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Hardware

Computer Or Docking Station? 91

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-that's-an-interesting-hack dept.
vbrtrmn writes: "A company called Mobility, has recently introduced a cross between a docking station and a desktop PC. It's called the EasiDock 5000. It looks like a normal Desktop PC, though the EasiDock plugs into a laptop's PCMCIA card slot, using it as a highbandwidth bus (1,250Mbps). The EasiDock comes with: 5 drive bays, 3 PCI slots, 2 IDE controllers, a 2-port USB hub; get the PDF datasheet. Unfortunatly, it currently only supports Windows 98/98SE and Windows NT 4.0, though they boast, 'Coming soon... Win 2000 & Millennium, Apple, Linux.'"
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Computer or Docking Station? More

Computer or Docking Station?

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  • Unfortunatly, it currently only supports Windows 98/98SE and Windows NT 4.0...

    Why "unfortunately"? I happen to use Windows 98 SE and NT 4.0 on some of our lab machines.

  • I'm not saying "delay the stories". But stories DO spend some time in the queue as it is, so why not let the readers who take active interest vote on them while they're there? That way, by the time an editor sees one, he has an indication how the slashdot crowd will react to the story. Might also give sites a warning that they're about to be slashdotted :)
  • Ah, the natives are restless. Even the moderators are joining in. I mean, come on, 4 points for such a blatently off-topic post?

    Look, Malda and company have their specific interests, and that's reflected in the stories they choose to run. No matter who chooses the stories, somebody is going to say, "who cares about that?

    If you want user-moderated stories, try Kuro5hin. Or take the Slash code and start your own site, with your own editorial criteria. But I suspect that, like me, you'd find that wading through hundreds of story submissions to be tedious in the extreme.

    In summary: if you can do better, quit moaning and go do it. If you can't, just stop moaning.

    __________

  • Re:Unfortunately? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why "unfortunately"? I happen to use Windows 98 SE and NT 4.0 on some of our lab machines. You do? Interesting. I'd like to set up one of those OS's on a lab machine, just to try it out. But I'd have to do it secretively, because you know how PHB's are, only trust one vendor. They never believe us techies when we tell them there are other OSes that are potential alternatives to Linux.
  • The Easidock makes use of a technology called Cardbus. PCMCIA is an extension of the ISA bus and as such 16-bit, while Cardbus comes from the PCI bus, hence 32-bit. The Easidock 5000 uses a Cardbus controller and in order to get the damn thing working the laptop's Cardbus controller needs to be 100% PCI 2.1 compliant. Which is something I have yet to encounter.

    Little info for who's interested, Cardbus controllers are backwards compatible and will accept PCMCIA devices. Not the other way around though...
  • It's not a PC. It is just a backplane (and probably an IDE interface)

    That is to say, there is no memory or processor.

    Doesn't seem so inexpensive now, does it?

    -Peter

  • using FireWire, which while not as fast as PCMCIA

    Ultra Wide SCSI-3, not as fast as a crappy connection to a 16-bit bus? Good thing you're posting anonimously...

  • For all of you who insist that this is a waste of money or pointless, you need to understand that mabie, just mabie, your not the target market for this product and you need to recognise that people have need that you don't.

    I on the other hand AM the target market for this and I think its great. I NEED this. Its a "Universal Docking station". I's going to allow me to do things I only dreamed of, like having ONE workstation. I use (4) four computer now and need to consolidate. I have to use a laptop, period. Now I can have my laptop, and when I'm in the office, Two 21" monitors on seperate 32MB 3d cards, (I Love XF4) and my scsi array, and still pick up and go to the coffie shop, work and have all of my apps and docs setup like I like with out upkeeping and supporting multiple computers and sets of software.

    This is a product for "mobile developers", and it's great. (As soon as it gets linux support.)
    =================
    macbert@hcity.net

  • Hello. I'm the AC who you decided to blast for no good reason. As you are so offended by my wish for anonymity (By the way, can you post your full name, address, telephone number [work & home please], so we can all get in contact? Won't be a problem will it? Thanks!)

    I think you'll find that the overall problems with Slashdot are actually due to the bunch of sad wankers who inhabit this website. Most of them are under the delusional impression that they know everything there is to know about life, the universe, and everything. It seems that you also believe this is true of yourself.

    The thing that most people who do the whinging around here forget, is that Slashdot is owned and run by a handfull of geeks. They can do what they want with the site, and you have no say in the matter. Thats it. Period. If you don't like, please take my previous advice, and fuck off.

