Rick_McCormack@mindlink.UUCP (Rick McCormack) (02/27/91)
In an article, Brian Aslaksan writes:
B.A. > I'm typing this article from a Sun SparcStation SLC which is
B.A. > a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse. Very nice, no pizza
B.A. > box, all the chips are in the monitor case, together with
B.A. > builtin ethernet and sound and up to 16 Megs.
B.A. > B.A. > And there are PC diskless workstations that are completely
B.A. > contained in the keyboard, just add the monitor.
B.A. > B.A. > Now a good trick would be to get a pair of those Heads Up
B.A. > Display style monitor-in-eyeglasses and fit a Mac in the
B.A. > bows. And all you'd have to do is hang a mouse off of them.
B.A. > Heh.
Brian, wait until they get these low wattage "direct to retinal nerves" laser
image writers going. And the Mac in the nosepiece so the audio system will fit
on one earpiece, leaving room for the Cray image rendering engine in the other
earpiece, and the supercooler in your beanie with the propeller. Wow!jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) (02/28/91)
Now that Macintosh motherboards have become so highly integrated and therefore SMALL, why not introduce a new design (or designs) putting said motherboards inside large-screen monitors. I could easily picture, for instance, the guts of a IIsi mounted inside the portrait display, with a slightly taller case to accomodate the floppy disk and the peripheral ports. Apple could market it as an all-in-one desktop publishing/word processing solution. Many other combinations are possible. Is this a crazy idea? I think not. Comments? -- John Cavallino | EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145 Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637 "Opinions, my boy. Just opinions" | Telephone: 312-702-6900
bernard@boulder.colorado.edu (Bernie Bernstein) (02/28/91)
In article <1991Feb27.181358.13467@midway.uchicago.edu>, jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) writes: > > Now that Macintosh motherboards have become so highly integrated and > therefore SMALL, why not introduce a new design (or designs) putting said > motherboards inside large-screen monitors. I could easily picture, for > instance, the guts of a IIsi mounted inside the portrait display, with a > slightly taller case to accomodate the floppy disk and the peripheral ports. > Apple could market it as an all-in-one desktop publishing/word processing > solution. Many other combinations are possible. > Is this a crazy idea? I think not. Comments? > > -- > John Cavallino | EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu > University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145 > Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637 > "Opinions, my boy. Just opinions" | Telephone: 312-702-6900 > > I think it is a great idea. But instead of putting the computer into a big heavy monitor, how about putting the cpu into a small luggable monitor, like 9". Then they can make it with different cpu's and call them Mac Classic and Mac SE/30. :-b The way they do it now, they only need to have a few different packages. In the Mac II line, there were 2, and now (IIsi) 3 different cases for the CPUs. Each of which can hook up to any of Apple's monitors or many third-party monitors. There would be too many combinations of cpu/monitor's for the dealers to sell if they tried to pre-assemble them all. It seems to me that they made a wise decision to package some cpu's with small monitors so that it is semi-portable. My guess is that if someone has a two-page monitor, they will probably leave it at one location. If it has to move, then moving the CPU isn't that much more of an inconvenience than just moving the monitor. I don't think having a cpu in a large monitor would be sufficiently practical to justify Apple changing its product line. My opinion. o, ,, , | Bernie Bernstein | , ,, L>O/ \,/ \ ,| University of Colorado at boulder |/ \,,/ \ O./ ' / . `, / | office: (303) 492-8136 | / ` \ ,. ,/ / , ' | email: bernard@cs.colorado.edu | / '' \
jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) (02/28/91)
In a previous article I wrote: >> Now that Macintosh motherboards have become so highly integrated and >> therefore SMALL, why not introduce a new design (or designs) putting said >> motherboards inside large-screen monitors. I could easily picture, for >> instance, the guts of a IIsi mounted inside the portrait display, with a >> slightly taller case to accomodate the floppy disk and the peripheral ports. >> Apple could market it as an all-in-one desktop publishing/word processing >> solution. Many other combinations are possible. >> Is this a crazy idea? I think not. Comments? In article <1991Feb27.193027.19293@csn.org> bernard@boulder.colorado.edu (Bernie Bernstein) writes: >I think it is a great idea. But instead of putting the computer into a big >heavy monitor, how about putting the cpu into a small luggable monitor, like >9". Then they can make it with different cpu's and call them Mac Classic and >Mac SE/30. :-b Great idea!! Bet they'll sell like hotcakes :-) > >The way they do it now, they only need to have a few different packages. In the >Mac II line, there were 2, and now (IIsi) 3 different cases for the CPUs. Each >of which can hook up to any of Apple's monitors or many third-party monitors. >There would be too many combinations of cpu/monitor's for the dealers to sell if >they tried to pre-assemble them all. It seems to me that they made a wise decision >to package some cpu's with small monitors so that it is semi-portable. > >My guess is that if someone has a two-page monitor, they will probably leave it >at one location. If it has to move, then moving the CPU isn't that much more of >an inconvenience than just moving the monitor. I don't think having a cpu in >a large monitor would be sufficiently practical to justify Apple changing its >product line. > >My