Xserve-like new PowerMac Tower enclosure.
- Thread starter ddma
- Start date
I acutally saw that PowerMac "fake" before the Xserve officially came out. The artist was likely inspired by the Xserve though.
Making a tower that size out of Ti would cost a fortune. It just wont happen.
I'd actually like to see the PowerBooks move away from pure Ti to maybe composite Ti or Magnesium. The PB G4 just has too much flex to it. I also think they need to do away with the painted carbon fiber chassie. Paint doesn't belong on a notebook computer.
What I'd really like to see if for Apple to come out with something new. A consumer computer that's not a "Mac." The Xserve is a start but hopefully they start incorporating some of that technology into their desktops.
Making a tower that size out of Ti would cost a fortune. It just wont happen.
I'd actually like to see the PowerBooks move away from pure Ti to maybe composite Ti or Magnesium. The PB G4 just has too much flex to it. I also think they need to do away with the painted carbon fiber chassie. Paint doesn't belong on a notebook computer.
What I'd really like to see if for Apple to come out with something new. A consumer computer that's not a "Mac." The Xserve is a start but hopefully they start incorporating some of that technology into their desktops.
What are you talking about? A consumer computer that is not a Mac. Okay. Unclear but okay. The Xserve is a start? It's a Mac, albeit a server, and clearly nothing consumer. And what do you mean by incorporating some of that tech into their desktops? G4 processors? DDR-SDRAM? (The latter's clearly coming, the first one we've already got.) What else? The noise? The harddrives? Certainly not for consumer machines...
jeb1138
Carioca
How about making part of the PowerBook out of a high-tech material that's lightweight, low volume and extremely tough and strong? Oh wait...that's carbon fiber composite.
I think the "something new" idea is good though. Apple's doing a great job making consumer desktops and laptops. Now we need them to make something, maybe a peripheral, that's makes us say "wow, that's just what I need! Why didn't I think of that?"
Any ideas azosx (or anyone)?
xaqintosh
Master of Reality
jeb1138
Carioca
Why not? That's a great idea, Ed. Some big research institutions, like the government lab Sandia National Laboratories are working on projects like that: parallel, private memory computers that can be heterogeneously upgraded, from normal everyday computing parts.Originally posted by Ed Spruiell
sure jeb, i've got one for the dream world - an external firewire connected processor. it would allow 'all-in-one' macs to take advantage of dual processing, it would also have a slots for upgrading video cards and additional ram.
hey, you wanted something different
What this would mean: If G5's came out, for example, instead of buying a whole new computer you could buy a G5 'module' to plug into your 'box' alongside your G4 'module'. And your G5 could have DDR RAM while your G4 kept its SDRAM and you would get the combined power of them both!
If you ever got to the point where the G4 module was so out of date that it really wasn't doing much except clutter your room you could just take it out.
One of the main problems that places like Sandia are having is that even though the computers might be off-the-shelf products they still have to custom-build much of the hardware and software that can link the computers together efficiently, which ends up a lot more expensive than they would be if they were mass-marketed items. Now if Apple could get them mass-marketed...
The Xserve is not a "Mac." It's an Apple product but that doesn't make it a "Mac." It would be suicide for Apple to brand the Xserve as a Mac considering previous Mac servers piss poor offerings and reputation in the past. The iPod isn't a "Mac" as well.
What I'm saying is, the Xserve a completely new concept to anything that is currently in it's competing server market. Just like the iPod is. I don't know but I'm fairly sure Xserve doesn't boot with a little smiling Mac as well. I could be wrong.
iMacs, eMacs, PowerMacs, PowerBooks and iBooks are very similiar to most PCs now a days architecturally wise.
What I'm suggesting is something new, different, revolutionary, something I can't find in a PC and I'm not talking about OS X.
I'm not a designer or innovator but Apple is. After 17 years it's time to stop reinventing the Mac and release something new.
That is a genius idea. Plug-n-play external processors.
What if they were hot swapable? You could switch them between your PowerMac and PowerBook on the fly depending on what you were doing. Or, bring them over to your friends house, make a chain, and sequence some DNA!
I doubt it would happen because it would kill the need to purchase a new Mac ever 3 or so years.
We may see it in PCs though. They're not afraid of letting the consumer upgrade the processor.
This reminds me of a BMW only availiable in Europe. It has a 12 cylinder engine but when crusing around town, only 8 cylinders are used. When you're on the Autobahn or treking up and down the mountains, it switches from 8 to 12 cylinders on the fly.
The main reason for this is to improve gas millage and performance. It's an awesome concept and works very well.
I wish they would make their LCD displays more like the iMacs.
It would be great to be able to tilt and turn the Studio Displays so easily. As they are now, it's difficult to find right angle to work with them because of how bulky they've become.
It's a chore trying to move that 23" monster side to side and tilt it back and forth.
It would also be cool if you could switch from landscape to portrait. Even better would be to be able to do it on the fly.
jeb1138
Carioca
I love the hot-swappable idea! But as for being more likely in the PC world I'd have to say: dream on! Apple would probably be the first, if not only, possible company for such a breakthrough. A tremendous challenge in implementing such configurations is the cross-linking of the different "nodes", as they are called, and getting software that will work with such a configuration. TCP/IP, for example, has problems with this after a certain extent. Right now the software and hardware for these components are custom-built.
Apple is the only consumer computer company remaining with control over both the hardware and software. This means it's harder to get cheap, 3rd party parts but it also means that they have enormous power to innovate and push new technologies forward. In my opinion they have done this -- they have to to stay competitive.
Because Apple controls and has controlled both the software and hardware aspects of the computer they would be the most capable of doing something like a cluster computer setup. Can you imagine trying to implement something like that in the endless sea of tweaked components that is the PC World? No way. Or at least, not until after a million more headaches (and years) than Apple. The PC powers-that-be would form a consortium and work out standards and make concessions and change directives and publish lots of papers, while Apple needs no consortium -- just get up and go!
But of course I have no idea whether something like a "Plug-n-Play" cluster could ever really make sense for regular consumers or businesses. Just sounds cool!
If you could expand your processing power as much as you could pay for and do it without leaving your old machinery behind....wow! Oh yeah, and speaking of 23" lcd monitors, does anybody here have one?