Hardware innovations you'd like to see become mainstream

[CityK]

Just thought it would be interesting to hear some design ideas/wishes you'd like to see become widely incorporated. Feel free to address any item. I'll start with a couple of my own to start:

(1) Antec seems to have gotten the right idea with the drive cages that they've placed in their new Sonota case as seen reviewed at SilentPC. It will certainly make changing a drive in a really tight fitting case more manageable (i.e. you won't have to remove half the components just to get the drive out of/into the cage). Also, oriented like that, even using fat inflexible ide ribbons wouldn't be that bad as you can tuck them out of the way at the back.

(2) Front USB/1394/audio ports on cases.

(3) Mobo's with headers for items listed in (2) above ... (this seems to be occuring but still not universally or as quickly as I would like to see)

Cheers, CK

 

[honold]

the palo-alto 810 workstation/server enclosure has outward-pointing drives, and cabling them can be a bitch when you have more than 4 disks. just an observation.

i would like to see a single-plug standard for common motherboard headers (led, speaker, etc) as well as usb/usb2.

 

[CityK]

a single-plug standard for common motherboard headers (led, speaker, etc) as well as usb/usb2.

Excellent example.

cabling them can be a bitch when you have more than 4 disks. just an observation.

I would have thought otherwise, but having never played with such an arrangement, I'll take your word for it...

Your mention of cabling did make me consider another item: 2 optical, 2 HDD, onboard controllers only (i.e. no IDE card system). There has got to be a better design for the drive cages that would allow you to easily configure the drives as HDD1 + optical 1 and HDD 2 + optical 2 on the respective IDE channels....fully integrated SATA systems can't get here quick enough.

CK

 

[Mercutio]

In addition to those things already mentioned...

Better support for audio applications. There are a lot of motherboards and sound cards that give a choice between having a 5.1 set and having stereo + mic and line-in.
Soundcard support for ProLogicII.
Standard placement for an internal, standard cardreader controller.
Standard color coding for IDE channels (my personal pet peeve: some idiot uses the RAID channels on his motherboard in preference to the others, then wonders why he can't get his PC to work right)
Support for dual BIOS (a la Gigabyte)
Support for onboard diagnostics (a la Epox and MSI)
Onboard support for writing to optical drives (IDE ZIP drives work in DOS, why doesn't my burner!)
Boot support for 1394/USB/USB2 devices.

 

[CityK]

Excellent list Merc.

Just thought of another two: slide out mobo trays and the seperable case-to-mobo cable (Lian-Li)

 

[CityK]

While I'm thinking of it:

- Thumbscrews

- Screwless drive bays. With a little co-operation (wishful thinking) between case manufacturers and the respective optical and HDD manufacturers, I'm sure someone could come up with a universally exceptable drive bay which latches and releases easily, but holds the drives securely

- mufflers for PSU and case fan exhausts....not actually sure if there are many available, or if the existing designs are any good, ... but the potential exists to cut down on some more noise

CK

 

[Mercutio]

Standard connector to add 3.5" drive cages. Like this would be so %$^-ing hard?
Just to amplify another suggestion: PUT A STICKER over the RAID connectors, that says something like "Don't use me until you've got something on the other two channels or a valid reason to build a RAID"

Er, something like that, anyway.

Drop the useless AMR, ACR, CNR crap.

Capacitors that don't leak. I worked on PCs for probably 10 years before I saw a leaky cap.

Verbose error codes on screen. Not everyone has the speaker hooked up, or the technical knowledge to diagnose AMI beep codes. Really. This is the 21st century. It's not like we're gonna run out of space if we include a sentence to indicate that the BIOS battery has failed and you'd better get your ass to Radio Shack for a new one, or that the floppy cable is on backwards or that you've got two disks on the same IDE channel jumpered to master or whatever.

Better AGP slots. If it's such a PITA for high-end graphics cards to draw power from the slot, we need a better slot, NOT connectors on the card to plug in berg connectos (a la my Radeon 8500DV and probably my 9700AIW).

