31 Jan
2007
31 Jan
'07
12:25 a.m.
Well, this degraded to the "list your favorite
computer" thread.
I can think of very few machines that could be called Great Examples
of Industrial Design, worthy of a spot at showing at the
Cooper-Hewitt. The only one that leaps to mind are the various
Connection Machines, probably because they were designed by an artist.
Most companies (SGI) try too hard, cramming the design down your
throat while screaming in your ear (eye) LOOK AT ME!
No, the company whose systems scream LOOK AT ME would be Sun. Have you ever
seen the SunBlade 1500 with about half the front panel in bright red, and
"Sun" in huge letters? Sun almost puts more style in to a lot of thier rack
mounted systems than thier desktops! I would be inclined to put the SGI
Fuel in this catagory though.
I'd personally consider the SGI o2, Octane, Tezro and *maybe* the Fuel, as
well as the original Apple G4 towers (the G3's of that design scream LOOK AT
ME, but the G4 is more subdued), G4 cube, and the original iMac and iBook
designs to all be very stylish and "art". The NeXT systems would be a close
contender. While stylish, and very well designed, I doubt I'd put the G5
and Xeon Mac towers in this classification.
I've *NEVER* seen one single IBM system I'd consider to be "art", I
have
seen a few that are interesting. DEC/Compaq/HP same thing.
I think the only x86 PC's I've seen that fall into this catagory are custom
built systems.
Lets face it, most computers, no matter how beautiful the design, are really
quite ugly on the exterior.
Zane