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Theoretical new form factor "CTX"

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diggƒreak

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2006
Messages
173
I have to write an essay on a theoretical piece of technology, and I have decided to propose a new form factor, 'CTX', Component Technology Extended.

This form factor solves the problem of the average consumer not knowing how to upgrade their machine, and not knowing what each component does. It could also be used in an educational setting with see-through components for better understanding of the hardware.

Form factor:
Involves a 7" wide, tall vertical motherboard with a manufacturer specified number of identical serial slots. The board is located at the back of identical enclosed slots in the case. Requires a massive shift in hardware manufacture, as all components would be re-engineered to fit a slot design (wide enough to support optical drives) and a serial interface. When the machine boots up, an advanced POST detects hardware id and physically routes BUSes according to device position on the board by using a shifting portion of the pcb (eliminating potentially dangerous software control of the voltage and data pathways). This implies that an end user could turn off the PC, change the position of or swap their processor, and immediately turn it back on. Devices that would use the slot interface include: video cards, audio cards, hard drives, optical drives, memory, card readers, and controller interfaces.

Many areas of concern arise from this design:
Q: How would heat flow be addressed?
A: Components would be basically encased in their own heatsink, which would be further encased by the completely metal case itself. The case would be maximally ribbed to increase surface area. (*Please suggest how thermal contact should be made in the slots*)

High heat components could be placed in "water slots", which could be touching the water cooling flow of the case. Especially hot components would come with instructions for applying thermal compound to the (bottom?) of the slot and leaving the component there permanently.

Q: How would rear I/O work with front loading slots?
A: The motherboard would have 'dummy' I/O (DVI, Audio etc.) that would interface with a given card when it is detected. Certain cases would also support small boards that face the opposite direction that can be "SLIed" to your main motherboard for professional I/O devices.

Q: How would the consumer be prevented from pulling out a critical component during operation?
A: The board would physically lock in those components after POST (boot disk, cpu, video card etc.), while allowing storage volumes, card readers, and the like to be hot swapped to other machines.

Q: What if a component requires more power/bandwidth?
A: Cases can be modded to remove the divider between two slots so that literally "double slot" components could be plugged in.

Q: How will power work?
A: SATA type power interfaces will be used for every component, voltages being determined and physically routed during POST.
*Electrical people, is this possible?*

Q: What else would be a standard of this form factor?
A: All cases would include a simple LCD readout of the current W/h being used by the system to promote conservation.

Q: Aren't there very complex circuits on a motherboard that are specific to certain components?
A: * I'M NOT SURE, PLEASE FIND THE FAULTS IN THIS DESIGN *

Thanks for reading, I would be very grateful if you posted your thoughts/ideas/suggestions/fixes. :D
 
I'm too tired to draw a picture right now, but imagine a two foot tall metal case that is only slightly deeper than an optical drive with a stack of Gameboy-like slots making up the front of the case.
 
Wouldn't a modern Chaos computing system be better?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1990288,00.asp
http://www.chaologix.com/news/TechnologyReview.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_computing

"One of the holy grails of computing is enabling software to actually change the hardware on the fly," says Ditto. "If you're in Photoshop and need a lot of memory for two seconds, you can reconfigure the chip to give you a lot of memory. If you need to make a lot of calculations and don't need as much memory, you convert the chip back into a CPU. If you're playing a game, the chip reconfigures into a graphics engine chip."
Click to expand...

All the average consumer needs to do is add more chips. No worry about getting the right video card, RAM, or whatever. Just add more chips. Though the tech still seems a bit far away from fruition and might need a rewriting/rebuilding of some OSes
 
diggƒreak;1031914649 said:
Q: How would heat flow be addressed?
A: Components would be basically encased in their own heatsink, which would be further encased by the completely metal case itself. The case would be maximally ribbed to increase surface area. (*Please suggest how thermal contact should be made in the slots*)
Click to expand...
I'm thinking radial fans, or a "fan door" that functions like the front of a Thermaltake Armour. You can use some sort of clamping that'll a) hold your components in and b) act as the transfer material. Like two plates acting like a sandwich.
 
I'm actually really intriqued by this idea, but like a previous poster said, would be nice to see some pics. I'm having problems completely visualizing what you're trying to describe.

When the machine boots up, an advanced POST detects hardware id and physically routes BUSes according to device position on the board by using a shifting portion of the pcb
Click to expand...
:confused:

Q: What if a component requires more power/bandwidth?
A: Cases can be modded to remove the divider between two slots so that literally "double slot" components could be plugged in.
Click to expand...
The issue here unfortunately is that you have to design asychronous buses capable of a very high bandwidth in order to run everything. What I mean is that if you wanted something like the PCI-Ex16 standard on one bus, then every bus would need to be just as fast (or half as fast, I understand what you are getting at with doubling of the slots). This isn't really cost effective, nor pratical. Even if you found some sort of in between speed/data width, it would still be a huge limitation. Devices that would require lots of bandwidth (cpu, video card, memory, etc...) would be restricted by the physical number of slots available (remember that the more slots you have like this, the more impratical it becomes). Then you would have stuff that would require really low bandwidth buses (USB, ATA, LAN, etc...) that would be filling these high bandwidth slots. It's almost like fishing with dynamite.


