be described as "half-assed").
  • If you put premium commodity (PC) components in a diddy little case, you will generate just as much heat, but you will need to use smaller fans, running faster to dissipate the heat. These fans, will be both noiser and higher-pitched, where we are more sensitive to sound.

    As an example, as I type, my girlfriend's laptop (K6-350 or so) is in the room, and I am typing on my mid-tower Athlon (which I have fitted low noise fans to). If you stand in the middle of the room, the screech of her computers fans is far more offensive than the low whirr of mine.

    You may make your computer as small as you want, but if it makes a noise like a jet engine, it's still going to be an offensive object to work around.

    not_cub
  • Isn't it about time we had a single, standard connector for all the LED's in the case.. and the power switch.. and the reset switch. .and the suspend/sleep/hibernate switch.. etc etc

    rather than the huge jumble of cables.. the connectors on which usually don't fit the motherboard pins for them anyway :/ gah..

  • Apple's take on things (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kelv ( 305876 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:24PM (#2838658)
    It is worth nothing that the reson that apple has been producing such small machines (from the Mac Plus, Mac Classic days to the current iMacs) is that they realsied that 99% of all computer users NEVER want to open the case.

    As far as I can see this is a fact that the rest of the PC industry has never caught onto properly. If you sensibly match all the components in a machine then most users will never need or want to change a thing.

    This is different to the /. crowd who want to do this all the time but we are hardly a random sample are we.

    Kelv!

  • why not? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:26PM (#2838664) Homepage
    First, there are a few limitations to this that should be discussed.

    CPU The cpu needs room to breathe. Athlons and p4s output lots of heat. The heatsink cannot be obstructed... Period! An obstructed cpu is an accessability pain, as well.

    Drive bays 1 internal 3.5 bay and 1external 3.5 and 1 5.25 would be plenty. Very few users have 2 hard drives (most geeks do, but this is geared twoards end users. If they do, they can sacrifice their floppy drive, and possibly buy a usb fdd). Adding an extra internal bay wastes precious space... Of course, there could be exceptions made to the specification for some cases with more bays. Anyhow, firewire drives are getting dirt-cheap nowindays...

    Now, for my suggestions

    45 degree expansion slots. Probably my most radical argument. It's pretty self explanitory: PCI and AGP slots are on a 45 degree angle, thus reducing the amount of space needed. This is assuming that the motherboard has 3ish slots to begin with. It's not as efficent for pcs with only 1 or 2 slots.

    "Unspecified hole" On the rear ports template, place a rectanglar "hole" there, where the motherboard maker can place any extraneous ports it wants (s-video, extra usb or firewire ports, video capture, scsi.. etc).

    Rear template The rear template needs more connectors then a regular pc. This is becasue these compact pcs will have few expansion cards in them. This is where ATX really falls on its face. The ports it should have are
    4 usb
    2 firewire
    2 ps/2
    1 ethernet/modem (hole big enough to fit either/or)
    2 serial/video
    1 parallel (legacy, my friend, legacy)
    4 sound (for s/pdif or rear channel)
    Game port?? This seems rather extraneous with the rise of USB joysticks. Perhaps a bracket should be provided instead. Any die-hard gamers will have a dedicated sound card, anyway...

    CPU at the BOTTOM of the board Place all the cool-running components at the top of the case, under the drive cage and PSU, and put the cpu and the connectors at the bottom. Sheesh. Didn't the ATX people think of this... It's also a shorter fall when your heatsink falls off. Possibly put the IDE connectors at the bottom too??

    ATX power supply It ain't broke, it seems to work fine, the units aren't horifficly big, either. An idea would be to have super-compact units accept d/c power with an external a/c adapter...

    Non-conductive motherboard mount points. It's quite annoying when you're installing a motherboard, and it requires washers at the mount points, in order to function. This adds about $0.25 to the manufacturing process.

    Drive rails. Every case should have these. Sure, it's a luxury... but, it's a nice one. So are thumbscrews, and removable motherboard trays, etc...

    All in all, we have a case that is signifigantly smaller then normal ATX cases, yet not too small to loose it's functionality... I got a bit carried away, and it looks like some of my specifications would possibly add size.... oh bother! Did i forget something?

  • Both sides of the board. (Score:3, Informative)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:29PM (#2838674) Homepage Journal
    You don't want to use both sides of the motherboard - it makes production a nightmare.

    Consider a single sided board:
    Solder screening deposits solder paste on board
    Pick and Place machines place the parts on the board. They are held in place by the surface tension of the solder paste.
    IR reflow melts the solder. Any misalignment of a part is handled by the surface tension of the liquid solder.
    Board cools.
    Smoke test.
    Ship it.

