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Re: [PLUG] no moving parts
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> Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:16:19 -0500
> From: Richard Freeman<r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] no moving parts
>
> On 01/29/2010 01:14 PM, JP Vossen wrote:
>> I can imagine a computer with no moving parts though. Use a projector
>> for the display, and a laser/LED projection with an IR sensor for a
>> keyboard (I'm pretty sure I read about that one already).
>
> Are you sure that laser/LED projector doesn't have any moving parts
> (like a rapidly oscillating mirror)?
I was hoping no one would call me on that part either. But I'm going to
claim ignorance of how those really work.
> In any case, a computer requires neither a display, nor a keyboard.
True, I should have specified a general purpose end-user
workstation-like computer. Similar in function but not form to a laptop.
> However, manual input-output isn't really a problem. The display is
> already easy, and for input just have an array of photodiodes shaped
> like a keyboard that you can point your flashlight at. Actually, if you
> wanted to be really clever just type on them, and have the keyboard
> register the blocking of ambient light as each "button" is pressed.
Yeah, that's what I mean. Ambient, IR, whatever. The flashlight thing
is too cumbersome, I want a full-size QWERTY keyboard. OK, tactile
feedback will not exist, but otherwise...
This is the one I was thinking of:
http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/
The first generations would be just a chunk of plastic you sit on the
desk and it does the display and keyboard. Later generations would be
even more "wearable" once the holographic I/O devices are sorted out.
Assuming the neural interfaces don't beat them to the punch.
Either way, we end up here:
http://www.dilbert.com/fast/1994-10-12/
http://www.dilbert.com/fast/1993-03-10/
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/14/1828253
> Of course, this only qualifies as a computer with no moving macroscopic
> parts. Once you start counting electrons and photons... Then again, if
> electrons and photons do not occupy any particular discrete region of
> space, can they really be said to move? :)
Oh Bog, why me?!? Look, as long as we don't actually LOOK for them,
who's to know?
:-)
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP |:::======| http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions |=========| http://www.jpsdomain.org/
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"Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on
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