Different size cases were possible with desktops. The main restrictions were the power supply and the motherboard. As for a laptop, the restrictions are indeed the screen and the keyboard. In the past ten year some things have been been more or less consistent in shape and size :
- battery
- hard drive
- adapter cards ( PCMCIA, Express Card etc)
- Audio ports
- Ethernet connector
A digital connection to the LCD which would be standard across the laptops. The motherboard could provide the following : hard drive/optical/storage connection, wireless connection, high USB or other connection, RAM sockets, CPU etc. Would it be possible to have varied sizes such that the motherboard could match different power possibilities?
Going all cloud is not possible yet, nor do people want to lug around hundreds of songs or videos on their laptops. Cell phones and tablets increase the sense that computers are disposable. In many ways they are. In many ways, we haven't even used the limits of the machines.
Let's see, the only thing non-standard on laptops are the case and the motherboard. Everything else like the battery, LCD, Charger, HDD, ODD, Option cards (BT, WLAN, WWAN) touchpad, webcam are the same between models. The LCD actually uses a common digital connection called LVDS and it's the same in every laptop since like 8 years.
ReplyDeleteIt IS actually possible to make "DIY" laptops, the problem, ¿Are the manufacturers interested in doing that? I think not and that's the main problem.
Today's levels of electronics integration in computers allows for very small motherboards, varied designs and exchangeability between parts, we just need to find an "open" architecture. Even graphics cards may be added by the user if it feels like doing it.
The only limiting factor for the entire system will be the case and the screen size, the same way we now replace the "cpu" in the desktop computer but keep the monitor for new generations.