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Especially if they have flat tops.

I hate looking at some gaudy colored box in some has-been trendy shade.

The only think worse, is when they have an odd shape so that a CD case slides off the top. If it is going to be ugly you might as well be able to stack stuff on it.

Are its machines not "sexy alternatives to the big, grey box?"

They run Intel processors, too.

Why don't we use what we've got already? If you want a box with curves you buy a box with curves. If you want a box that's going to sit there and look like you're not a gamer by profession then you can buy a normal box.

Or just buy an Intel Mac.

www.apple.com/store

just deposit the cash in my account, OK?

Is it really this hard? I went to a trade show about five years ago and saw funky PC designs from some division of Hyundai that were orange plastic pyramids and things of that sort... It's Not Hard, just get on with it. Hire a designer, fer cryin' out loud.

I do not think case mods fall under this as they are looking for a more attractive version of what they have. Hopefully we get some different options from this, but speaking generally, how much can you do different? If these are going to be mass produced, they have to have utility as well. By that I mean easy access to the hardware and logical placement of said hardware.

Apple has some good ideas on the boring concept of cases and they have been done well. I am expecting something that looks like a case, but has some extra features on the outside, both functional and visual. I hope this effort results in some serious advancement in how cases Work, Look, and Feel.

For a while, I was into case modding. I had my stepfather do the metal cutting and so on, because I'm an accountant; I don't know how to cut metal and if I can get others to do a better job for me for free then cool. I had him cut stylistic holes in the side panels and I installed neons and light cables etc. That was a couple of years ago though.

Now my PC is under my IKEA desk, so nobody sees the sides. I have a missing drive bay cover so you can see the coloured fans but thats it. Stylish PCs may be a big deal to some, but I lost that interest quite quickly.
Sure, your PC looks cool, but who really cares?

I think folks underestimate how striking completely transparent PC cases [thinkcomputers.org] can look, or cases made from Lego bricks.

But then again, last time [slashdot.org] I brought this up, I was modded 'flamebait', :(

Y'all don't think that a rack-mount sequencer style PC (or console) case, together with rack-mount Hi-Fi (and other accessory) units would look the dog's nads?

...stupid "get a Mac if you want curves" comments, and many being modded as insightful. Granted, there have been very few Intel based PCs that have been contenders to win design awards but I've seen a few that are easily as good looking as many believe the Mac to be. Dell's M2010 [dell.com] is far better looking than then notebooks being sold by Apple. The Sony RS Series [sonystyle.com] and LS Series [sonystyle.com] are great looking desktops, the LS being the all-in-one like the iMac. The Sony Digital Living System [sonystyle.com] is a great looking media center PC. It's all a matter of taste.

One of my favorite comments was this one, "Hopefully we get some different options from this, but speaking generally, how much can you do different?" Ummm, perhaps you are a) not the target for PCs like this and b) are not creative enough to design an elegant, stylish PC case. I'm always amazed with this attitude from geeks given that they'd be extremely passionate if one we re to say something equally as inane as, "why spend billions of dollars to go to the Moon or Mars? They're just lifeless rocks with no interest to anyone."

It is not just about getting things to look sexy - its about getting things to look different. Getting things to look different cosmetically is the first step towards actually making them different.

I think the trend is to get rid of the PC as we know it and slowly replace it with devices that can only do specialized tasks - an Xbox for gaming, a Media Ceter PC that replaces your TV and audio system, a buisness PC for making that ugly slide show. Sell the same basic hardware, throw in a few specialized devices like that fancy new graphics accelerator and physics processor for the Xbox, a nifty tuner card and remote for that Media center thing and and make sure that printer and scanner only work with the BizPC. Make the software dumb "Click this button and everything will just work its so simple." Ofcourse you make the case and software look different so that Joe Schmoe could never even dream that his Xbox could run his little spreadsheet app no problem.

Sell all three to Joe, charge obscene license fees for the software - maybe pull a TiVo to ensure only your own software works with your hardware. While you are at it charge an extra 500 bucks because the Xbox case was designed by Armani and looks sexy.

This is great for buisness but it should scare most of you since /.ers do more with their computers than Joe Schmoe.

[/tinfoil_hat]

Anybody remember the last time intel came up with a sexy new desktop design [hardwarezone.com]

in my personal experience, almost all cases now come in black, grey, blue or a similar dark shade. I haven't seen a beige box in a long, long time.

I think the problem may have to do with the fundamental concept of a computer being an exposed motherboard with a series of slots that house exposed cards. This goes all the way back 30 years to the first micro bus standard (S-100) through most subsequent computers.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/6757/ images/chassistop.jpg [geocities.com]

http://www.oldcomputers.arcula.co.uk/files/images/ intl103t.jpg [arcula.co.uk]

http://www.infodip.com/pages/axiom/bus-passif/imag es/ATX60206.jpg [infodip.com]

http://www.infodip.com/pages/axiom/bus-passif/imag es/ATX6021_4.jpg [infodip.com]

http://www.ixbt.com/mainboard/epox/8npa-sli/board. jpg [ixbt.com]

This is indeed a practical and economical solution to the idea of putting together and updating your computer. It's really a holdover from the hobbyist days and people have gotten used to it, but it's not really consumer-friendly.

The cartridge approach as used with videogame consoles is better.

I think Atari had the right idea with how it implemented expansion on the 800.

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/cartports3.JPG [oldcomputers.net]

The only exposed surfaces were the card edges and the slot. Then you just close the lid.

You see this kind of design approach applied currently to flash memory. If you follow the evolution of the MMC card up through SD and into MINI SD and MICRO SD adapters, imagine the same approach taken with bus specifications. Older cards could be used with newer bus specifications via adapter sleeves. But you'd standardize on a singular form-factor. When you open up your PC, all of the guts would be hidden behind the casing except for the mating surfaces for the cards. All cards would be enclosed.

I don't see this happening because computer technology is by definition transient, disposeable. So nobody wastes money on ergonomics like this. Bus standards change so frequently that you can't even keep your motherboard that long anymore let alone your cards. So you might not even swap cards that much for the lifecycle of the PC beyond the initial system setup.

What I'd really like to see is more effort spent on coming up with a universal backplane that would be more future-proof, maybe something more passive where the glue that binds everything together was itself a module you could swap out. That way maybe the underlying frame could last much longer before becoming obsolete.