MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[mattspace]

A more salient real-world example is the reality that in a modernized and increasingly urban world, individual car ownership increasingly makes less sense. The economics make no sense unless you're vastly overestimating "freedom" into the equation. Young people aren't buying cars because they don't fit their lifestyle and economic means. Arguing about car preferences is thus possibly missing the forest for the trees long-term.

So realistically, the only cars there need* to be are internet enabled share cars / uber-like driver services for the casual transportation user, AND the highly configurable, and reconfigurable pickup trucks & delivery vans needed by tradespeople who rely on constantly moving stuff.

So, the equivalent of iPads, and then slotbox mac pros, and everything in-between is jettisonable, like the "freedom" of owning a personal car.

cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth

*Go outside the centre of a major metropolis and you see how hollow the "no personal cars" utopia of the tech-metropolitan worldview is. I used to live in Sydney, 40 Minutes drive was travelling well within the suburban public transport network - 1 train and 1 bus would take me the same distance (in about an hour and a half). 2 years later, living in a regional town, 40 minutes drive takes me 2 towns away, through farmland or forest. A car for every member of the family is the norm, because distances are either bicycle or drive - the economics of distance make owning a car necessary.

 

[William Payne]

So realistically, the only cars there need* to be are internet enabled share cars / uber-like driver services for the casual transportation user, AND the highly configurable, and reconfigurable pickup trucks & delivery vans needed by tradespeople who rely on constantly moving stuff.

So, the equivalent of iPads, and then slotbox mac pros, and everything in-between is jettisonable, like the "freedom" of owning a personal car.

cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth

*Go outside the centre of a major metropolis and you see how hollow the "no personal cars" utopia of the tech-metropolitan worldview is. I used to live in Sydney, 40 Minutes drive was travelling well within the suburban public transport network - 1 train and 1 bus would take me the same distance (in about an hour and a half). 2 years later, living in a regional town, 40 minutes drive takes me 2 towns away, through farmland or forest. A car for every member of the family is the norm, because distances are either bicycle or drive - the economics of distance make owning a car necessary.

Same here in New Zealand. If you live in a smaller city a car is a must, if you travel a lot a car is a must, if you live in the big city like say Auckland and you only need to be in the inner central business area then a car is less important.

 

[-hh]

I really disagree with {Flat Five} on that - the aspect of computers that was trucky was the post-puchase reconfigurability of them. If you needed a truck computer, you still need a truck computer. People used used truck computers in the past, but didn't necessarily need the truckyness, that was just where the performance they did need was co-existent. They needed an aspect of the product, not the whole thing.

While the Truck analogy is inherently limiting, I think it nevertheless is a good analogy because of the different directions one can go with it (no matter how tenuous).

For example, the above isn't really talking (directly) about car-vs-truck "Hauling", but rather how the Truck is more friendly to being reconfigured (customized) for different use cases. Part of this includes lifecycle management too.

For a personal example, my last cMP came from the Apple factory with 1TB of data storage in it ... but was initially deployed with 8.25 TB (in no small part because of how Apple's HDDs were overpriced) and today, five years later, its data storage has undergone some incremental upgrades and now stands at 17TB. And the basic reason why its still in use is because what changed the most was the growth in data needs, not the capability needs for having more CPU or more GPU.

Similarly, consider the below comment:

The number of pickup trucks and big SUVs I see in NYC, despite the fact that it makes no sense to have giant cars here let alone pickups if you're not a contractor, is pretty staggering. I'd wager a lot of people buying trucks are people who want pickup trucks just 'cause, the same way SUV sales ballooned because people didn't want to be the "uncool" people with minivans.

Sure, there's some "cool" factors too, but part of the reason why the USA has such a high level of SUVs is because the lifecycle cost to own one isn't as steep - - gasoline is still cheap, and thanks to auto insurance rates, its cheaper to own one 'Behemoth SUV' than to insure two vehicles (sedan + pickup truck)...plus for city folk, having to park one "big" vehicle doesn't take up as much room as two smaller vehicles.

(and applying the analogy ... not everyone finds worthy value-added in having a small form factor laptop or desktop iMac).

Everyone arguing about workstations forget that they're on a very thin slice of the wedge, as Apple themselves pointed out. That thin slice might remain constant, and be profitable to target, but at the end of the day it's nothing compared to the rest of the market. People don't like to be reminded that their preferences are not the norm, and that they can be safely ignored... but that's how the cookie crumbles.

A very fair point, but applying an automotive analogy again, the same can also be said about the Chevy Corvette. That's where we can go beyond narrow-minded views of accountant spreadsheets and look at "Halo" products.

i mean:

the 'truck' is capable of hauling more stuff.. it's slower and less maneuverable but if you've got a big load to carry, it will finish that task quicker than using a car.
basically-- the truck is a big(ger) tower PC containing multiple processing cores..
the car is a quad or 6-core computer.

