Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:01:08 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Andrew C. Hornback" <hornback@wireco.net>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Now a little OT but RE: FreeBSD and Linux (More Questions!) Message-ID: <004201c0ac54$8bd200c0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <016a01c0ac52$29e2d080$0f00000a@eagle>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Andrew C. >Hornback > > Which reminds me... has anyone seen the new Intel vision of what a >consumer PC is going to be? It's basically a stack of boxes, like an >Aztec temple, each one holding a component or two. Foundational box A Ziggurat! >holding the motherboard, processor and memory. Next step up holding >the DVD-RAM drive, followed up the next steps containing the HDD, the >other removable media drive (looked like a Zip drive), and the top >being the control and I/O panel with all of the ports on top. Gone >are your PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, replaced by USB. Gone are >your serial and parallel ports, replaced by USB. > I wouldn't worry about that - the prototype is probably going to be the only thing produced, and will end up in a storeroom. This is the same stuff that Sun pulled with the Sparc Classics and IPX boxes. The problem, as everyone realized, is that all the cabling and separate cases cost more money than a simple steel box with all the components in it, that Tiawan like to make. And the steel boxes are recyclable, which the Ziggurat probably isn't. (since I'd suspect that all the cases are plastic) Single-source computer companies, like Sun and Apple, can get away with this kind of BS. But, Intel won't be able to do this. I remember Intel a couple years ago when they were pushing into the motherboard market with the ATX standard. I remember being at a presentation where the Intel people talked about how they made their pilgrimage to Taiwan and visited all the case manufacturers and laid out their standard on how big they wanted the opening to be, and the case manufacturers basically told them to stick it and redesigned the ATX case the way _they_ wanted to do it, and Intel had to go back and redo all their ATX motheerboard plates for their boxed motherboards. > This is what they want the PC to be once the IA-64 hits mainstream. >Which basically means that when the Itanium gets out there and into >the hands of more than the technophiles, nearly everything that we >have now is going to be obsolete. > I really doubt it. I think your going to see the motherboard and CPU change but it will still go into the same case, take the same peripherals, and same ram, and all that. Probably it will spawn a lot of hand-wringing about how the "rest of the system" is holding back the power of the IA-64. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?004201c0ac54$8bd200c0$1401a8c0>