Q: How will power work?
A: SATA type power interfaces will be used for every component, voltages being determined and physically routed during POST.
*Electrical people, is this possible?*
Click to expand...
It's certainly do-able, but I have to ask why? Power savings? You would need a pretty hefty power supply to pull this off which would definately negate any powersavings. TTL components are still going to have to filter power due to noise on the line. You're better off running a bus of regular voltages to each device and letting them pick out and regulate what they need, just like they do now. But I do really like the idea of one power bus/one connector unlike the system thats currently implemented in pc desktops (molex + sata + pcie).

Wouldn't a modern Chaos computing system be better?
Click to expand...
This is essentially an FPGA. While a great idea in theory, it needs alot of evolution of technology to be made more feasible than ASICs.
 
jwhazel said:
The issue here unfortunately is that you have to design asychronous buses capable of a very high bandwidth in order to run everything. What I mean is that if you wanted something like the PCI-Ex16 standard on one bus, then every bus would need to be just as fast (or half as fast, I understand what you are getting at with doubling of the slots). This isn't really cost effective, nor pratical. Even if you found some sort of in between speed/data width, it would still be a huge limitation. Devices that would require lots of bandwidth (cpu, video card, memory, etc...) would be restricted by the physical number of slots available (remember that the more slots you have like this, the more impratical it becomes). Then you would have stuff that would require really low bandwidth buses (USB, ATA, LAN, etc...) that would be filling these high bandwidth slots. It's almost like fishing with dynamite.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help, I've decided that there will be specific slots for the CPU, memory, and one high bandwidth device (a video card if you're a gamer, or a physics processor if you're in a lab etc.), and then the other slots will be essentially the same.

I don't really know how speeds have to work with certain buses, but could the memory, CPU, and high bandwidth device work on one bus while all the other components work on another?
 
So just who decided on your "form factor" of 7inches?

Is it you? And if so, are you simply wanting the smallest factor possible, hence your form factor suggested requirements?

Some of your ideas are fine, but your are simple trying to improve on something we already have. How about coming up with something NEW!

That is one problem with this generation. We have done nothing more, in the last 25 years, than IMPROVE the technology we have already. What NEW technology has come out in the last 25 years? Nothing.

What? A Camera/Internet/Video player/music player/Phone?
All technology we have had over the last 25 years...
 
Wipe off the "X" for "eXtended" from the name. Where's the original "Component Technology (CT)" motherboard that the CTX form factor extends? =P
 
The simple fact is...How much can you improve on the invention of the wheel?

You are not creating any NEW technology nor suggesting it. Simply put, your ideas are nothing more than opinionated improvements to that which we already have.

Use your mind and obvious creativity to invent something like...say a Teleportation machine that will eliminate the use of all vehicular travel.
NOW THAT WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT!
 
^^^ Whoa, kill the motor, dude. I like the creativity that's going on here--don't squash it.

I saw this interesting article today, and although it isn't exactly what we're talking about, it might spawn a few ideas. For the lazy, it's a set of modular, stackable devices--the bottom one is a power supply, and upper ones vary from USB hubs to hard drives. It seems odd to me that they made them stackable, but didn't include the power or data connections in the stacking mechanism. How about stacking modules that hook together in a way similar to a laptop docking station?

Or how about this: you put the most bandwidth-hungry modules at the bottom--CPU, RAM, and GPU. And things like USB interfaces and serial ports and such go higher in the stack (or vice versa). And if you put the high-bandwidth items at the top, they'll still work, but more slowly. So not only can people "build" their own computer, they can also learn what things require the most resources. And they can choose what modules they want. So if I have no need for parallel or serial ports, I don't have to buy that module. Upgrading your CPU would simply be a matter of lifting the stack off, replacing the existing one with the new one, and placing the other modules back on top. Or you could stick two CPUs in....or more!
 
Why does the average consumer need this so call CTX box? Thats why we have techs, to install parts in the right place.

Your making it so simple it wouldn't work as that way to much to ask MFGing at this time. Besides I like a challenge not a simple put cad in slot A and add a screw. Wow its that esasy?
7 inches? Where are you cannot put the rad for my cooling setup. LOL

Kill it now before it happens.
 
For some reason I'm reminded of slot-based CPUs :)

Anyway, the main issue one encounters with fancy new designs like this employing a generic module interface is that of latency. You want to keep the (physical) distance between the CPU, RAM and the North-Bridge/chipset as short as possible, as every millimeter you add on the trace increases the time it takes for a signal to travel on them by a certain amount.

On a flat PCB surface this is a relatively easy (well, really hard, but comparatively easy). In a dynamic 3D system this would be a near-impossible task, and performance would most likely suffer.

Anyway, a revolutionary new form factor would be fine, but don't be so quick to throw out the existing tech :)
 
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