Dual AGP slot support. Supposedly it came in with AGP 8x, but none of the toy vendors (Abit, MSI, Asus) have done it yet.

Wide support for a 64bit PCI slot or two. Isn't it time?

Standard IRQ routing. ACPI should've fixed this, but not every motherboard follows AGP & 1st PCI, 2nd unshared, 3rd unshared, 4th shared with all the onboard crap, 5th unassignable standard that seems most common, and not everyone can use ACPI.

 

[Mercutio]

How about an extra connector for the PC speaker, so every PC could get minimal sound support without external speakers?

Some kind of easier HSF retention system. I don't care what, but remember how easy Slot 1 CPUs were to deal with? I'd love to have that again.

AMD and Intel should adopt low-noise 80mm, 2500rpm fans on their retail CPUs. Those serve a wide market better than the noisy SOBs they use now.

 

[CityK]

Some kind of easier HSF retention system

Couldn't agree more. I Had read awhile back that AMD was redesigning a much more user friendly retention system for the Hammer...I'll believe it when I see it.

Drop the useless AMR, ACR, CNR crap.

How true. It makes me laugh when I glance at a new mobo review and spot one of those stupid things...do they still include them just out of habbit? Seriously, is there any justification for there continued inclusion ie. who uses them? Hello, 21st century calling...

Dual AGP slot support. Supposedly it came in with AGP 8x, but none of the toy vendors (Abit, MSI, Asus) have done it yet.

I hadn't heard about that (wondered about it before mind you), but that would be awesome. Not sure of the technical possibilities though...are you sure about this one Mercutico?

 

[Buck]

Honold made a good point about seeing a single-plug standard for common motherboard headers (led, speaker, etc) as well as usb/usb2.

Many of the innovations we desire are basically BIOS upgrades which are being addressed through the BIOS Disk Drive Services, ATA Host Adapter Standards, and of course the most recent ATA/ATAPI revision. Unfortunately, these standards progress slowly and don’t cover everything that we would like to see.

 

[Tannin]

New laws for the regulation of the computer component design industry as handed down yesterday by His Imperial Majesty the Tsar Tannin

Connector standards:

(i) A designer may allign all motherboard connectors in whichever direction he prefers. However, they must all be alligned toward the same edge or corner.
(Penalty for first offence: on-the-spot dismissal.)
(Penalty for second offence: the words "I am a hopeless incompetent" to be branded on the forehead in no less than three languages.)

(ii) If the primary and secondary IDE controllers are alligned front-rear, the primary controller must be on the left (i.e., the secondary cable must be able to reach the CD ROM drive in an ordinary tower or desktop case without having to cross the primary cable).
(Penalty: confiscation of three month's wages.)

(iii) Motherboard designers may choose whichever system they prefer for the instance where primary and secondary controller headers are alligned left-right - His Imperial Majesty favours primary to the front, but as a special mark of lenience will allow motherboard designers to decide this for themselves. However, all must decide to use the same system. The Imperial Telephone System is hereby placed at the disposal of designers so that they may discuss this in detail. There is no hurry to produce a final answer: His Imperial Majesty will not begin executing designers who cannot agree anytime before Wednesday.

(iv) AMR slots are encouraged. They may not, however, be used on motherboards: their use is to be strictly reserved for feeding computer industry personel serving sentences in the Imperial Prison System who get tired of bread and water.

(v) Drive mounting rails must only be used in appropriate circumstances. (See (iv) above.) Please note that the appropriate way to insert a drive mounting rail into the appropriate case designer's orifice is sideways.

(vi) Color-coding and one-way cutouts to indicate connector orientation are optional. Cutouts must be designed in such a way that it is possible to use a cable designed for a cutout on a header that is not designed to use a cutout, and vice-versa.
(Penalty: Demotion to the shipping department for one year.)

(vii) Clear, easily visible markings to indicate the location of pin 1 are not optional.
(Penalty for first offence: painless surgical removal of one eye.)
(Penalty for second offence: painless surgical removal of one eye.)

 

[blakerwry]

I want DIN ("breakout") cables on sound cards that support 4 output channels or more.