opinion. If you have it all in one case it should end up being cheaper, due to the smaller number of parts if nothing else. Less spaghetti wire, too. I chose the portrait monitor w/ IIsi as a specific example of a configuration that probably many people are buying already. Another interesting possibilty would be to mount a IIsi or LC -class CPU within a 640x480 color monitor with integral tilt-swivel stand. IMHO, such all-in-one machines would have all the advantages of the classic form factor (minus the luggability), but with the advantage of a larger screen and/or color. Speaking of design decisions, can somebody explain to me why the SE/30 doesn't support at least 2-bit (4-color) grayscale on the internal screen? I'm skeptical that designing the video controller chip to support this option would have been too difficult or too expensive. The present design already has 64K video RAM. The classic 512x342 screen takes up 22K, so there's plenty of room for 2 bits/pixel. This is not a flame (well, only a little), I'm just curious. -- John Cavallino | EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145 Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637 "Opinions, my boy. Just opinions" | Telephone: 312-702-6900
aslakson@cs.umn.edu (Brian Aslakson) (02/28/91)
bernard@boulder.colorado.edu (Bernie Bernstein) writes: >In article <...>, jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) writes: >> Now that Macintosh motherboards have become so highly integrated and >> therefore SMALL, why not introduce a new design (or designs) putting said >> motherboards inside large-screen monitors. I could easily picture, for >I think it is a great idea. But instead of putting the computer into a big C'mon! I'm typing this article from a Sun SparcStation SLC which is a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse. Very nice, no pizza box, all the chips are in the monitor case, together with builtin ethernet and sound and up to 16 Megs. And there are PC diskless workstations that are completely contained in the keyboard, just add the monitor. Now a good trick would be to get a pair of those Heads Up Display style monitor-in-eyeglasses and fit a Mac in the bows. And all you'd have to do is hang a mouse off of them. Heh. -- Brian Aslakson aslakson@cs.umn.edu mac-admin@cs.umn.edu <-= Macintosh related
fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (02/28/91)
In article <1991Feb27.181358.13467@midway.uchicago.edu> jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) writes: >Now that Macintosh motherboards have become so highly integrated and >therefore SMALL, why not introduce a new design (or designs) putting said >motherboards inside large-screen monitors. I could easily picture, for >instance, the guts of a IIsi mounted inside the portrait display, with a >slightly taller case to accomodate the floppy disk and the peripheral ports. >Apple could market it as an all-in-one desktop publishing/word processing >solution. Many other combinations are possible. >Is this a crazy idea? I think not. Comments? I don't know...we (Sun) did it a while back. SPARCstation SLC. Boots off a network, so no built-in floppy or hard drive. Good way to increase seats on a network, without doing something icky like hanging terminals off a workstation (or Mac, for that matter). Come to think of it, you've just described a Mac SE30 (roughly) with a big screen. It's so reasonable that Apple probably won't introduce one for quite a while. -- ------------ The only drawback with morning is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day. ------------
time@ice.com (03/01/91)
In article <1991Feb27.181358.13467@midway.uchicago.edu>, jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) writes: > Is this a crazy idea? I think not. Comments? Sparc SLC is a fine example... I want "computer-in-a-cable". tim. ------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Endres | time@ice.com ICE Engineering | uupsi!ice.com!time 8840 Main Street | Voice FAX Whitmore Lake MI. 48189 | (313) 449 8288 (313) 449 9208
jcav@ellis.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) (03/02/91)
Like, it's a totally self-referential follow-up! :-) In an earlier article I wrote: >Now that Macintosh motherboards have become so highly integrated and >therefore SMALL, why not introduce a new design (or designs) putting said >motherboards inside large-screen monitors. I could easily picture, for >instance, the guts of a IIsi mounted inside the portrait display, with a >slightly taller case to accomodate the floppy disk and the peripheral ports. >Apple could market it as an all-in-one desktop publishing/word processing >solution. Many other combinations are possible. >Is this a crazy idea? I think not. Comments? Most comments have 1) questioned the existence of a market niche for such machines and 2) expressed concern about lack of flexibility. My reply: Such designs would certainly not be any less flexible then the Classic or SE/30, and would have the significant advantage of a larger (read: more useful) built-in screen. Some of the follow-up articles to mine joked that when I'd suggested the portrait-screen with built-in computer as the ideal entry-level DTP workstation, I was inadvertently duplicating the functionality of the existing compact machines. Let me tell you, the 9" screen is NOT fun for DTP, or most any large-area word-processing or graphics. I know that there exist ways you can add a portrait (or other size) screen to most Mac models. I merely proposed that a market exists for an easy-to-set-up, all-in-one solution (or solutions). I think businesses especially would really go for them. As someone reminded us, Sun already thought of this (Sparcstation SLC). -- John Cavallino | EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145 Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637 "Opinions, my boy. Just opinions" | Telephone: 312-702-6900