Separate the "engine" and the "instrument panel"!
New Product Ideas, Desktops and Laptops submitted by drothman
04/20/07
If computers were cars, they would be cars with almost everything under the hood and almost nothing on the dash! When operating a car, would you want to have to get out and open the hood every time you want to turn the ignition on or off, change a DVD, or connect a cigarette lighter plug?
Obviously not. But that's in fact pretty much how most computers are designed.
If Dell or another innovative manufacturer were to think outside the box, they would realize that computers could be designed more like cars, with the "engine" stuff (motherboard, hard drive, etc.) "under the hood" (i.e., in the main case placed under or next to your desk) and the "instrument panel" stuff (on/off button, memory card slots, USB and other ports, etc.) "on the dash" (i.e., in a small enclosure that sits on your desktop for more convenient access).
These two sub-systems could easily be linked together with a cable to create one computer system that fits, to borrow a term from the user interface design or usability engineering fields, the "user model".
More expensive? Perhaps a little bit. But considerably more convenient and user friendly? You say.
track my votes
