[NTLK] FW: form factor

From: Thomas Hart (those_at_mac.com)
Date: Thu Oct 02 2003 - 03:49:22 PDT


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From: Jason Smith <smithja_at_cs.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 05:39:45 -0400
To: Thomas Hart <those_at_mac.com>
Subject: Re: form factor

On Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 06:35 AM, Thomas Hart wrote:

> Dear Jason,
> I have been thinking about a new design for a while and have
> inquired
> about a couple of options for the battery. One really good option
> would be
> one made by Samsung. The battery stores about 355 watt hours in a
> space of a
> 2.8mm-thin, 34mm-wide and 58mm-high pack. I don't know anything about
> battery specs, could this be used to run a Newton?

 *NO* idea. Posting this question to the list instead of to me
directly would probably be better... in fact, you have my permission to
forward this entire response to the list for archiving and comments.

> Two of these would fit nicely into a carved out cover and the
> recharging
> cable could be fed through to the batteries via the left side of the
> case.
> There is also the space for a ribbon cable there, making it possible
> to fit
> a low profile 'sticker' keyboard over the batteries on the inside of
> the
> cover. That would allow the battery bay at the bottom to be cut off.

 Excellent.

> The next thing I thought of was the top of the case. The trick
> would be
> to relocate the ir and serial ports further down the board which is
> possible
> with the serial for sure (although it should be a usb port), but I
> think the
> ir port would be more difficult. IR has not been a very popular option
> on
> the Newt because of protocol, so it may be worth it to just chuck it
> anyway.

 That's what I was thinking - with the Ethernet and WiFi drivers
becoming much more stable and prevalent, the IR and serial, in my mind,
become almost redundant. I'd rather see them ditched and the
Interconnect Port replaced with, oh, I dunno... maybe a headphone/mic
jack pair? *shrug* Maybe get rid of them altogether.

> The cf reader would also be a huge bonus since it would have a
> lower
> profile than the PCI slots that are there and it may be possible to
> get two
> readers into the space of one of the slots, leaving the other as is for
> ethernet cards, modems, wifi etc.
> I am no techie so I don't actually know what is possible or not,
> but I
> have always wanted to reduce the over all size of the Newton and make
> it a
> real pocket sized device. These are some of the ideas I have had. Am I
> nuts
> or do you think it may be possible?

 Oh I think it's completely possible... I just haven't the expertise to
pull it off. :)

 One approach I thought of for the CF/SM reader would be to take a
PCCard reader of same, gut the sucker, and hardwire it into the PCCard
socket. I suspect that the overall space could be reduced this way,
and we could get a dual reader out of it.

 Thickness would stay *about* the same, the ends would be chopped off,
and the sides could be pulled in a bit for elegance (and to make it
easier to hold in one hand...)

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