    I am also aware of the irony of posting a complaint to Slashdot. Please don't bother to correct me. Thank you.
  • There is/was a company many years ago that built PCI expansion bus cabinets. You plug a card into one of your unused PCI slots, run a cable to the expansion bus and voila - get about a dozen new slots. The cabinet looked like a PC or optionally in a much larger box for self contained SCSI devices etc. I can't remember the name of the company but I do remember that this was, at the time a side business to their much more lucrative VME bus expansion business. The VME connecting adapters alone were a few thousand bucks each.
  • Sorry to pop the bubble, but unless they (we) are going to ship some very nifty driver updates, you'll run into heavy trouble getting those video cards to work. The helpdesk faerie...
  • it doesn't have a mainbord/motherboard. it's just an extesnion of the PCI bus of the laptop. it's like a really big docking station that has more PCI slots, hard drives, other gizmos in it then a normal docking station.
  • Write to the following adress for Europe: techsupport-europe@mobl.com and I will read your mail within 24 hours. Stop whining. You could also check on http://www.mobilityelectronics.com and look on the compatibility list. If your computer is there, it works. If it isn't, it might work, but no guarantuees...
  • Its not pcmcia, thats a 16-bit isa based standard that current cardbus controllers support. Cardbus controllers operate as a PCI bridge that really does have huge amounts of bandwidth... its a 32 bit protocol that is really under-utilized. ~Bryan
  • Actually the reason we don't have Linux support for the product on notebooks is because of a limitation in the kernel. The current code will not enumerate a Type 1 bridge behind a Type 2 bridge. I have not had the time to find out if the problem is in the PCI or the CardBus section of the kernel. We had/have similar problems with Windows 2000.

    If the appropriate people want to discuss getting is working I would be more than happy to supply information.

    I have connected a unit up to a desktop running Linux and have been able to get a number of cards working in the expansion chassis. Based on that I think that the Linux support is definatly possible.

    Hartley Sweeten
    Senior Development Engineer
    Mobility Electronics
  • Newsflash, Mobility now owns MAGMA... http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001003/az_mobilit.html
  • That's nice... what about if you wanna use a PCI/ISA card?
    Maybe install one of those sweet 128MB video cards that you just can't get anywhere close to in a notebook?
    Or how about a cheap SCSI card? PCI = cheap... PCMCIA != cheap
  • I for one run 2000 Pro and Linux on my Dell laptop. W2K is very much better than the 98 it shipped with and handles things like sleep mode better than NT4.

    As for linux, I am not a kernel hacker but I got a CVS tree, web server, X with Gnome, and a host of other stuff on there and it never gives me trouble. Little quirks like the eth0 device coming up before PCMCIA does are a little irritating, but I have been too lazy to fix it :-)

    Someone else mentioned having to use a boot disk- not me. Lilo does the trick booting into both W2K and Linux. No Probs. Just don't use Partition Magic to mess with your linux partition without a boot floppy- pain in the ass to get it back to a bootable state...
  • I am sure there is a huge market for Linux laptop users, anyone at my campus is running Linux on thier laptop (unless they have an IBook). And I work in technical support. I get people calling up about Windows 2000 and thier laptops all the time.
  • I happen to use Windows 98 SE and NT 4.0 on some of our lab machines.

    As do a majority of notebook users, including myself. Geez, some /. readers (not you, the original poster) couldn't get more closed minded if they used duct tape.

  • Not what you think it is. (Score:3)

    by rreay ( 50160 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @06:31AM (#732202)
    OK, If these are the guys I saw at Comdex '99 this is *NOT* a PC like some people seem to think.

    They built what they call a split bridge PCI bus. It's a PCI bridge chipset that can have the two ends seperated by up to 25 ft of cable.

    So what this particular product is, is a PCI bus on a PC card. It adds a few PCI slots, an IDE chain and a couple of other things (USB, PS2) on the end of a wire.

    Personally I thought the technology was a lot cooler than than what they planned for it, but hey who am I to say.

    -Rob

  • Actually, considering that I spent $399 for the dock for my Dell Latitude, $599 isn't terribly steep.

  • I already saw it on CeBit last year, they told me they were not going to make linux drivers, because it had been too much work for them even to make the drivers for windo~1
  • Just in case you want to migrate your iBook using students to Linux I can recommed LinuxPPC 2000, or Suse. Both work really nicely on the little book.
  • ... and it's a pretty nice place. They design and build minature electronics and have made accessories and small custom units for years. I'm glad that they've designed an actual PC now.
  • Some of the new Dell Inspirons have a screen that does 1600x1200. Windows users don't need that res on a notebook, but it would make a great X setup.

    Why would users of one particular OS not need high resolution? I use it all the time, along with the two headed output.

    The Dells are sweet and I use it as a mobile embedded development box. I use Win2k for CE and VxWorks stuff and I must say (as a Windows user) I do need the resolution. All those debugging windows and such. I actually need it less than on the Linux side (X@1280x1024) because I have fewer apps running at once.

  • Well, it's a PCI bus on a Cardbus card. Regular pcmcia / pccard won't cut it.

