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Hey, here's an interesting idea. I wouldn't mind sharing it so long as it's not patented. How about a USB processor? You could make it even smaller than a mini or for that matter, nano style motherboard.
Put the processor into a USB hub. Call it a CPH (Central Processing Hub) or how about CHUB
(CPU/Computer in a HUB)?
I've seen USB soundcards, videocards, etc. Just do away with the whole PCI or AGP bus stuff and just have a USB hub with a CPU. You can hotswap whatever parts you need to add on to your computer. You can use a regular HDD or a thumb drive.
USB_20OS
kind of related... see in particular anno by [bigsleep] [xaviergisz, Jun 24 2006]
Mac Mini
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
something like this? [xenzag, Jun 24 2006]
[link]
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//I wouldn't mind sharing it so long as it's not patented// well, that's lucky. |
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I'm going to fill out the form right now... |
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For this to really be effective, we need software that is better at taking advantage of communicatively-latent processing units. That is, which can bundle up some work, toss it to something to work on independantly, and work with the results when (or if) they arrive. |
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Your RAM and CPU would have to be on board. I think the problem you'd hit would be bandwidth - external video cards are very limited in terms of how fast they can receive data over USB; if you're also using USB to communicate with your hard drive(s) then you're going to need several USB chipsets. |
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How do you plan to make it smaller than a "nano-style" motherboard? I'm sure you appreciate that there's more to it than just adding a CPU socket onto a normal USB hub's little mainboard. If you've got to have your CPU there then you need a northbridge and so on, similarly you need room for your RAM (don't go for USB RAM, your system will run like a pig), cooling, uprated power circuitry to cope with the best part of 100W for the CPU... you wind up with a conventionally-sized small motherboard pretty fast. |
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You probably want to put your main storage on their as well. |
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Ok, you have designed the Mac Mini. |
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