I want optical drives to use the same transfer modes as HDD's (ATA66, 100, 133, S-ATA 150, etc)

I want standardized conenctors for the LED, Power, and reset switches on the font of cases to go along w/ ATX mobo's (1 single multi connector would be best)


I want to put spyware on the programmers' computers who design spyware themselves... not really hardware.. just a thought.

 

[P5-133XL]

I have exactly one law; Everything else is optional - Make a single standardized method of easily opening and closing different cases.

Optional improvements:

Design double-sided ribbon connectors that remove the need to put a twist in the ribbon. Better yet get rid of all ribbon connectors.

Make sure all drive bays can be reached by the inner plug of a standard IDE cable. i.e. design a standard IDE cable much longer than 18".

All connectors/plugs need to be color-coded, socketed and keyed.

Replace Molex power connectors with something that is reliable.

The case header should be standardized, color-coded, socketed, and keyed. Just like every other connector.

All jumpers should be in one spot (near the header) on the MB, so one does not need a diagram of the MB to find the jumper.

The little Hex screws that attach serial and parallel ports need to be designed not to come-off with normal tightening and untightening of their respective cables.

require all (both power and data) cables going to drive bays be long enough that they can be attached from the front of the case with the drive external to the case.

Make all mouse/keyboard PS/2 connectors interchangable (So I can plug the keyboard or the mouse into either connector) and make them harder to accidentilly become unplugged while not making them harder to plug in.

Actually test the validity of the ram during boot (Must be quick)

Actually have useful descriptive BIOS setup help screens.

Have a single standardized method of entering the bios. I don't want to have to ever again ask the user for the computer manuel just to find out how to enter the BIOS Setup.

A BIOS Setup option that actually tests all the components and successfully determines optimal settings.

A totally non-conductive surface for all motherboards and components so that I don't have to worry about dropped screws. An alternative solution is to make all screws non-conductive (But make sure they still work with magnetic tip screwdrivers).

A single standardized screw size and threading.

A standardized ZIF heat-sink connector for any component that needs cooling.

 

[Tea]

Opening cases?

Huh?

I thought there only was one way.

 

[P5-133XL]

Tea,

You left off the other half of the equation - Closing the case. Optimal method - Buy another computer. Neumonic = OOCN (Open once, Close never)

 

[Mercutio]

I hadn't heard about that (wondered about it before mind you), but that would be awesome. Not sure of the technical possibilities though...are you sure about this one Mercutico?

1.) You've been spelling my nick wrong.
2.) Here's Intel's AGP 3.0 PDF.

You can find less dry reading on the subject through google.

 

[Pradeep]

Better AGP slots. If it's such a PITA for high-end graphics cards to draw power from the slot, we need a better slot, NOT connectors on the card to plug in berg connectos (a la my Radeon 8500DV and probably my 9700AIW).

There is already AGP Pro 50 and 110. Of course not many of the cheaper mobos have them. Did anyone see the Doctor Tommys review of the gayfarce FX 5800 Ultra. Apparently uses upto 80W! and it sounds like a vacuum cleaner to boot. Oh and you lose the first PCI slot to the gigantic heatsink/blower contraption. I think I'll wait for a 9700 revision instead.

 

[Mercutio]

Gotta say I think ATI won the battle for the current round of graphics cards.

Ooh. There's another one.

Graphics cards should not have PCI-slot-blocking, toad-shaped cooling devices that sound like a warhog rooting for food... unless the user installs one.

 

[CityK]

1.) You've been spelling my nick wrong.

So I have. My appologies, it was not intentional.

Cheers, CK

 

[Tea]

Graphics cards should not have PCI-slot-blocking, toad-shaped cooling devices that sound like a warhog rooting for food... unless the user installs one.

Or possibly, unless the user is one?

 

[Buck]

Hou about a banana holder bilt in to thu keebord?

 

[Mercutio]

Companies that make devices that a molded to fit ergonomically in one's right hand shall also make an identical product that is designed to fit ergonomically in one's left hand. This shall be known for e'er more as the "Why the hell can't I get a left-handed joystick" Rule.