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by Ih8sG8s ( 4112 )
    It looks like a normal Desktop PC, though the EasiDock plugs into a laptop's PCMCIA card slot, using it as a highbandwidth bus (1,250Mbps)

    Hrmm. Is it me or does 1.2Gbps through PCMCIA seem lofty? I doubt highly that this device, or the laptop it's plugging into can handle that sort of throughput, especially through PCMCIA.

  • Thanks for the advice.
    I will try and get a life, one that is better than the one I have and like, although I may have to search a for a long time for it to get any better than I've already got it.

    Define 'life' for me. Go on, have a gooood think about it.
    I'd classify it in the relationships I have, the things I do that make me happy, and the things I do that make others happy. Sometimes the inexpressible joy at smelling a crisp spring morning, or the feeling of being alive and warm when a winter storm is blustering against your window. And no, /. is nothing compared to all that. But if /. is "just a weblog" why are you concerned about the quality of my life?
    Todays twin 1st posts were a fluke. I got a lucky fp when I first checked out /. today, then as I returned to the main screen, I got another. You must ask yourself why I did that, having posted sensibly (well, mostly, anyway...:) on /. previously
    I think you're misinterpreting the gist of my posting here; my ultimate happiness and quality of life aren't really affected by what goes on with /. . But when you see something that was good lose it's former glory, do _you_ stand by and watch it die?
    Taco is not just a guy like you and me. He's under pressure from his position of wealth and celebrity (Wired, the Register, Salon and NTK all link to /. from time to time), he's been in Time magazine, and Taco and /. are becoming a recognised media source. I'm not knocking him in any way, and if it sounds like that, then I apologise. But at the end of the day, he is responsible for /., and it seems to me the volume of posts is dropping, there are fewer posts reaching +5 Insightful/Interesting, and that is not a good thing; in case you had forgotten, /. relies on banner ads for revenue. Lose what draws people here, and Andover will drop the site if it is not paying its' way. And nobody will blame Andover for that.
    I'm halfway tempted to return your personal comments to you, "get a life yourself etc", thinking you're a troll, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here and I've got more important things to do right now.
    That'll be my quality of life kicking in, then.

    Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.


  • Laptop users have always suffered the lack of expansion. I've looked everywhere for a PCMCIA graphics card so i could add monitors at full res. One thing this could use is an AGP. Could their bandwidth support such a thing?

    I think this is a great alternative for those of use who live and die by our laptops. I could personally stand having two of these, one for home and one for the office.

    -oc
  • PCI 2.1 compliant BIOS is required to support pci to pci bridges. This goes for AGP type things.. almost a given for most laptops. If the cardbus is a cardbus controller (NOT pcmcia) then it just has to properly support bridges. TI does. Thats 70-80% of the current market. Others do as well. Check the compatibility list... News flash... its real!. ~Bryan Starbuck
  • Most laptops don't have decent graphics cards or 3D accelerators. With this you could add a nVida or 3dfx card, just as you would with a desktop. My notebook is my only computer, so a solution like this is the only way I can play most modern games.
  • I care...greatly. My laptop is very, very powerful (700 Mhz P3, 128 MB RAM), but has no-name video card. I'd like to install BeOS on this laptop, but the video card is holding me back. With this, I could install a Voodoo 3, and Creative Labs SoundBlaster Platinum/LiveDrive! combo, and still have an open PCI slot. This would let me get my Q3 fix, my BeOS fix, and a decent 4 channel sound-card for my Klipsch ProMedia speakers rather than having to settle with this college laptop. It's a great product, a little pricey, but a great idea nonetheless.
  • I'm not exactly sure it would work as you think it will. The 3d card wouldn't output stuff to your laptop's LCD. Even if it is possible for the laptop to acces a 3d card in this docking desktop, you'd still need to buy a monitor to plug into the back of the video card. And once you do that, you might have already bought a whole new desktop anyway...
  • I know it's real. Problem is that TI is just about the only one that's compliant. I should know, I do the helpdesk for these things...
  • Maybe that's why Mac support will be available soon. ;)
  • What does a PCI-to-PCI bridge have that needs to be reverse engineered. I laughed aloud at your RIAA comment but this is not a technology that is wrapped in mystery and intrigue (like dvd's). Its a PCI bridge. Lots of people make them just none that plug into a cardbus slot. The real key is finding out when David Hinds or someone else associated with the kernel will discuss why they don't support bridges behind cardbus slots. He doesn't return my email... ~Bryan Starbuck
  • Well, I already use a desktop monitor with my notebook, so that isn't a problem.

    But the previous poster hinted that there was some other reason it wouldn't work. Any idea what that is?

