Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dolphy.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!vax135!petsd!pesnta!phri!dolphy!jmg From: jmg@dolphy.UUCP (Intergalactic Psychic Police Of Uranus) Newsgroups: net.arch Subject: computer skin Message-ID: <16@dolphy.UUCP> Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 01:11:25 EDT Article-I.D.: dolphy.16 Posted: Thu Oct 17 01:11:25 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 05:48:37 EDT References: <1189@ames.UUCP> <224@well.UUCP> <919@lll-crg.ARpA> Distribution: net Organization: Lesbian Vampires Of Sodom Corp. Lines: 53 ******* > Re: Cray-2 impressions > (Somone experienced computer user (grossly paraphrashed)) > The cray2 is small & it has nice blue glass and you could > and you could see the coolant circulate around the boards... (and) > "I haven't heard of a single person who has stood in the middle of the > Cray 2 and was not impressed." Cray Corp always designes their products well; none of this reconditioned 2001 refrigerator stuff...Hell, I was on the design team for the Auragen fault-tolerant distributed unix cptr and 'they' tried to put it into something akin to a washer/dryer unit...'they' went bankrupt...I was always trying to get them to adopt the look of the Sabrets Hot Dog Stands you see on the corners in NYC -- umbrella and all...but it was no go... Their idea of high tech is so arcane...a Sabrets Hot Dog that did 1k Mips would be great, it would even be better than a blue circular couch/wall unit that has to be kept in a cool room (and lit with flourescent lights). A washer & dryer unit is obviously from the 50's...nothing but a convenience item, and now its too big to say `High Technology'. With 785 & 8600 DEC is staying with the air-conditioned multiple wall closet look with which they've had such success, but they may have to re-think that with the RISC machines...though Pyramid, gad!, they were stuck just as soon as they took their name...they're solution is to slant in the sides of the refrigerator and put a dark grill around it as if it were a ferrari (ask any psychiatrist about cars)... at least you can imagine the apex of the refrigerator meeting 50 feet above your head (it would make Frididaire & Freud proud). All this just circles the area, the architecture/quality of the machine is reflected in the box it's in. It would be an amusing lie to shape a computer like a ladder, because "a ladder extends us beyond ourselves, hence it's importance. (and) what is the use of a ladder in space?" You could imagine neo-classic styles -- it would be something only the defense dept would buy: imagine a pure white ionic column... PC's look exactly the way they are, big clumsy lumps...no screen graphic is gonna save it. The possibilities are ripe. You could even do a 60's art thing: have the form reflect the systems nature of the thing: machines shaped likes branching trees or little pods attaching to a common mother tube or some other god awful metaphor. The eighties? Well there are lots of small art movements now, nothing localized and central...it would seem a bit out of place to do the Manchester Pipeline Machine in a German Expressionist style, but then only the designers know for sure. Jeffrey Greenberg ihnp4!allegra!phri!dolphy!jmg PS: Would the person who left their white plastic briefcase with the initials 3b2/300 on our table please come pick it up?