    Now, consider a two sided board:
    Screen solder on backside.
    Pick and place parts, using small daubs of glue to hold the parts on the board (surface tension won't hold a part against gravity).
    IR reflow backside. Because parts are not free-floating, any misalignment stays.
    Flip board over.
    Screen solder on top of board
    Pick and Place parts.
    IR reflow. Solder on bottom of board melts too, hence the glue.
    Smoke test.
    Swear, since the parts on the bottom of board are out of alignment and board doesn't work.

  • Wireless Mouse (Score:2, Insightful)

    by conan_albrecht ( 446296 )
    This one's easy, although it's not really the form factor of the case.

    Why don't laptop manufacturers include wireless mice? Almost everyone hates trackpads, eraser heads, etc. when compared with real, scrollable, optimal mice.

    Yes, I know that wireless mice exist, but why not put the receiver *inside* the laptop itself. So a little mouse is the only extra part outside of the case.

    You might say the people would lose them, but then again, manufacturers could make a killing with replacements for dumb users who can't keep track of their mice.
  • I have some different perspectives based on what I am doing at the time...

    1) The guts have to be easy to work with. I thing that single-sided boards are probably mandated by air flow for cooling.

    2) There are too many cables inside the machine. You have cables going from cards to drives (such Sound Card to CD or DVD) or the motherboard to drives. There are a boatload of cables from the power supply to the drives. I should be able to just slide a drive in from the front and have it make data and power connections. You have one big fat cable dropping down from the drive support along the wall to the motherboard, and another for power daisy-chained along the sides of the drives. Now cooling is a lot easier, and you don't trace amorphous gray ribbon cable around inside or get the twist just so to make the far reach around the other cabling.

    3) Too many outside cables. The printer, the keyboard, the mouse, the modem, the gamepad or joystick. Egads, let's make some of this wireless. The case should support lots of wireless devices. The standard case should be able to support a bunch of wireless devices within 5 or so feet (maybe even 10) of the computer.
  • Flex ATX is the next big standard. It will just take time to ramp up all the production. Look how long it took to transition from AT to ATX. I stuck with AT for a long time because of the case price (motherboard price was about the same). I always buy the cheap cases. I just don't want to spend the $20-$40 extra dollars for the 'new' case design. Now ATX cases are cheap and you have a hard time finding a motherboard that will work with an AT case anymore.

    Now fast forward to today. I've been eyeing the smaller cases, but have been unwilling to buy one of the "Book PC's" which is typically a Flex ATX case. They wanted $100 for a case. With only a 150watt power supply to boot. But as of a month ago the Aopen flex ATX cases are in the $35-40 range, and I'm getting ready to make the leap. The remaining hurdle for the Flex cases is the availability of motherboards for the AMD line of processors. It is easy to find a flex ATX motherboard with the Intel 810 chipset, but you get cheap video with a poorly performing Celeron processor. Another minor drawback is that most of the current flex ATX cases/book PC's can only take a Pentium 1Gz because of heating and inadequate power supply wattage. Which will also kill idea of putting several hard drives inside the case too. Those drives take about 30-50 watts at startup time (each). I'd much rather have a Duron with a TNT2 or GeForce video card in the one available slot, but they aren't available yet. Nforce would be great for this application too, but they have just started to ship the full size boards. The "niche" flex ATX market will have to wait for probably another 6 months, but it will come.

    So summary. Wait a little, it is coming.

  • Current ATX tower case designs are fairly good at minimizing complaints. The only area of obvious "fat" is the thickness which in many cases has grown excessive (8+ inches) without any discernable benefit except estetics and tower stability (on carpet, without base).


    If you want smaller, you'll have to give something up. Like you, the last thing I want to give up is standardized components. I like reliability, and don't want some of the bare-bones small systems I've seen sold.


    I made a simple layout with a std ATX PSU over & blocking the PCI slots (horrors!) but leaving one and the AGP slot clear. 3.5" drive in front, CDROM/DVD over the DIMMs & the CPU clear. About 12 x 12 x 5 inches. Clamshell case for better accessibility.

  • Who needs expansion? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:39PM (#2838733) Homepage
    Expandability is highly overrated. At work, where I'm a "power user", the only "expansion" of eight PCs in the last six years was extra memory.
    In all other cases by the time I need a bigger hard drive, I also need a faster CPU, more memory and a better monitor.

    At home, where the usage is less demanding (web surfing), I upgraded modems twice, replaced one hard drive, and added memory. This is of seven computers I had.

    All in all, IMHO expandability is something that the average user does not need (beyond swapping components), and the advanced user thinks will need but doesn't either (a few devoted hackers excepted).

  • Roll your own (Score:3, Offtopic)

    by RainbowSix ( 105550 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @06:40PM (#2838739) Homepage
    I've posted this before, but if you want a use-specific case, you often have to do it yourself or pay $$ for a custom job.