    If it really does simulate a PCI bus, games should be able to autosense the graphics card on the docking desktop and bypass the notebook's internal graphics subsytem. Yes?
  • Hmm.. and I am a software engineer that designed it. Talk about one hand not knowing what the other is doing. My real comment is that although cardbus cards aren't fully compliant most do work. The others are sitting on my desk not causing me too much heartache. ~Bryan Starbuck
  • There are a lot of uninteresting stories, and it's not as though you can block them with some "uninteresting-blockage magic". There are so many stories submitted to Slashdot, who knows how many truly interesting stories are passed over for some boring product announcement, or whatever?
  • A few years ago I did support for a company and we ended up supporting mobility made port replicators. The bane of our support center's existence is what appears to have been the precursor to this model. It was a simple port replicator (dubbed the universal port replicator) that replicated the serial, parralel etc. ports through a connection into the pcmcia port. This thing had more bugs and flaws in it than any product I have ever seen and just flat out didn't work most of the time without alot of tweeking.

    On top of that, the support directly from Mobility simply sucked--it's existence was even in question at times--and their quality assurance was the worst I had ever seen. The amount of time our department spent supporting and RMA'ing these units had to have wasted most of the profits.

    I own a laptop and Mobility makes several products that would be useful, but I avoid them like the plague. It is possible that these things have changed at Mobility, but I am not taking my chances. Just my two cents, but I had to get this off my chest when I saw this story post.
  • Im going to play the devils advocate for once....how big is the market share of Laptop using linux users out there? And for the life of me I wouldnt see why you'ld run 2000 on a laptop. But thats besides the point. Normally most laptops are pretty proprietary, and third party docking stations, hell, even OEM docking stations have caused problems. With all the compatibility problems you have with laptops anyway, should we be concerned that a docking station doesnt support linux, which is a small user-base anyway? just gotta wonder.

    "sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."

  • What's the point? (Score:3)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @06:07AM (#732224) Homepage
    Is it a PC with a pre requisite of having a laptop? I don't get it...

    And what's wrong with networking your laptop to your Desktop? All the drives and services like printing can be shared through ethernet...

    This device sounds like that lollypop watch invention on "The Simpsons".

  • I thought it was more in the order of 1.2 not 1250?
  • That's interesting, but it has a $599 sticker. For $600 I can pick up a very nice system at least in the 500-600 MHz range. Unless you've got a $4000 laptop, this is going to be a tad useless. Most affordable laptops could be matched or outperformed by a $600 computer.

    Now, if the price drops to *$199*...
  • All the laptops at the company I work for run Win2k. So did the laptops for the engineers at my last job. I also run Linux on the laptop I have here (have to boot it with a floppy because Win2k "protects" the mbr).

    I think the market for Win2k on a laptop is fairly good. I don't know about Linux, but I do know a fair number of people that run linux on their laptop.

  • Moderation system for stories. (Score:4)

    by JebOfTheForest ( 207893 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @06:09AM (#732228)
    It's stories like this that make me think we should have a moderation system for submissions in the queue. This is little more than an ad for a not-that-interesting product. Who cares?

    jeb.

  • It's a PC, but hey, if you can spin it, why not? That's marketing.

    At least it's inexpensive, which means they might sell a few. Now the fun question is: If I have this docking station and a PC, how do I copy it onto my PC? Simple, just go get a regular docking station for your main PC and quit fooling around.


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • MAGMA [magma.com] makes this for Powerbooks-- a pcmcia card that extends to sort of a PCI backplane -- it's patented, too! (gulp)

  • I find it amazing that Microsoft purports to care about code unity when they currently have no less than five OS's to port to. Why would a company like this pander to such a thing when they can just port to Mac and Linux?
    --
    *Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
    25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
  • how big is the market share of Laptop using linux users out there?

    At least one more, once I get a dual boot desktop system. Then I'll put Linux on my VAIO laptop and watch that sucker really smoke.


    --
    Chief Frog Inspector
  • This is basically a PCI to PCI bridge. PCI has a lot more than 1.2 Mbps. a typical 66mhz, 64bit pci bus has up to 528Mbps. Note that Mbps != MBps. bits and bytes.

    These people appear to have gone one further and gotten 1250 Mbps (bits) out of the 'pc' side of the bridge. The laptop side would be a bottle neck.
  • Unfortunately it *ONLY* supports those operating systems, not unfortunately it supports them.

  • Useful idea (Score:3)

    by NoWhere Man ( 68627 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @06:39AM (#732235) Homepage
    This concept is actually very useful. Gives laptop users the ability for mass storage, and perpherial use, using just one PC.
    I am just wondering if the size could be cut down, the thing seems as big as a regular desktop case (mini-tower model).
    And according to the datasheet the thing only has a 150W power supply. Sort of limiting. Motherboards don't really need more than that (never have), only reason really to get 300W is the amount of perpherials, and from the looks of things, this one supports up to that many. I wonder if there are going to be any power consumption problems?
    One good thing is the expansion PCI slots, my new Toshiba 4043's sound card is crap compared to my Sound Blaster Live.
    And I guess the BIOS of this thing would have to auto-detect hard drives on boot, unless the software to configure it programs the FLASH ROM/RAM or something.