Penalty for not doing this: Extended visit to Comrade Mercutio's Lebentod Gulag and Family Amusement/Reeducation Center.

Slightly outside the immediate realm of "technology" but... Companies providing hardware new or unusual enough that drivers for it are not present in the previous, current release of Windows (i.e. 2000 or ME) should provide drivers for every operating system that hardware supports, on a CD, in the box.

If a company advertises support for another operating system on the packaging or promotional materials for its hardware, those drivers should be in the box, on a CD, with the Windows drivers.

Penalty for not doing either of the above should be a temporary loan to Tsar Tannin, for purposes of inserting and removing drive rails, for a period of three months. For not doing either of the above, the period shall be extended to "Until you learn to like it."

Consumer-grade hardware that needs additional cabling to operate should include said cable(s). This means printers should come with printer cables, motherboards should come with IDE/Floppy cables and damned near everything should come with power cables.

Failure to so should result in a punishment that is far too horrendous to describe, but Comrade Mercutio will offer the teeny hint that it involves a garlic press. Administration of this punishment will be conducted by those who mention support for specific features in promotional materials... but only after a "free upgrade".

 

[Groltz]

Graphics cards should not have PCI-slot-blocking, toad-shaped cooling devices that sound like a warhog rooting for food... unless the user installs one.

C'mon...There has never been an amphibian born of this earth that looks like a GFFX cooling setup.

What do these coolers resemble?

Check out here: http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum/showflat.pl?Board=techdisplayadapters&Number=1772299

___________________________ :rofl: ____________________________

 

[Groltz]

.

And here:

http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200301/blower2.jpg


.

 

[Buck]

Nice Groltz.

 

[Handruin]

I almost spit out my water when I looked at the first picture. :rotfl:

 

[The JoJo]

Good ones Groltz

 

[Cliptin]

Hmm.. The first one doesn't work for me.

 

[Groltz]

Hmm.. The first one doesn't work for me.

Looks like that thread got whacked.

Here are some more:
http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum...eneral&Number=1774489&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1


.

 

[Adcadet]

well, this is sortof happening already, but I really like the idea of *fast* wireless networking. I really want to be able to sit in ANY classroom at my university (not just some) and be able to surf the web. How else do my profs think I'll be able to tolerate things like 3 staight hours of anatomy lecture?

In addition, I really like the idea of wireless printing.

 

[Handruin]

I'm still cracking up when I see those. :lol:

 

[Mercutio]

C'mon, A.D., A&P is actually a pretty interesting class.
Along those lines, though, where's bluetooth support for, oh, anything on the PC side?

1Mbit is plenty fast for browsing and printing (I assume IP will run over it). A bluetooth printer that took jobs from any device within 30 feet? That would be sweet.

 

[Adcadet]

C'mon, A.D., A&P is actually a pretty interesting class.
Along those lines, though, where's bluetooth support for, oh, anything on the PC side?

1Mbit is plenty fast for browsing and printing (I assume IP will run over it). A bluetooth printer that took jobs from any device within 30 feet? That would be sweet.

Sorry, no physiology. Just pure anatomy. I'll take medical school physiology in a year.

 

[jtr1962]

1)Cases designed with fans that only suck air in, and power supplies that do likewise. By placing a filter over the input to each fan, this would eliminate dust in the case. Of course, you'll need to occasionally clean the filters, so perhaps an auditory reminder every 50 hours or so of operation would be nice along with a blinking LED at the same time next to each filter.

2)Use the case as an integral part of the processor cooling solution. Do likewise for any other chips producing a lot of heat. If the unused portion of back of the case(or one the sides) were turned into a convective(i.e. no fan) heat sink, it would have sufficient capability to keep even a 100W processor to under 40°C at normal room temperature. This means quieter PCs. In fact, if you can sink the drives to the case and design a power supply using passive cooling there would be no need for any fans at all in a PC. The hard drives would be the only noise source. There would also not be a possibility of processor failure due to an overheated fan.

