The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME Does a computer need to look sexy? You might say that the looks of such a pragmatic gadget don’t matter. After all, most of us have, at one time or another, had to make do with bland, beige boxes almost exactly like everyone else’s bland, beige box, and it didn't hinder us from getting the job done, or made play any the less …
The indy looked like it should open along the diagonal slice, but alas the top was simply moulded plastic and it slid off like the lid of any other desktop of the day.
The Octane was actually far more modular, and easier to service than the indy while still looking pretty cool. I still have one in my garage that sees occasional use, it was my main workstation for many years.
... ah, the good, old SGI Indigo ... that clumsy, though functional, design would still give my dehumidifier a run for the money ... I kind of agree with Apples MacBook Air being a fine design (not very original but, again, functional and most certainly very challenging) ... I personally hate the black keyboard ... so, her we go again: "You can't argue about taste" ... rewording a toaster (Apple Power Mac G4 Cube) second place is, without arguing, ridiculous ... but hey I'm just glad the classic Macintosh didn't get mentioned. Oh, from that time, one of my all time favorite, not mentioned here either, is the Atari ST ... which, by the way, was the first home computer with integrated MIDI support and, thanks, to this was able to run music-sequencer software and controlling musical instruments.
Totally agree with SGI. Replace the NeXT borg cube with any of the SGI's: Indy, Octane, Onyx.
And the PS3? It looks about as interesting as corrugated iron and is too fat, overweight, and hot.
Then you have the Tandem's with their huge size and the KITT heartbeat monitor on them.
But the absolute sacrilege? Not putting Bletchley Park's Colossus on the list. Not only one of the first computers, it still looks better than any pimped out gaming rig with all of those glowing valves...
Sexy? Well, we thought that the updates to VME that came with the Series 39 were sexy but I've always thought of the ICL boxes as looking more purposeful than sexy. The Trimetras are too redolent of missed opportunities these days; lovely looking boxes, but all replaced by nondescript racked servers. Those Cray boxes, however, are still pure filth. Mmmmmmmm ....
Okay, your point holds- you can connect a mouse, keyboard, local storage and an external monitor to both the PS3 and SG3 to satisfy some definition of 'computer', but personally I find the SGS3 to be a little generic-looking to be featured in a 'top ten sexy' list.
Curiously, the original Playstation was a deliberate homage by the Sony Design Centre to Frog Design's work for Apple... especially the use of grill-like lines in the casing. Frog have worked with Sony in the past though, since they worked with Wega before Sony bought it. And having just looked at their site, I see they designed my first ever mouse, a Logitech that came with an Olivetti 8086.
I visited their NY studio once, and on display was a 90s-era black cast-magnesium PC case with the same ridges... only this time more functional as the case itself would act as a heatsink. I can't remember who the client was, I think I just assumed it was IBM.
I seem to recall that one of the Crays had optional leather seats that could be arranged around the core.
I always thought the the ZX80 was the best looking Sinclair, but there was certainly some inspired design in there.
Some other ones perhaps:
* The Lilith - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith_%28computer%29
* GRiD Compass - http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html
* Apricot Xi - http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=500
Surely the Apricot (not at all) Portable was their best looking machine. Infra red link from the keyboard to the base station/screen, or light pipe if you had too much paper in the way.
Always wanted to own one of these.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=492
Not sure the Siri-like microphone ever worked that well though.
Still have an original Apricot though.
I still have one somewhere....they were amazing for 1985 or whatever it was. IR keyboard and voice, when most PCs didnt have anything like that. It kind of worked too, the only only thing that used to drive me nuts was that it would only boot after a while in my loft after a lot of hitting, I never did discover why. Worked fine once it booted once.
Didnt realise they were so expensive, hope I didn't throw it in the skip a few years ago when I moved!
I always used to love the look of the Apricot F1."
Yes, very nice at the time. Handy for formatting many floppies as one IR keyboard could control as many F1's as you could get on the desk. Well, 3 or 4 was a practical limit.
The number keypad also acted as a stand-alone calculator too with a "send" button that sent the result as a series of keypresses to whatever program you were running at the current cursor position. Not sure if the F1 k/b had the LCD display of if that was one other models.
I'm sure I remember hearing that another Cray feature was that they'd provide it with the panels and seating in any colour that you wanted.
There was a possibly apocryphal story circulating at the time that some university professor ordered one in "nipple pink". When Cray asked exactly what colour that was, they got a polaroid of the bloke's girlfriend's tit by return, with the appropriate section circled and a helpful arrow pointing at it and labelled "this colour"[1].
[1] Or rather "color". It was a Yank story.
The cray did have seats around the core.
My first IT job was a PFY for Rutherford Appleton labs with 5 other PFY's. We got shown around the whole computer centre, one of the other PFY's decided to sit on those nice leather seats and kick his heals against the underside, before being asked stop as he was kicking a rather expense machine. None of us had clue what it was then.