  • This product makes me say two things...

    Hey! That's neat!
    and
    Hey! What a waste of money!

    First off... most people buy a laptop for that portability factor, not to mention desk space saving capabilities. You start adding stuff like this, you might as well just buy a whole desktop for the fraction of the total cost.

    Then again, it helps if you're going to use it to do as much as you can with one single computer. Do *everything* on your laptop. Bring it along, do whatever, take it home, do everything else.

    I would say the one saving grace of this unit is that it probably won't be limited to the laptop that you buy, like docking stations can be... and docking stations are close to the same price that unit is being sold for.

    My question is whether or not he PCMCIA bandwidth could really handle everything I'd put in that tower. When you do what I do on my desktop... If everything was externally connected, even firewire wouldn't have sufficient bandwidth.

    Most high end laptops usually come with SCSI ports built in, plus two serial (or just one), parallel and USB. Hard to imagine what else could possibly be added to the case that wouldn't normally be taken care of with a PCMCIA card. Take two cards, one ethernet, one scsi if one isn't built into your laptop... and you're close to about as capable as that thing is, save the hassle of numerous external power cords and units.

    Suppose I wanted to stick my Voodoo3 card into that desktop unit, how would I keep the laptop from 'enabling' its own video card and expecting that to be used. Even docking stations don't add video capabilities, they just extend the plug that's already built into the lappy.

    There also comes the concern that it'll all be through PCMCIA. What if you're a SCSI fiend like me? Nothing in that tower would be usable until after drivers are loaded (presumably), so how do you boot from SCSI on the desktop adaptor if that's your preference?

    Sounds like a nifty fad-gadget to me, but what you could really stick on that system wouldn't be much more than extrataneous stuff that your laptop would probably most likely be capable of doing on its own.

    My best guess would be you could just add a CD Recorder (and even then, internal laptop CDR drives are getting cheap), ethernet card (and if you take your laptop to work, chances are you ALREADY have a PCMCIA lan card), sound card (oh wait, they're already built in), uhh..er... another floppy drive? (Cheaper to buy an external floppy if your lappy doesn't come with a hot swappable drive bay)

    Gee, it sounds like I can't really come up with too much use for this sucker. Just another neat-o expensive novelty item. Like an iOpener. (though the iopener was a bit cheaper.)


    Whee.
  • Unfortunatly, it currently only supports Windows 98/98SE and Windows NT 4.0...[emphasis mine]
    Why "unfortunately"? I happen to use Windows 98 SE and NT 4.0 on some of our lab machines.

    I think the key word is only. There's nothing wrong with it supporting Windows, but it's unfortunate that it doesn't support anything else.
  • For some odd reason, no one here owning a mac wants to migrate to Linux
  • ...there should be something that lets users view post submissions, and vote on them.

    Personally, I think that new stories roll out slow enough. It's compounded by the fact that they post articles that are old or redundant, but to add a voting scheme for submissions based on /. readers? You might as well run /. on a 486 NT box. It'd be just as slow (but it'd crash more often).

  • I'm the AC who you decided to blast for no good reason.
    Uhh, no, you started it, IIRC... Where I'm from the words "fuck off bitch" aren't considered the best way to make your point in polite company. And yes, posting inflammatory language with AC UID _does_ offend me, but I won't lose any sleep over it. It reminds me of kids hiding behind trees so they can throw pinecones at passers by.

    "Most of them are under the delusional impression that they know everything there is to know about life, the universe, and everything. It seems that you also believe this is true of yourself. [...snip...] Please don't bother to correct me"
    Can you see the irony here? Bueller?

    I could go on, but obviously I'm well out of /. groupthink here, so I'll bow to popular pressure and STFU. Don't sob into your pillow again tonight as you miss my postings.
    Please don't bother to reply, Vanners, I'm feeling underwhelmed with your debating skills as it is, and I'd be grateful if you'd retain a little dignity in public.
    Thank you.

    Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.

  • FWIW, I know these guys (without going into the relationship) and their Numero Uno software dude is a serious Linux user. Fear not.

    Also, since the setup is basically just a PCI bridge it's pretty much OS transparent.
  • It's a docking station. The deluxe kind with card slots. Most major laptop vendors have sold brand-specific ones for a couple of years now, and there are a few companies that make this sort of "universal" dock.

    This not a PC. Not even sort of. Nor is it a new concept. Nor is it an especially cutting-edge version of anything. It's just a deluxe docking station with card slots. for people like you who buy consumer laptops like the Sonys only to figure out later that Sony doesn't make docking stations, just those dinky port replicators.

    Rob, you really ought to peruse some product catalogs. You'd be amazed what they're making these days. Digital cameras! CD recorders! Floppy disks that store 120 megs! We live in miraculous times.