    If you are looking for something small and easy to move around yet is upgradable, consider doing something like this:
    my server [cmu.edu]

    Built into a small briefcase, I can carry it to school and have it running without even opening it. Running linux I can ssh in and do everything I need. It runs a generic Slot1 mobo with 3 pci slots so you can conceivably throw in your favorite PCI Radeon or GF2, a 1 gig PIII, 3 slots worth of RAM, and have a pretty good machine.
  • The nice thing about current motherboard fab processes is that they are cheap. Populating both side of the board is possible, but rather expensive. It requires more layers (which make the board more expensive to make and more difficult to debug). Also, it requires very different physical manufacturing facilities, since the presence of components on the reverse side makes putting pressure on the topside difficult. When the robots punch down components on the top, they could squash, crack or bend componets on the other if the board isn't sitting on a specially designed caddy. As you might imagine, it's possible to do the same thing when you have the board at home when installing componets. (Zero insertion force my foot!) There are also issues of cooling, since a the board would require airflow on both sides (which could mean a bigger case in a worst-case situation!).

    Of course, if these issues can be addressed with a sane form factor standard, I think everyone would be happy to have smaller computers. Smaller is better, so long as it doesn't apply to things that would require you to buy an expensive car to compensate.

    Personally, I think one of the major limitations of the ATX standard is the breakout. If there were a standard IO block that connected to the motherboard with a cable, you would have a lot more freedom when it came to positioning the board inside the case. Old AT motherboards did this for everything except the keyboard connector, I seem to recall. It would be a little more complicated to install, but I think it would be better.

    Or, we could just make mass market PC104 [pc104.org] stacks for everything.

  • Wah wah (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @07:16PM (#2838915)
    What is it about the slashdot crowd that wants everything at the cost of nothing. Maybe they get it from using Linux far too long. You can either get efficiency or you can get scalability with a very small range between the two. For efficiency look at gaming consoles, they sacrifice the ability to scale in order to have a tight nit efficient system. Another entrant into this catagory is/was Cyrix's Media GX chip and Intel's 810 chipset. The cost and waste of the system is lowered by putting more components in the same packaging. On the side of scalability look at the Mac 9600 with it's 12 memory sockets and 6 PCI slots. Of course just about any PC or workstation class system falls into the scalable classification, the 9600 is just an example of sheer expandibility. The marrige of these two is something like the G4 Cube which is hated in many circles. It was small and fairly efficient yet had the ability to be upgraded a little bit. However it came at the cost of not being able to use widely abvailable standard sized expansion card (a video card upgrade costs beaucoup cash because you can only get it from Apple). Slashdot folks want something that can fit a half dozen components into off the shelf yet be compact and efficient. It isn't going to happen unless somebody releases a system with a "computer on a chip" plugs directly into a backplane that links it to other components. Even then people would bitch because the COC components weren't up to their expectations.
  • except for the slide in hot pluggable AGP and PCI cards.

    t's called PC-104 form factor. tiny, modular, expandable.

    the problem is that it's horribly expensive.

    a 486 pc104 card with processor is $500.00 a pentium unit is about a grand.

    it's not because they are super expensive or difficult to build. in fact it is 100% identical to engineer and build your asus board as a pc104 board or a laptop board.... it's demand.. pc104 is only used for industrial or fringe computing (wearable, mobile,sattelites)

    you wanna build a PC that looks like the new Imac? no prob... pc-104 and some lamp parts. it'll cost you about 6-7 grand though without the lcd panel.

  • 2-sided motherboard (Score:3)

    by markmoss ( 301064 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @07:38PM (#2839002)
    IMHO large chunks of the problem could be solved by taking advantage of both sides of the motherboard. Put the CPU and most of the misc. chips on one side, put the expansion slots and RAM on the other.

    First, many people would say that you should get rid of the card slots and hang any add-ons outside the box on the USB or Firewire boxes. I'm not going to address that -- it's OK for those who won't do much with their 'puters, and it would save $10 to $30 in parts, but I want those slots!

    The change to the case is rather minor: tall standoffs for MB mounting, make the case an inch or two thicker but smaller in other dimensions. There would be resistance from people who were worried about being able to get a new MB to fit that case when needed, but this hasn't stopped case evolution before. And I do see a trend towards shorter, more cube-like towers. However, there are some real manufacturing & physical difficulties. They're solvable, but might run the costs up:

    1. The CPU heatsink has to change considerably, because you won't want to waste the two+ inches of space needed for a conventional heat-sink/fan. How about a liquid cooling bag using that side of the case as the radiator? Does that cost a lot more?

    2. Most motherboards presently use bus and RAM connectors with wave-soldered through-hole pins. That is, the MB end of the connector is male pins, which go through holes on the board, then they are soldered all at once by pumping liquid solder up to the bottom of the board as it goes down a conveyor. You cannot put the CPU socket through this, and it's probably not a good idea to put the chipset's giant IC's through the wave either. (Small capacitors and resistors are OK on the wave-solder side, and it's quite common to find them on the bottom of a MB.)