Again, while the basic point is understood, we can contort the analogy, as Technology moves forward: the 0-60mph specs of my "slower and less maneuverable" SUV is (slightly) better than a 1985 Porsche 911 that I had bought years ago. And for agility, the Macan is pretty much just as fast through corners ... while being less likely to swap ends from lift throttle oversteer. And fuel economy is slightly better, despite the extra ton of steel.

In the end, we each have our own paradigms as well as priorities for our use cases & workflow needs. While from Apple's perspective it is more manufacturing-line-efficient to have all of their customers buy only one product, it is because we're not the same that the product needs to accommodate variations in needs, use cases, & priorities. In a nutshell, the mistake that Apple made with the tcMP was in offering a product that was significantly less flexible.

 

[pat500000]

I need a tank computer that transform into optimus prime.

 

[monokakata]

On the subject of pizza boxes -- the VAXmate of 1986 was widely known as "the pizza box," even among DEC salespeople. It wasn't really meant to operate stand-alone, but it could. If you wanted a hard drive, you did need another box. But if you were OK running DOS on floppies, you were set.

On the subject of early towers, I do believe that the DEC Micro-11 was actually the first tower. I bought several, beginning in 1984.

Aidenshaw -- how did I beat you to this?

 

[CWallace]

The first tower-configuration PCs I saw were the IBM PS/2 Models 60 and 80. Thought they were the coolest s**t ever at the time.

My first tower was a 1989 HP Vectra RS/25c. The 25 stood for a 25MHz 80386, but my configuration was also north of $20,000 so it also could have stood for the price tag.

 

[vailr]

HP Vector RS/25c.

HP Vectra

 

[CWallace]

HP Vectra

Auto-(in)correct strikes again.

 

[flat five]

Again, while the basic point is understood, we can contort the analogy, as Technology moves forward:

ok.. i guess everybody still likes the analogy of cars VS trucks..

i'll quit challenging its validity
carry on
[doublepost=1511224724][/doublepost]

On the subject of early towers, I do believe that the DEC Micro-11 was actually the first tower. I bought several, beginning in 1984.

what did you use those for, exactly?

(just curious)

 

[OS6-OSX]

I have analyzed all of my SW & HW, compared Parallels, Virtual Box and VMWare. If Apple doesn't blow it by leaving out the PCIe slots (and other things) I will make the move to an mMP. Many people online (like the owner of this bottle) say a water container holds about 30,000 pennies. Since Apple is a penny pinching company I'm going to buy an mMP in pennies. For a $2,999 model (if there will be one) I would need 10 bottles. That's 300,000 pennies or $3,000. I want to be accurate so I better make sure.... 1, 2, 3,.......

 

[-hh]

On the subject of pizza boxes -- the VAXmate of 1986 was widely known as "the pizza box," even among DEC salespeople. It wasn't really meant to operate stand-alone, but it could. If you wanted a hard drive, you did need another box. But if you were OK running DOS on floppies, you were set.

The Hewlett Packard HP-150 was a similar configuration ... and was also stackable. It also happened to have its own version of Thunderbolt of its day, which was the IEEE-488 (HP-IB) interface.

In many ways, it paralleled the original Apple Macintosh: date (1983), form factor, small B&W display, even a 3.5" floppy ... plus it was also an early touchscreen.

 

[flat five]

I have analyzed all of my SW & HW, compared Parallels, Virtual Box and VMWare. If Apple doesn't blow it by leaving out the PCIe slots (and other things) I will make the move to an mMP. Many people online (like the owner of this bottle) say a water container holds about 30,000 pennies. Since Apple is a penny pinching company I'm going to buy an mMP in pennies. For a $2,999 model (if there will be one) I would need 10 bottles. That's 300,000 pennies or $3,000. I want to be accurate so I better make sure.... 1, 2, 3,.......
View attachment 737356

use dollars..
way lighter


no, weigh.

 

[nigelbb]

On the subject of pizza boxes -- the VAXmate of 1986 was widely known as "the pizza box," even among DEC salespeople. It wasn't really meant to operate stand-alone, but it could. If you wanted a hard drive, you did need another box. But if you were OK running DOS on floppies, you were set.

On the subject of early towers, I do believe that the DEC Micro-11 was actually the first tower. I bought several, beginning in 1984.

Aidenshaw -- how did I beat you to this?

View attachment 737169 View attachment 737170

Thanks for that blast from the past. As a former DEC employee it brought a tear to my eye when I recall all the great technology DEC introduced & the decline then assimilation first under Compaq then under HP.