3)In keeping with #2, some sort of vibration isolation mounting system to quiet hard drives. Today's drives are already very quiet but a better mounting system would make them inaudible, even in a case with no fans.

4)Ability to set the FSB and PCI bus speeds separately and in 1 MHz increments as part of the next spec. This would allow tweaking the maximum possible performance out of a system.

5)Small amount of built-in RAM to allow system to function minimally with empty memory slots(or perhaps use the processor's cache for the same purpose).

I'm sure I'll think of more later.

 

[blakerwry]

1)Cases designed with fans that only suck air in, and power supplies that do likewise. By placing a filter over the input to each fan, this would eliminate dust in the case. Of course, you'll need to occasionally clean the filters, so perhaps an auditory reminder every 50 hours or so of operation would be nice along with a blinking LED at the same time next to each filter.

2)Use the case as an integral part of the processor cooling solution. Do likewise for any other chips producing a lot of heat. If the unused portion of back of the case(or one the sides) were turned into a convective(i.e. no fan) heat sink, it would have sufficient capability to keep even a 100W processor to under 40°C at normal room temperature. This means quieter PCs. In fact, if you can sink the drives to the case and design a power supply using passive cooling there would be no need for any fans at all in a PC. The hard drives would be the only noise source. There would also not be a possibility of processor failure due to an overheated fan.

3)In keeping with #2, some sort of vibration isolation mounting system to quiet hard drives. Today's drives are already very quiet but a better mounting system would make them inaudible, even in a case with no fans.

4)Ability to set the FSB and PCI bus speeds separately and in 1 MHz increments as part of the next spec. This would allow tweaking the maximum possible performance out of a system.

5)Small amount of built-in RAM to allow system to function minimally with empty memory slots(or perhaps use the processor's cache for the same purpose).

I'm sure I'll think of more later.

1) 50 hours? maybe 500 hours.... around here 50 hours of operation = 2 days.

2) Neat idea... i wonder how people will feel if their case now acts as a radiator?

3) also a good idea... as long as the HDD is as secure as corrent solutions I'm all for vibration isolation.

4) eh... AGP and PCI independant with 1mHz increments sounds like it has very limited practicality and would probably cost more/be less stable... I'd rather have sync or evenly divisible operation that can be set in BIOS.

5) I thoguht we already went over this one.... It just costs too much to create a long lasting good solution... so all the implementations we see are usually rather poorly done. I ahve to agree that I would LOVE to be able to boot without having to add RAM... but it's just an esential part of a PC that I am willing to live with.

 

[Dïscfärm]

To some of the people that think screw-less cases are the way to go:

Although this may be nice for you, others will quickly find that they are a security problem. In an environment where you have various people coming and going, some of these people may decide to rob the contents of your computer (RAM, processor, hard drive, PCI cards, etc) because it is such an easy and quick job. I used to hear a lot about this problem with Macintosh computers (the Mac II series systems that were expandable) back in the late '80s and early '90s in university computer labs.

 

[jtr1962]

2) Neat idea... i wonder how people will feel if their case now acts as a radiator?

Don't worry, it will only get slightly warm, not hot enough to burn. Look on the bright side-you can also have an integral coffee cup holder designed to keep your beverage hot mounted right on the hottest portion of the case/sheet sink.

5) I thoguht we already went over this one.... It just costs too much to create a long lasting good solution... so all the implementations we see are usually rather poorly done. I ahve to agree that I would LOVE to be able to boot without having to add RAM... but it's just an esential part of a PC that I am willing to live with.

This time around I didn't mean enough to run Windows or Linux like I suggested in that other thread. I was thinking more along the lines of enough to load DOS-say 1 MB. You could probably have the hardware somehow use the video RAM for this purpose by using a jumper. I have some software(QEMM's vidram.com) that disables VGA graphics and uses the adaptor RAM to add 64K or 96K to conventional memory. I was able to get 736K of conventional memory on my 8086 museum piece this way. Something along these lines would remap the 1st MB of video RAM into the 0 to 1M address space so that you could format your harddrive or do other simple tasks in case you don't have a stick of RAM handy.