    3. Also, if you are using through-hole connectors and a board not much bigger than required to hold the connectors, where do you put the CPU and other big chips that don't conflict with a through-hole pin?

    The solution to #2 and #3 is obviously to change to surface-mount (SMT) connectors. They cost more now, although that would change if more MB manufacturers ordered them. But at present they are also more trouble-prone than the through-hole parts. There's been more than 60 years of work done on improving wave-solder yields, and about 20 on SMT, so we get more defects in SMT, and the testers aren't as good at finding them.

    Finally, bus connectors take quite a lot of force when inserting and removing boards. There's no chance of through-hole connectors pulling loose from that, because the holes in the board were plated with copper, and the solder goes all the way through and broadens out like a rivet at each end. It's not going anywhere unless the solder breaks at one end and the copper separates from the board everywhere else; I have no idea of the breaking strength of the pin/solder connection, because if I hook a hydraulic puller onto a through-hole connector either the connector body or the fiberglass-epoxy board will break first.

    SMT has a lot less inherent strength; the pads are just laminated onto the top of the board, and can pull off. So the connectors have to also have pegs or screws that go through the board and are fastened on the other side. In a PCI connector, you can only put pegs at the end, so the connector body has to be rigid enough that the middle won't pull up. This is another reason (besides lower production volumes) that SMT connectors are more costly -- extra plastic is expensive.

    OTOH, we put the through-hole connectors in by hand and the SMT by machine. All the issues are potentially solvable (sometimes by spending more on parts and machines and less on labor), and I expect that in another 10 years pure SMT will become cheaper than the present SMT/throughhole hybrid technologies. It just hasn't happened yet, and I have no idea what PC's will look like by the time SMT bus connectors do become common.
  • The thing about the current design of PCs and PC components (specifically, ATX and the size of attached components) is that it makes for an extremely modular system. Once you downsize the case, you lose a lot of space to do modular things in, and suddenly you find yourself telling yourself to "be careful what you wish for".

  • Screw Sizes/Gauges (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mister_IQ ( 517505 )
    I revive old PC's for charities and churches and such, and have done my share of component swapping, building 3 good PC's from 5 dead ones, etc.

    Talk all you want about sexy stuff like sliding rails and things like that, all I want is a standard on screw sizes.

    The last PC case I opened had 4 (count 'em, FOUR) different types of screws all doing the same job. One size kept the cards in place, one size kept the hard drives in place, one size kept the floppy in place and one size kept the cover on. All the same length, all the same head type (thank God) but different gauges and thread types. They look amazing similar in a pile on the desk, however... :(

    And there is a special place in Hell for the guy that insists on putting slot-head screws in ANYTHING.

  • Think on the Side of the Box (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SatelliteBoy ( 134412 ) <panterr@mailOOOa ... inus threevowels> on Monday January 14, 2002 @08:11PM (#2839151)
    Changing a cliché:

    One of the big problems of modern PC design is cooling. Perhaps the answer is in plain sight - the side of the case.

    Just provide a thermal path from the CPU to the side of the case. This may not be easy, but is solvable.

    Ideas:

    Heat pipes. Overclockers have used them, spacecraft use them - they're proven. A heat pipe with rounded ends and mounts with rounded receptacles and a bit of thermal paste. Conduct heat to the side of the case, and allow for variations of the CPU location.

    Thermal strap. Some spacecraft use these, too. They conduct heat well. They are not as multidimentionally adjustable as above, but can be worked out.

    At least one side of the case would have to be thermally conductive. Aluminum or copper would suffice. The case side could then be made flat or ridged. The "side" could also be the upper panel of the case, provided you don't really want a big, heavy monitor on top of it. Just imagine a sculpted, polished copper case sitting on top of your desk. A pain to clean, put purty.

    The idea takes the concept of shrinking the PC, and also answers another problem - noise. One can eliminate a fan (or more, extend the idea to other components) and gain coolness.

    I think I may start designing a case for myself.

  • Jonathan (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @08:35PM (#2839262) Homepage
    I remember the 'Jonathan' design prototypes Apple developed in the 80's. Essentially the computer would consist of modules that plugged into a common backplane, extending the plane as it went.

    It looked a lot like a row of books standing on a desk. Working out the various buses would be an interesting challenge, (just put everything onto fiber optics?) but it could be very small or large, depending on user tastes and what hardware they'd acquired. And parts could easily be reused or replaced.

    Naturally, being a really cool idea, nothing came of it. (particularly since Apple was considering opening the standard to everyone)

    There's some pictures in the book "Apple Design" but I haven't seen any online.

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