    Hints for possible future stories:
    • Web browsers that can pre-fill forms for you!
    • Flat-panel monitors! Whoa!
    • Wild and crazy people who connect TRACKBALLS to their computers and use them like MICE!
  • The duodock.

    Anyone else remember that? A basic Powerbook with just a modem/printer port and a Processor-direct slot on the back, and a dock with hard drive space, a floppy, nubus (Apple's old PCI-like bus) slots, monitor ports, etc.

    You can still find them in use once in a while...
  • I think the power supply is just an ATX thing, so you just need to swap it out if you put 8 or 12 big hard drives in the box. No BIOS on it (one of my disappointments with the design), so you only get to boot from the drive(s) on the dock if you have a Mac (oops, they don't admit to Mac support yet...). And they do have a smaller version (it pretends to be a hotrod USB dock, the 1000) -- no slots though. I still think it's really neat even if you have a desktop system, and I don't work there any more.... It really is a nerd toy, it has limited value for real world folks who can live with a 300 MHz processor, 4 GB of hard disk space and a couple of USB ports. There just aren't enough of us who want 8 hard drives, SCSI scanners and controller based modems.... So it probably won't make it to Znet's top 100 list....
  • I do know why I'd want to use this baby, as I'm doing the European helpdesk for it right now. They're cool toys, but not really something spectacular. You plug the damn thing in and you've got a couple of ports extra, some PCI slots and two IDE controllers. It's basically a complete computer running on the CPU and memory of your laptop. The only problem is that you can buy a complete system for about the same price...
  • I don't know .. i think this is an interesting product.

    Let's say I was a musician, who owned a laptop, and I liked to develop music on the road. I could bring the laptop back to the stuido and dump all of the huge music files back to the PC.

    Let's say I was a graphic designer, and I needed a CDRW, a Zip Disk, and a lot of hard drive space. This would be great.

    Let's say I was cool liek Jeffk [somethingawful.com] and I carried my laptop around, plugged it into other people's phone lines and stole important information. Well I wouldn't want to keep that data unencrypted on my laptop. I could keep that thing hidden somewhere and all the data encrypted on it.

    Just a thought


    --
    you are not what you own
  • A Port repilcator costs about 300 bux, a Docking stations with pci ports cost about 600.
    This makes your laptop a FULL PC. It has some features that most dont have, Internal Bays, and works with All laptops.
    I picked up a c/dock2 docking station for my laptop 799 bux, only thing it gave me was 2 pci slots, and 1 place to plug in my floppy. But then I was able to add a voodoo3, (only pci card i could find)..

    The thing is, this works with all laptops, no need to buy any more docking stations every again! Just need linux drivers, and it would be perfect..

    Brook Harty

  • Little inside info: you can't. It won't work well. The helpdesk faerie...
  • Actually, this product caught my eye before when it was mentioned on MacNN [macnn.com]. I have a compatible PowerBook which I use for programming and art. The computer supports driving 2 monitors to make an extended work area, running the LCD at 1024x768 and an external CRT at 1280x1024. Unfortunately, it only has 8MB of VRAM (a fault corrected in the latest generation of PowerBooks), so I have to give up 3d acceleration if I make use of this while in my 3d program... a very bad thing. This product - which, as far as my net searches have shown, is completely novel - would allow me to attach an extra graphics card and drive 3 monitors at once (believe me, with big art projects these will all come in handy).

    Besides that, I could plug in a cheap ATA controller and create a repository for MP3s I dont want to store on my main hard drive all the time, as well as installs of alternate OS's and the like. The PowerBook G3's ATA controller uses the main hard drive as an ATA/66 master with no way to connect a slave, making this the only reasonable way to connect additional storage (although a $120 CardBus 20MB/s SCSI card and a SCSI hard drive, or a FireWire hard drive are also options).

    So if I install an ATA controller and a Voodoo 3 PCI, I only have 1 slot left for a SCSI card attached to a scanner! (Although FireWire scanners are now more reasonably priced).

    Compared to buying a new CPU (especially one on par with my Pismo G3), spending $600 isn't so bad. What's more, when I upgrade the processor daughtercard on my PB, my desktop and my laptop have been upgraded. If I buy this. Which I don't have the money to do. (Or, for that matter, to buy any of these peripherals I've been ranting about). But if this company stays around, I think I have an alternative to getting a desktop...

    Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
    foo = bar/*myPtr;

  • Just where have "these kinds of things" existed? CardBus 2.1 isn't yet supported on a lot of laptops (Apple, the inventor of CardBus, only introduced it along with FireWire on their laptops late last year).

    Port replicators have existed, but a cross-platform way to add any PCI card to your laptop and use it at over 1.2GB/s is new.

    Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
    foo = bar/*myPtr;

  • The MacOS has supported multiple monitors at the 2D-drawing-command level since color was introduced in 1988. So, a PowerBook with one of these could support the LCD, an additional monitor running of the motherboard VRAM, and 2 monitors per PCI slot (w/ a special, really expensive card) in this baby - 8 monitors for one huge desktop.

    Digressing back onto your topic, the reason this won't work as an upgrade for non-3D-accelerated laptops is that most laptops new enough to use the riser probably have 3D acceleration. Aside from that, anyone willing to shell out $600 for the privilege of connecting a 3D card probably won't cringe at the cost of a decent monitor to go with it.

    Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
    foo = bar/*myPtr;

  • In that case you might consider this a virtual handshake. My experience is that the TI's almost always work, some of the Topic's might, and the others are a recipe for disaster.

    On the other hand, any computer with more than a motherboard, processor and memory is a recipe for disaster, which is why I will never run out of work:-)
  • Oh I don't know...
    I was in my local "Computer Recyclers" and I saw a Pentium III 450Mhz, with 15 PCI slots CDROM and Floppy. Not sure about the hard drive space. I am getting once in a couple weeks if they are still there. Why? Because it is cool. I have always said there are not enough expansion slots in a computer. I think this one has just enough.
  • A few weeks ago, MacNN [macnn.com] mentioned this. It appears that the PowerBook version is an orderable part, meaning that Mac support is there now. Mebbe they forgot to update their Windows info page with the news...

    An abridged repost of something I wrote before, to someone who couldn't see the use of this product:

    I have a compatible PowerBook which I use for programming and art. The computer supports driving 2 monitors to make an extended work area, running the LCD at 1024x768 and an external CRT at 1280x1024. Unfortunately, it only has 8MB of VRAM (a fault corrected in the latest generation of PowerBooks), so I have to give up 3d acceleration if I make use of this while in my 3d program... a very bad thing. This product - which, as far as my net searches have shown, is completely novel - would allow me to attach an extra graphics card and drive
    3 monitors at once (believe me, with big art projects these will all come in handy).

    Besides that, I could plug in a cheap ATA controller and create a repository for MP3s I dont want to store on my main hard drive all the time, as well as installs of alternate OS's and the like. The PowerBook G3's ATA controller uses the main hard drive as an ATA/66 master with no way to connect a slave, making this the only reasonable way to connect additional storage (although a $120 CardBus 20MB/s SCSI card and a SCSI hard drive, or a FireWire hard drive are also options).

    So if I install an ATA controller and a Voodoo 3 PCI, I only have 1 slot left for a SCSI card attached to a scanner! (Although FireWire scanners are now more reasonably priced).

    Compared to buying a new CPU (especially one on par with my Pismo G3), spending $600 isn't so bad. What's more, when I upgrade the processor daughtercard on my PB, my desktop and my laptop have been upgraded. If I buy this. Which I don't have the money to do. (Or, for that matter, to buy any of these peripherals I've been ranting about). But if this company stays around, I think I have an alternative to getting a desktop...



    Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
    foo = bar/*myPtr;
  • Well I havent had an opportunity to evaluate 2000 yet, but Hell, if it runs better on my laptop than NT...im game.

    "sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
  • That's what I'm saying. For that kind of money you can get a half-decent desktop PC (minus the monitor, which they don't include anyway) which you could then network in with your notebook. Want storage? Share a drive. Want DVD? Share a drive. Pretty simple.
  • Not only that, but it's not even an original product; these kinds of things have existed for years.

    -
  • Outside the US, most countries use commas as decimal points. So you're both right.
  • Linux on a notebook is a GREAT troubleshooting tool for any network person. It also handles the dynamic nature of a notebook much better than Win9x. I run Linux on my Compaq Armada that I won at LinuxWorld (Thanks Mandrake!) as well as some Dell Latitudes. Some of the new Dell Inspirons have a screen that does 1600x1200. Windows users don't need that res on a notebook, but it would make a great X setup.

    And as for 2K... 2K is GREAT on a notebook. Much more stable than 98 and NT. It handles sleep and standby very well so that I don't have to shut it down at all. I just put it in sleep mode and bring it back out when needed.
  • who needs this crap? just use shares...
  • Yea, if it dropped to $199, then they'd pull an I-OPENER and scream bloody murder as us evil hackers start to use it for whatever we want.

    Word would get out that someone was able to connect to it with Linux on their laptop, and then they opened the box and make it so more than one user could connect through multiple PCMCIA ports.

    And then the RIAA will sue Mobility because it's obvious that whenever more than 2 people connect their computers together, with any storage capability, they're obviously stealing music by trading mp3's.

    Rader

  • The datasheet is vague on the type of mainboard being used. Is it ATX? Since they don't support Win2K, Linux, etc. I suspect that there are a lot of proprietary junk on it. Who would want that? It would be a pain to upgrade CPU/motherboard combos later on.

  • LOTS of people use win2k on laptops, because it works WELL.

