Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Bill Tozier (vaguery@a2mi.social)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 01:05:17 JST Bill Tozier

   • Thomas 🔭🕹️

   @thomasfuchs I remember using a huge 2-bay Bernoulli Drive underneath a horizontal-format IBM PC-AT for a summer job in the mid 80s. It was slightly bigger than the CPU box.

   • Embed this notice
     snaeqe (snaeqe@chaos.social)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 01:23:02 JST snaeqe

     • leyrer
     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs
     @leyrer

     *looks into any random datacenter*
     Today, these things are computers, and we stack other things, also being computers, on top of them.

   • Embed this notice
     Jamie Blumberg (jamie_blumberg@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 02:09:47 JST Jamie Blumberg

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs I still maintain a stack of my own.

   • Embed this notice
     GuerillaGrue (guerillagrue@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 02:13:30 JST GuerillaGrue

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs I mean... I'ma be honest, there ain't a day goes by I didn't wish there weren't still a market for cases designed to sit *under* the monitor, even nowadays. Thin as monitors are, most of 'em still have a base broad enough to justify at least an ITX if not full MATX motherboard's footprint, and with just a little bit of horizontal design that could easily translate into a powerful under-the-monitor system.

     Instead, that's where we put sound bars now?

     Why not both?

     *shrug*

   • Embed this notice
     Matthias :veritrek_red: (mpwg@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 04:22:38 JST Matthias :veritrek_red:

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs Before dual core, before dual cpu there was: dual pc.

   • Embed this notice
     Isaac Ji Kuo (isaackuo@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 10:41:33 JST Isaac Ji Kuo

     in reply to

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️
     • the hatter

     @hatter @thomasfuchs LOL, yeah I think they were generally called "sidecar" expansions, which makes the name of the Amiga Sidecar extremely funny. The MacCharlie was a brilliant name that told you what it was without outright saying "IBM" or "PC" or "MSDOS".

     (At the time, IBM's PC advertising featured a Charlie Chaplin knock-off.)

     The Amiga "Sidecar"? What the heck were they thinking even? Ah, it's a total mystery how Commodore went bankrupt...

   • Embed this notice
     Isaac Ji Kuo (isaackuo@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 10:41:34 JST Isaac Ji Kuo

     in reply to

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️
     • the hatter

     @hatter @thomasfuchs Take a look at the Amiga Sidecar, though. It's outrageously inelegant and impractical, and it gets worse and worse the closer you look. The way the Amiga was designed, the expansion slot floats up in the air, requiring really ugly stuff to get something like the Sidecar to work. And also, the mouse and keyboard ports are on the same side as the expansion slot which is ... ugh ... quite lamentable.

   • Embed this notice
     the hatter (hatter@metasocial.com)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 10:41:34 JST the hatter

     in reply to

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️
     • Isaac Ji Kuo

     @isaackuo @thomasfuchs Ah you're right, I was thinking of the A500-style ones which followed the box and wedge profile, pretty sure some folk called those sidecar designs, whether it was hardware emulators or HDs, memory upgrades, other options.

   • Embed this notice
     the hatter (hatter@metasocial.com)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 10:41:35 JST the hatter

     in reply to

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️
     • Isaac Ji Kuo

     @isaackuo @thomasfuchs Nothing wrong with a sidecar-type expansions - when it's a one-off. When you start frequently stacking several end to end then obviously it gets a bit ridiculous, but the alternative is stacking separates... with some often expensive custom cable, if it's a full bus rather than just some centronics or serial.

   • Embed this notice
     Isaac Ji Kuo (isaackuo@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 26-Nov-2023 10:41:36 JST Isaac Ji Kuo

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs Still far more elegant than the Amiga Sidecar.

     Anyway, the obsession with stacking is more understandable after you look at an expanded TI-99/4A system ... it just goes off to the right and keeps going and going and going and going ...