************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** The computer press and computer people seem to love Apple's new iMac. It's a revolutionary computer, don't you know? It lacks a floppydisk. Well, that's okay. I haven't used my floppy drive since 1997. Oh yeah, it's made out of colored plastic. If other computer manufactures want to compete, we're told, they better follow Apple's lead and introduce fancier looking computers. Form is supposed to follow function. In the computer world, form stopped back in the early '80s when IBM introduced the original IBM PC in a cream colored plastic box. For a brief time in the mid-'90s, computers in black plastic boxes were in demand by the alpha geeks in software development. Darth Vader wore black and anything that reminds a programmer of Vader is cool. Most computer manufacturers have never had to worry about form because in the world of the Wintel machine, function has never really settled down. A car made in the '70s does pretty much the same thing as a car made in the '90s. The same can't be said of a computer. Computer users have to spend serious cash on upgrades every couple years or they find they're unable to run the latest applications. When you drop $1,000 on a new chip and a bigger harddrive, you're probably unwilling to spend another $200 on a plastic box designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. As well, users invariably tuck the CPU box underneath the desk, saving the visible topside for a printer, scanner, monitor, keyboard, and eight or nine coffee mugs. Apple isn't the first computer manufacturer to win market share with a beautiful box, although it has a long history of designing aesthetically pleasing (though rarely wallet pleasing) hardware. The original Apple II was succeeded by a more portable version known as the Apple IIC (see www.chass.utoronto.ca/~edtracy/apple2c.html). The computer's stylish lines got it enshrined in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder, born-again savior, and iMac creator, has been the driving force behind Apple's focus on form. When Jobs quit Apple and started the NeXT computer company, it was surprising how quickly Apple reverted to the staid cream-colored box design "favored" by the Wintel crowd. Jobs' NeXT system was an all black beauty: monitor, laser printer, keyboard, and a cube-shaped CPU. You can get a good look at the NeXT system at the Museum of Dead, Gone and Obsolete Computers (www.computingmuseum.com). If you think Apple under Jobs has always turned out sexy computer designs, I urge you to take a look at the Apple III at the dead computer museum. The hulking beast of a machine was mercifully put down in favor of the innovative yet expensive Apple Lisa. The Apple Lisa itself was quickly discontinued in favor of the Macintosh we know and some of us love today. While Jobs was the motivating force behind the Apple line's stylish look, the actual design work for most of the early Apple computers was done by a company called Frogdesign (www.frogdesign.com). The sexiest thing running on two processors these days is Silicon Graphic's line of high-end Windows NT work stations. Check out visual.sgi.com for a look at these cobalt blue marvels. They are by no means home computers, although you'd be surprised how many people find a way to convince their significant other of the utility of a $10,000 workstation for the den. Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com) also produces a high-end, high- priced line of number crunchers. Again, you get what you pay for: a way cool looking hunk of purple-colored plastic. Suppose, however, you pay not $10,000 for a computer but $10 million. What should it look like? In my opinion, if it's not a Van Gogh with a keyboard, it better at least look like an installation in the modern art wing at the AGO. Super computer manufacturer Cray does just that, in fact. Check out the Cray SV1 at www.sgi.com/products/supercomputers.html. While all Cray's are wonderful to behold, nothing compares to the curved beauty of the room-sized Cray-2 and Cray YMP (see acssun.pstcc.cc.tn.us/~cst-home/gallery.htm). However much you would like to turn a Cray into a work of art, there can be some problems. A couple years ago a collector managed to purchase a surplus Cray. Instead of putting it in his garage, he chopped it up and began selling slices sealed in a lucite desk frame. He figured a lot of techies all over the world would buy a bit of a computer that was used to design really fearsome nuclear weapons. What he didn't count on was getting in a whole lot of trouble from the US government. It seems shipping supercomputer parts to people in less-than- friendly nations is frowned upon.