    More stable than the 9x line, (duh). Proper multitasking. (at least compared to 9x). It works GREAT.

    Laptops are not so properietary these days, and manufacturers are quite forthcoming with technical details.

  • Re:'who cares' is right. (Score:5)

    by cheese_wallet ( 88279 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2000 @06:50AM (#732264) Journal
    I haven't read the other replies to your message, so this may be (redundent -1).

    Are you really that upset by seeing a less than stellar story posted on slashdot? "Who cares?" is exactly right. If you don't like the story, so what? I am sorry that you didn't have the self control to stop reading it and move on to something more interesting. Worse, you waste even more time with an less interesting, yet irritating, post.

    I have a few moderator points left, but I chose not to use them here so I could ask you a few things:
    • Why does it bother you to occasionally see boring stories on slashdot?
    • Why do you insult the submitter of the story you don't like? Do you think their intent was malicious? Was it their goal to cause you boredom?
    • Why didn't you ignore the story? I do it all the time... works for me, that self control thing.

    I guess that is it.
  • Never in my life would I have decided to say what I am about to say now.

    Get a life.

    Is slashdot all you do during the day. It is just a website after and does not warrant your constant attention. You speak as if you have some cause or some noteworthy goal in life for slashdot. Go feed the hungry and shelter the homeless...do something that is worth doing... but for god sakes figure out what is meaningful in life and what isn't. Slashdot is a great website, but that is all it is... a website.

    And for god sake leave Taco alone... he is just another guy like you and myself. Just like everyone else in this world he is trying to get by in the best way he knows how.

    Two words, Grow Up.
  • I have no problem skipping stories. The stories themselves don't really bother me. What does bother me is that slashdot is essentially a news-filtering site. I come here for a manageable (read: small) amount of news that I will find interesting, as opposed to reading the boatloads of webpages out there. I know that hundreds and hundreds of stories are submitted that never get posted, every day. That's the way it has to be to keep the site useable. Some stories are more interesting to me than others. I'm going to assume this is true for everyone. The site should display the stories that interest the largest number of people. When I see a story like this, I can't help but think, "hmmm...I wonder what part of the readership cares about this. Surely there was something more interesting in the queue." The solution to this, then, would be to all the users to browse the incoming queue and rate the stories somehow, so that no one person would have to read too many stories, but everyone would get the benefit of having the stories scanned by a large number of people. Obviously, this wouldn't be perfect, because most, if not all, people's taste will not align perfectly with the aggregate taste of the /. community, but for a lot of us, it would be pretty good. For example, I know a lot of people that read /. get really excited about new Redhat releases and stuff, whereas I couldn't care less. I wouldn't mind seeing that modded up high, reflecting the broad interest of the piece, even if I personally don't care about it, but stories like this one...I don't think many people benefit from this post. I could be wrong, but these are the stories that make me think a moderation system for stories would be good.

    jeb.

  • my bad. Thanks for the correction.
  • All three of Britain's major political parties appear to have bought into the homosexual agenda.

    Well, I can't speak for Britain, but here in the US, 60% of homosexuals are registered Republican.

    So, if you want documentation of the "homosexual agenda", you need look no further than the Republican Party's 2000 platform [gop.org]

    -
  • It's not so much that you need to port the application to 5 OS's, but simply that if the end user sees that it supports Win95 then they will probably assume it doesn't work on 98/NT/2000. Therefore to cover all grounds, they mention each version of Windows it will work on. Sort of like saying that a new module will only work with the latest 2.4 kernal, etc....
  • Now don't be so cruel, it does say that they want to support Linux!

    Now then Taco please get in here and answer a simple question:
    Why did you post this story?
    Please be certain to tell us whether money came into this decision.

  • I agree... there should be something that lets users view post submissions, and vote on them. One vote per submission, can't vote on your own submission, and a minimumkarma pre-requisite for a vote (so that new/inactive users and dummy accounts can't vote). Then the editors can see what people want front-paged, and will be free to follow public opinion based on their own judgement.

    By the way, Half-Empty [half-empty.org] has something of the sort, except they take it to the extreme of letting most anyone instant-post a story.

  • How many PCMCIA slots do most notebooks have? I am seeing 1 more than two, and only the Ricoh Magio/IBM TP235/Hitachi Traveller have ever had 3 that I know of. This thing takes advantage of the CardBus slot, which is akin to a PCI slot in its speed, and brings out a PCI bus in an external cage. Do you have FireWire/video capture/scsi/100bt ethernet all at once on your machine? Assuming its not a sony of course... oh and of course you have that 4 75 gig IDE raid setup in your notebook too? I don't work for them, but I looked it up a while ago, and if your notebook is all you use, it would be great to have expansion...Voodoo? DXR3? for what your notebook doesn't come with. PCI no AGP but still great if that is all you have... bryan

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