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Your dream (not too outrageous) Mac


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Your dream (not too outrageous) Mac
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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2005-07-12, 19:18

I just thought of something!

The Mac mini is tiny... almost tiny enough to fit in a PC's 5.25" drive bay. What if you were to take an especially large PC case and do some strategic cutting to mount a Mac mini inside? You could build a KVM switch into the case and put the KVM switch, power button, and port replicators onto another 5.25" faceplate, much like a fan control panel.

That's way out of my area of expertise, but I think it would be doable, and wouldn't it be awesome to have a PC and a Mac all built into a single box? Of course, you can accomplish almost the same thing by just duct-taping a Mac mini onto a PC case, but where's the fun in that?
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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2005-07-12, 19:31

Here's what I'd love to see in PBs in near future

Built in RGB projector- effectively gives you a portable 30" Cinema Display and you can get 12" screen without missing the 15 or 17.

Scan,, copy, and printer built in. It has to be thermal printer though, as inks are too much baggage, but I would be so happy with since feature. If you have seen some mini copier/scanner, its easy to see how itd fit as a hinge on PB.

Have the touchpad function as stylus for drawing and photoshopping. For all what its worth, it could use some tweaking. Maybe a bigger area or some other way to make it "finger fingerly" (to be fair, I haven't tried the latest PBs pads; I'm speaking from experience with Lombards pad)

As for iMac, I really *would* love it to see Apple make a great form factor that is easily expandable/upgradable. I know that PM is meant for that sort of stuff, but given how people has beef with being stuck with out of date displays and so forth, I think itd be so cool if the next generation iMac could have their innards completely replaced in oh say, 5 years term for a reasonable price, so you keep for cool case while getting a better display and other goodies along the road. The only real issue is making it cost effective to do so.

That's my dreams.
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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2005-07-12, 19:35

Luca, that would be so cool. I've always liked the notion of having a PC and Mac in a box. I even imagined a mobo containing both die for a G5 and an AMD operton. :smokey:

I talked to a relative who is with mircoprocessor company, and he says it is technically possible, but not very practical from marketplace standpoint (very expensive, would be significantly more complex as mobo has to support two different languages, etc. Etc.)

Ah, well.
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Unch
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: United Chavdom of Little Britain
 
2005-07-12, 19:50

That was done in the 90's. Acorn had RISC PCs which had a slot for a x86 CPU that would work alongside the ARM6 main processor. It allowed you to run Windows in a, um, window on the RISCOS desktop.

I should also point out that the x86 card had access to memory on the motherboard and other resources, it wasn't a complete system on a card like say the Bridgeboards on the Amiga.

"It's like a new pair of underwear. At first it's constrictive, but after a while it becomes a part of you."

Last edited by Unch : 2005-07-12 at 19:54.
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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2005-07-12, 20:02

See, what I proposed is technically feasible. It just takes a significant amount of expertise, both mechanical and electrical. You'd have to:

- Cut a hole in a PC case large enough for the Mac mini.
- Build supports inside the case to hold the Mac firmly in place.
- Use a relay to move the power button to the front of the main case.
- Use extender cables to move all the ports to the front of the main case (with the exception of the ones used on the KVM switch).
- Mount a KVM switch inside the case and have its output ports (the ones you plug your single keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers into) sticking out of the back of the case.
- Use a relay to put the switch for the KVM in the front of the main case, next to all the Mac mini's ports.

You'd have to put the KVM's switch, the Mac mini's ports, and the mini's power button all in the front of the case. I think it would work much like a fan control panel:



Except, of course, you'd have two buttons (power and KVM), a Firewire port, and a USB port. The video, the other USB, and the audio would be sent to the KVM.

I don't even really want to do something like this because I prefer having two completely separate systems, instead of having to constantly switch between one screen and another. But it would still be pretty cool.
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Ryan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
 
2005-07-13, 00:11

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
I thought you could already do that by using what's called a "software base station."
I always knew that you could use a compute with WiFi card as a basestation, but I've never seen anything about relay. Does it automatically do this is you turn it on, or is there something else?
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