 

[Dïscfärm]

• ...would like to see a single-plug standard for common motherboard headers (led, speaker, etc) as well as usb/usb2.
  
  
• ...slide out mobo trays and the seperable case-to-mobo cable (Lian-Li)
  
  
• ...How about an extra connector for the PC speaker, so every PC could get minimal sound support without external speakers?

Actually, I've seen various Compaq boxes that had these capabilities.

 

[blakerwry]

5) I thoguht we already went over this one.... It just costs too much to create a long lasting good solution... so all the implementations we see are usually rather poorly done. I ahve to agree that I would LOVE to be able to boot without having to add RAM... but it's just an esential part of a PC that I am willing to live with.

This time around I didn't mean enough to run Windows or Linux like I suggested in that other thread. I was thinking more along the lines of enough to load DOS-say 1 MB. You could probably have the hardware somehow use the video RAM for this purpose by using a jumper. I have some software(QEMM's vidram.com) that disables VGA graphics and uses the adaptor RAM to add 64K or 96K to conventional memory. I was able to get 736K of conventional memory on my 8086 museum piece this way. Something along these lines would remap the 1st MB of video RAM into the 0 to 1M address space so that you could format your harddrive or do other simple tasks in case you don't have a stick of RAM handy.

No offense, but that seems like an even worse idea... if you had 1MB built into the mobo it would occupy 1 of the few banks that you can use... and you're not really even taking advantage of that bank if you only put in 1 MB...(usually you can use 3 sticks of RAM stabily at a mobo's max speed) so with 1 of those banks full limit yourself to using 2 sticks of RAM

What I remember from my DOS days was that memaker386 (Microsoft's product to compete with QEMM) could also give you some RAM.. but it was not actually RAM from the video adapter as I remember... it was actually system RAM that was by default reserved for use in cetain greyscale/VGA modes....(more like a "memory hole") memmaker simply made it available by default. I believe this is how QEMM operated as well. ....but it has been awhile so you may be right.


Like I said before... I would only go for onboard RAM if it could be defeated (by jumper) without having an effect on normal operation of the motherboard.. this includes taking up an additional RAM bank or having stability issues at higher speeds when the onboard RAM is turned off.

The additional cost of the board having onboard RAM would also have to be very little

 

[jtr1962]

No offense, but that seems like an even worse idea... if you had 1MB built into the mobo it would occupy 1 of the few banks that you can use... and you're not really even taking advantage of that bank if you only put in 1 MB...(usually you can use 3 sticks of RAM stabily at a mobo's max speed) so with 1 of those banks full limit yourself to using 2 sticks of RAM

Just to clarify, what I mean is a jumper on the M/B that remaps at least the first 1M to the video card RAM. Or perhaps you can use all of the video card RAM except 1 or 2 MB so you have graphics capability and the use of almost all of the 32 or 64 or 128 MB on the video card. In the normal(operating) position you use the M/B memory banks as always, and the video card works normally. I don't see any downside to this. If the jumper stops working, it means you probably have a fried M/B anyhow. If the video card RAM goes bad, you need to replace it anyway. There is no RAM whatsoever on the M/B to go bad. Remapping isn't that big of a deal to do in hardware. I'm really surprised nobody's thought of this. It would be very convenient and almost trivial to do with today's chipsets.

BTW, memmaker and QEMM can both use the B000-B7FF area, which is used by a monochrome video adaptor(and hence not used on modern machines). QEMM's Vidram works a little differently. It disables all graphics(hence it's only useful for test programs) and makes use of the A000 to AFFF, or A000 to B7FFF areas to extend conventional memory to either 704 KB or 736 KB. And yes, it does use the video card RAM for this purpose because it is not possible for the processor to remap anything into the A000 to AFFF area. In fact, the program works on an 8086 with only 640K of physical RAM, and gives either 704 KB or 736 KB(I forgot which) of useable conventional memory. It does definitely use the video adaptor RAM since the 8086 processor is incapable of remapping memory.