The pizza box for the Vaxmate was the box under the unit with the screen & this contained the add on 20MB hard disk. Vaxmate had a monochrome screen & I well recall running Windows V1.

I also recall the introduction of the VT220 terminal pictured with the PDP11. It looked so sleek & modern compared to the old VT100 the design of which is clearly echoed in that of the Vaxmate.

 

[OS6-OSX]

...This could also facilitate a couple of different Pizza Box Modules (PBM's), such as a PBM with just PCIe slots (such as for GPUs) and another PBM is set up to house & connect 3.5" and/or 2.5" HDDs/SSDs (for expanded local data storage), and so on.

A more serious take on your PBM idea. Would like the 2.5 SSD PBM to hold 8 drives and enable the old RAID 0 for that PBM. One issue with the PBM's stacked is the amount of fans needed for each. Each PBM (LC II like but smaller) should only be the height needed for the items. Without tops (and made like trays) they could slide into the mMP. Here, the "new silent" fans would cool all the PBM's. Or if Apple wants to put their billions where their mouth is, come up with a mini fridge (not nearly as large) like case. A way to keep the inside very cool without fans but condensation will not cause the internal items to go poof! Refrigerators are on 24/7 for years!

 

[Ph.D.]

On the subject of pizza boxes -- the VAXmate of 1986 was widely known as "the pizza box," even among DEC salespeople. It wasn't really meant to operate stand-alone, but it could. If you wanted a hard drive, you did need another box. But if you were OK running DOS on floppies, you were set.

Ooooh! A real three-button mouse. I miss those.

My first "tower" was a VAXStation II. It retailed at $60,000 with its $15,000 color monitor.

 

[vailr]

There also was the DEC Rainbow dual CPU machine (4 MHz Zilog Z80 and 4.81 MHz Intel 8088). Theoretically, MS-DOS could be run on the Intel 8088 CPU, but there was some kind of glitch that prevented MS-DOS from actually being able to run as advertised, on the machines used at the workplace where I was at the time.
Looking at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_100 , the machine may have been the original DEC Rainbow model 100A, which was later updated to model 100B, in order to be better able to run MS-DOS.

 

[Mago]

Did you know, in early super-computer days, behemoths like Cray-2 where cooled by immersion?
Seems the techinque is back, since it allows higher clock speeds and now the compunds used are safe for the Ozone sheld.

checkout : http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/795-supercomputing-2017-in-pictures.html

The most interesting to me is the Two-Phase cooling, it uses a liquid that boils at 56deg Celsius -132degF-, imagine an transparent rounded trash can mMP filled with liquid and boiling its CPU/GPUs...

 

[OS6-OSX]

Did you know.....

(nice link!)
Did I know technology was moving forward? No! I have been busy trying to change the desktop of my MC! You guys said you were going to wait for me!

 

[singhs.apps]

Ok just how old are you all ? I am pushing 40

 

[CWallace]

48

 

[flat five]

i was 9 when this was introduced -- #6786

..and while i had a Commodore 64 as a child, i didn't really start using computers in my work until i was 29.. (with a friend's G4.. soon after, bought a G5.. then PowerBook 17..etc.. only Macs).
i used traditional drafting techniques prior to that.

 

[Dreadnought]

How cheesy is that?
That's almost exactly what I have predicted a few years ago. I had to refine my design a little bit. There are all these stackable different sizes of modules; GPU, CPU, Storage, Power and a NIA, New Innovations my Ass, modules. These modules automatigally click to each other with a new ingenious super speed bus built around the modules edges; It's female and male in every module, at the top and at the bottom.

You can buy as you need, what you need, and it's all there to be bought by you, at Your local modular Apple Store, with an  price.

I wish I could not predict..

Same as what I have said a couple of times already (see my post at page 188), my prediction is that it will be like Razor’s project Christine. It all fits perfectly and typically Apple. The base module would be a perfect MacMini replacement (maybe ARM cpu, lots of lanes, HBM), for the rest building blocks with their own custom connector (add a CPU OR GPU, buy a box, need connectivity, the same).

It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple was working with Razor for years on this, or have bought the rights for this design. Although, the Razor products suck on a Mac, that should have been better by now!

 

[flat five]

Same as what I have said a couple of times already (see my post at page 188)

forum tip:

right-click on the post#.. choose 'Copy Link'.. paste in reply box:

#4695



(at least, using Safari, that's how you can do it)

 

[monokakata]

Thanks for that blast from the past. As a former DEC employee it brought a tear to my eye when I recall all the great technology DEC introduced & the decline then assimilation first under Compaq then under HP.

