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-60

Separate the "engine" and the "instrument panel"!

-60 points posted to New Product Ideas, Desktops and Laptops by drothman 04/20/07

If computers were cars, they would be cars with almost everything under the hood and almost nothing on the dash! When operating a car, would you want to have to get out and open the hood every time you want to turn the ignition on or off, change a DVD, or connect a cigarette lighter plug?

Obviously not. But that's in fact pretty much how most computers are designed.

If Dell or another innovative manufacturer were to think outside the box, they would realize that computers could be designed more like cars, with the "engine" stuff (motherboard, hard drive, etc.) "under the hood" (i.e., in the main case placed under or next to your desk) and the "instrument panel" stuff (on/off button, memory card slots, USB and other ports, etc.) "on the dash" (i.e., in a small enclosure that sits on your desktop for more convenient access).

These two sub-systems could easily be linked together with a cable to create one computer system that fits, to borrow a term from the user interface design or usability engineering fields, the "user model".

More expensive? Perhaps a little bit. But considerably more convenient and user friendly? You say.

premcv
04/20/07		 This seems to be a very good comparison, and infact a great idea. Hope Dell thinks _Out of box_ and comes up with such a design.
chewd
04/20/07		 IBM did just this with their aptiva back in the pentium 1 days... it was not very popular.

CDROM, floppy and hookups for kb, mouse, monitor & printer were all on an external box designed to fit under the monitor. It all hooked up via a proprietary cable to an ISA card in the machine itself.

Good idea in theory, but in the end it only added to the clutter of cables behind the desk.
premcv
04/20/07		 It could work provided the use the Wireless interconnection between the engine and the instrument panel, rather than cables! Prevents Clutter!
socaldan
04/20/07		 I think this could be done either wirelessly, like the other person mentioned, or it could be done in a very small footprint case (or even integrated into the stem of a monitor, which is already connectored to the computer anyway, but then you get into the issue of being stuck with less choices of monitor). I presume the people who have voted thumbs down are concerned about desktop space or clutter? It seems to me that this wouldn't create much clutter, and any convenience it creates would outweight any minimal taking up of space or clutter creation. Are people against convenience and efficiency? I don't know about you but I hate having to lean under the desk at awkward angles to grope for ports, buttons, etc. I'd much rather plug my thumb drive or flash card or whatever into something ergonomically located on my desktop.
chewd
04/20/07		 Im not against the idea... i just dont see myself buying it. Seems like a lot of added complexity to solve a problem which could just as easily be solved by a usb extension cord & hub. As for doing it wirelessly i dont think bluetooth has the kind of bandwidth youd need to simultaneously send video, sound, optical drive data transfer plus kb & mo input without lagging.... perhaps it could use wifi tech... which would then be a problem if you had more than one of these machines in proximity (wifi bandwidth is shared)

Besides which, i think most people who are concerned about desktop clutter have moved to laptops.

Good idea though, i just dont see much market for it.
mdh
04/20/07		 USB ports on the keyboard or on the front of a monitor might be a neat idea and rather cheap/easy to implement, but something like an optical drive would be far more expensive and difficult to do in a way that didn't make things big/hot/clunky. I'm surprised we haven't seen USB/firewire ports on the keyboard or the front of monitors yet.
socaldan
04/20/07		 I think in a certain sense this product concept is a little like a port replicator or docking station. In my view, those products serve two purposes: one purpose is for adding ports or slots to a laptop computer that doesn't have enough of them, and the second purpose is for convenience/efficiency/productivity, for example if you carry your laptop back and forth between home and office, you can just make one connection between the laptop and the port replicator in order to connect to whatever peripherals are connected to the port replicator.

I think this "engine vs. instrument panel" concept is somewhat similar in that it puts the ports and slots (and on/off control) all in one box and provides convenience/efficiency/productivity...but whereas the convenience of a port replicator is related to portability, the convenience of this "instrument panel" product is related to ergonomics.
chewd
04/20/07		 "I'm surprised we haven't seen USB/firewire ports on the keyboard or the front of monitors yet."

We have, compaq 17 and 19 inch CRTs from pent II & III days had USB hubs built into the monitor base.... an excellent idea that shouldve caught on. Most people who had em didnt know what they were for & they were seldom used.

I also recall seeing many aftermarket keyboards with built in USB hubs.
drothman
04/20/07		 My concept would pretty much be a little box with USB ports like a hub, a master on/off button, flash card slots like a card reader, and a DVD player. Some of the USB ports could be FireWire ports instead. So it's sort of like a USB hub, external flash card reader, and external DVD player all combined into one, with a master power switch too (remember those under-monitor power controls that used to be popular ten or more years ago? yuck). By having these things on the desktop within convenient reach, at the same time you can slim down the computer because you no longer need those things there, that's a key point that shouldn't be overlooked...it's not just about "adding a box to your desktop", it's about shifting frequently used things (controls, slots, ports) from under the desk to on top of the desk. And one single cable could connect it...and that would be no different from having a cable that goes from your monitor to your computer, no big deal.

If the car analogy doesn't grab you, how about these. Would you want to have to reach under a kitchen cabinet every time you want to turn on the microwave on top of your kitchen counter? Would you want to have to open a cabinet under your bathroom sink every time you flush the toilet? Would you want to have to open your nightstand drawer every time you want to set your alarm clock? Folks, it makes no sense for frequently used controls and interfaces to be out of reach, it's usability engineering and industrial engineering 101.
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