[Ti] Poll 19

[Kynan Shook]

So Steve, essentially you want one of these, slightly updated:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/osborne_1.shtml

;-)

I am currently a 17" owner; if you made a 19" that was just a bigger 
12/15/17, it would not fly well.  Even if you crafted the case into a 
nice little airfoil.  ;-)  I think what the next design step needs to 
be is a folding screen; when you lift the lid for the computer, you can 
then fold out a couple of wings on the screen (or they'd fold or extend 
out from the sides of the screen automatically), providing additional 
LCD space.  This really isn't that far-fetched, I don't think; there'd 
be a few problems to overcome, such as designing a hinge or extension 
mechanism for these wings, and getting a cable through there, keeping 
them as absolutely thin as possible, and having as small a seam between 
the different sections of the screen as possible..  Of course, there's 
the usual enemy; increased battery use.

At this point, I think the idea probably isn't quite feasible (too 
expensive, and too few customers), but it wouldn't surprise me to see 
it in the future - perhaps with the next generation of display 
technologies or so.  OLED displays don't need a backlight, and so are 
thinner and require less power.  See URL below, especially checking out 
the "thinner" link halfway down.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/display/overview.jhtml

Along with this idea, you could not only have a 19" PowerBook without 
carrying a 19" case, but you could also have a 17" PowerBook with a 12" 
case; that's probably something that a number of people would pay for.

Anyway, I should probably go patent my idea if nobody else has already 
(and somebody probably has)...  But I'm too lazy, and not greedy 
enough.  But if you want to license it, just send a big check my way 
and I won't complain.  Unless somebody at Apple wants to license it, 
and then the price is a job.  Or at least an internship there next 
summer - I didn't get any that I applied for this year. :-(
<sigh>


Steve Wozniak <steve at woz.org> writes:
> At 10:46 AM -0700 2004.05.30, khyber courchesne wrote:
>> Would you buy a powerbook with a 19" screen?
>
> Let's see.
>
> If a large PowerBook were built as a briefcase that could open up, 
> showing the screen, and carry things like a regular briefcase, I might 
> be very tempted.