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[nutballs]

I just had a thought.

Infiniband, which is basically bus-by-wire, is the sever version of this idea, though it is not used in this way.
Lightpeak, which is going to be 10gbit. This now would allow for external drives on consumer products, as the os drive.

Just a thought. For when it jumps to 40gbit.

[kurdt]

This would have been awesome 5-10 years ago. Now we are going towards a split between very powerful data crunching setups that's been used for work and tablet type average joe computers. I doubt those people who really need the power of traditional desktop comp are ready to trade PCI-E to Thunderbolt just because it would be external. Also if I have a desktop computer, I still want it to be in one box.

Of course when it comes to harddrives, it's very likely that soon we will see setups with fast SSD for OS and all bigger storage is external.

[perkiset]

I believe Nuts is inching towards a bus-to-bus mechanism to avoid networking. That would be superb. But I don't even think it's come far enough for a standardized connector... yeah, they're using the minisdisplay style and size, but has that been agreed upon at iEEE?

I like the idea of Thuderbolt because (theoretically) it's just one connector type and you're done ... video, extrernal drives, network, you name it. But I think it has a long way to go.

[nutballs]

Agreed. I didnt manage to complete my thought though, because of a 3 year old standing next to me saying over and over "i want a Thomas movie"...

I was thinking for cost effectiveness and entry points for lower end computers, like what 80% of people would use.

For example...
iPad, with lightpeak... You could drop it onto a dock, and now have, cd burner, reader, usb, external storage, etc. No more need for a full computer all the time.

Have you seen the add for the mobile phone that you can plug in to a dock and it now is a "computer". All it is is a monitor, kb and mouse, but, what if it was more.
More processing? More GFX. more storage?
But YOU get to pick and choose what powers you want.

Think a level tree like in video games such as wow, but for your portable computer. LOL

OR. as a desktop. The core would be an interface module, with a bunch of LP sockets on it, a CPU, ghetto video, and just enough ram to make it functional. But, fully sealed and solid. Like a mac mini. The thing could be tiny though because it doesnt need a hard drive, or much ram, or or or or.  So then you could expand, externally, the way you want.

My parents for example, dont need anything special, so technically a pad would be perfect. Except, they do want to do some things that require ram and cpu. My mom has a friggin GINORMIC family tree file. I actually have to keep upgrading her so she can work on it more. My dad plays with photoshop. 90% of the time though, they are just surfing and reading emails, and my mom watching swedishTV broadcasts. So a pad, 90% of the tme is fine, and even more than they need.

Anyway, just wondering out loud what the next 10 years holds.

In 2001, I had a cellphone that made phonecalls only, a PDA, and a friggin pager (though that was about to go bye bye). I had a computer that cost about 6k. Now for the fucked up wrap up.
My phone, the iPhone that I now use, has as high a resolution, almost as much ram, and is faster i think. Oh yea, and it makes calls too.

[perkiset]

Side note - I put a MacMini with maxxed out ram and a 2T outboard drive on it for my recording studio. Then turned VNC on and use iTap VNC when I need to talk to it. Set the resolution of the box so 1024x768 and it's flawless. I also use the pad to control my mixer as well as the outboard effects, which are all VNC based. With multitasking it's like using Spaces on the Mac itself, yet it's a bunch of different machines. Now my youngest uses his pad for the same, and PinkHat uses hers to with Remote to drive music through the studio nothing else is going on.

So a thought would be to create that big machine they need to access (when they need to) but still have them paddable. With this line of thought, you no longer need to be connected to the machine you just access and control it. Sounds like ... something we do or ... can't ... quite put my finger on it...

[nutballs]

Of course, but there are a lot of things that it is not the same as having local power. Mostly the graphics part. Knave experimented with 3 things over the thin clients.
3d games
Movie
Flash

All = epic fail.

[vsloathe]

We need faster and more robust protocols than the ancient ones we're using first. 50ms ping r/t should be everyone's limit for anything important.

[nutballs]

true true.