I'm sure I still have a picture in the 1976 "Electronics Tomorrow" special edition of the magazine Electronics Today International (the one that also had pre-release articles about Star Wars) of a PET 2001 prototype that was curvy.
When the production PETs came out, I thought the steel case and chiclet keys were just plain ugly, although that did not stop a group of us on the college staff-student consultative committee from trying to get one bought for the college. Unfortunately (for us), the council voted for a mini-bus instead. In hindsight, that was probably the best choice, but it did not seem so at the time.
And what of the Dynalogic Hyperion? I had one for a while, a very nice package, though of
sadly limited compatibility.
obviously, we're talking about REAL computers, so the omission of the SGI Indigo and Cobalt Networks RAQ's is a shame......and I did have a soft spot for the Atari ST...
personally, I always thought the computers used in "Time Tunnel/Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea/Lost in Space" TV series were wonderful, full of flashing lights and whirling tape drives.... :)
I am shocked and unimpressed.
How can you have any list of 'ten sexiest computers' without the Connection Machine at the top of it?!
http://www.mission-base.com/tamiko/cm/cm2-hds.gif
(and perhaps an honourable mention for something *very* obscure; the Panda Archistrat:
http://www.d1.dion.ne.jp/~r_high/memorial/panda/boxes.gif )
Mike
I nearly cried when I saw the Cray-1 in the London Science Museum - just perfect.
Suprised there's no Sun kit in here (disclaimer: I'm ex-Sun..)
I thought the E10K was good, and the sun4m and dinnerbox chassis machines (IPC/IPX/Classic) were good too.
The mac stuff looks nice but it's form over function - fewer ports, non removable batteries etc.
>The mac stuff looks nice but it's form over function - fewer ports, non removable batteries etc.
When Apple did do removable batteries, they did them well (each had a little button that showed its charge level through some LEDs).
Anyway, replacing a battery is not a weekly operation - some greater inconvenience every four years is for some a fair trade-off if it means the thing is lighter to carry every day. Design, like engineering, is a succession of compromises.
" replacing a battery is not a weekly operation - "
No, it would be a twice-daily operation for field workers. If current models allowed removable batteries, it still would be.
Before Jobs made them sealed units, Mac laptops used to have a very useful "warm-swap" feature: put the computer to sleep, and you could pop the battery out for up to 10-15 seconds without affecting the RAM. Makes it very easy to swap batteries and continue working.
That, and their low power consumption meant that packing one or two spare batteries could get you a full day's use of a laptop far away from any power source (very useful for long-haul business travel with long stopovers).
Design isn't just about what a product looks like. Apple used to make well-designed products; these days their stuff only *looks* well designed...
These "top 10" lists are usually on a bit of a "sticky wicket" (perhaps understandably, people will almost always disagree with the choices), but I think this is a pretty decent attempt :-)
For myself, I'd probably substitute the Cube with an iMac G4 - now THAT was a design I liked (the one with the "anglepoise lamp" display). I prefer it to the later iMacs (one of which we own at home), as sometimes you just want to reposition the screen a bit more radically than the later iMacs allow.
Never understood why the iMac G4 design didn't last - was it a flop, unreliable, etc.?
Oh, and I've always had a soft spot for the Cray-1 - if I were more creative, I'd want to build a tiny replica as a case for my Raspberry Pi (which ISTR someone said has more power in some respects than a Cray-1 did)...
No, no, no, no! You should build a full-sized replica of a cray, along with flashing lights and seat. Then have a single Raspberry Pi sitting there, hovering on its own in the centre. Pointless and stupid I admit, and would take up loads of space, but would at least give you one very uncomfortable sofa on which to seat any visitors you don't like too much...
Love the iMac G4. We have two that are still ticking along quite happily, and still allow us to play Baldur's Gate (I and II) and the first Neverwinter Nights. When I got mine, I showed it to my then-boss, and he was stunned that the whole computer was in the gumdrop base.
Some people deride its looks, but it actually has a personality, with the swivel arm and adjustable screen. Plus it's quiet, since the fan rarely runs thanks to the the design to allow natural convection. Reliable as hell, too.
>Never understood why the iMac G4 design didn't last - was it a flop, unreliable, etc.?
The article cited a dodgy power switch and production problems with the case.... but it was also said that some people (pointy-haired bosses?) would place paperwork on top of it and thus block its vents.
Another reason is that it was pricer than the Mac Pros at the time, and less upgradable.
I liked the way the Cube was designed around the thermal considerations- having the motherboard arranged to form a chimney to encourage air convection was a good idea. The other obviously good idea (even to tech-illiterate PHBs, who shout 'Who will rid me of this snake's nest of cables on my desk?!") was the single cable from the Cube to the monitor, carrying video signal, power, audio and USB- the latter daisy-chained to the keyboard and onto the mouse.
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