The pizza box for the Vaxmate was the box under the unit with the screen & this contained the add on 20MB hard disk. Vaxmate had a monochrome screen & I well recall running Windows V1.

I also recall the introduction of the VT220 terminal pictured with the PDP11. It looked so sleek & modern compared to the old VT100 the design of which is clearly echoed in that of the Vaxmate.

My first computer was based on an LSI-11/23 built into a VT103 -- the 103 was a VT100 with a backplane and a hefty power supply. I had 160kb RAM and 6 serial ports (I needed them all) and RX02 floppies. RT-11, FORTRAN IV compiler. Then went to a DSD 880 5 mb hard drive (yeah!) before replacing the VT with a micro-11. I did a lot of useful work with that machine.
[doublepost=1511556031][/doublepost]

Ooooh! A real three-button mouse. I miss those.

My first "tower" was a VAXStation II. It retailed at $60,000 with its $15,000 color monitor.

Weren't those the days? I paid $24,000 for a microVAX 3100 and VMS licenses, FORTRAN. Eight-port breakout box and TK50 tape. A couple of 100 mb Connor drives. I'll tell you, though . . . that 3100 was a tank. I was in the race timing business (running races) and I transported that 3100 (in a padded case of course) about 300 times during its life. I never had a hardware problem with it. It never crashed, ever (not to say that apps didn't crash, of course).
[doublepost=1511557327][/doublepost]

ok.. i guess everybody still likes the analogy of cars VS trucks..

i'll quit challenging its validity
carry on
[doublepost=1511224724][/doublepost]
what did you use those for, exactly?

(just curious)

I was one of the first computerized running race timers in the world (started in 1981). I landed a big race (Honolulu Marathon) in 1984 and I wanted one (and then two) micro-11s because they would run micro-RSX, a true multi-user system. I had been using RT-11, which was a foreground/background system that could effectively run two jobs concurrently. The RT-11 rig couldn't handle Honolulu, which had dual finish lines and about 10,000 entrants.

I needed ports and multi users because in those days before RFID scoring, I had to run from 1 to 6 barcode reading stations, a job to collect times from the finish line (sometimes from multiple timers) and then a job to stitch everything together and get out the results. Time was of the essence because race timers have to make the awards ceremony, which means results for all age groups, which can mean you have to process almost all the finishers to get down there.

Somewhere out on the web in the wayback machine my old site (run-time.com) still exists (when I shut it down in 2006 I sold the domain to some other timers). The company was Runtime Services, out of Buffalo NY.

This was the most difficult race I ever did: a 5k with 38,000 entrants (1200 on race day) and 22,500 finishers. Barcodes and manual timing. Fifteen simultaneously-operating finish lines, timers hard wired to an AlphaStation, which was networked to the Alphaserver DS10 that hosted the 8 barcode reading stations plus me (the data entry and synthesizing guy). Operating in a tent. We made the awards ceremony and had it all up on the web by early afternoon.

The micro-11s were upgradable (relevant to what we're talking about here). My main one started with an 11/23 CPU, 256kb RAM, 10 mb disk, and ended its life as an 11/73, 12 ports, 4 MB RAM, 70 mb disk.

 

[flat five]

I was one of the first computerized running race timers in the world (started in 1981). I landed a big race (Honolulu Marathon) in 1984 and I wanted one (and then two) micro-11s because they would run micro-RSX, a true multi-user system. I had been using RT-11, which was a foreground/background system that could effectively run two jobs concurrently. The RT-11 rig couldn't handle Honolulu, which had dual finish lines and about 10,000 entrants.

I needed ports and multi users because in those days before RFID scoring, I had to run from 1 to 6 barcode reading stations, a job to collect times from the finish line (sometimes from multiple timers) and then a job to stitch everything together and get out the results. Time was of the essence because race timers have to make the awards ceremony, which means results for all age groups, which can mean you have to process almost all the finishers to get down there.

Somewhere out on the web in the wayback machine my old site (run-time.com) still exists (when I shut it down in 2006 I sold the domain to some other timers). The company was Runtime Services, out of Buffalo NY.

This was the most difficult race I ever did: a 5k with 38,000 entrants (1200 on race day) and 22,500 finishers. Barcodes and manual timing. Fifteen simultaneously-operating finish lines, timers hard wired to an AlphaStation, which was networked to the Alphaserver DS10 that hosted the 8 barcode reading stations plus me (the data entry and synthesizing guy). Operating in a tent. We made the awards ceremony and had it all up on the web by early afternoon.

The micro-11s were upgradable (relevant to what we're talking about here). My main one started with an 11/23 CPU, 256kb RAM, 10 mb disk, and ended its life as an 11/73, 12 ports, 4 MB RAM, 70 mb disk.

wow.
cool.
thanks for the rundown.