Perfect machine for me is going to be a laptop, one of the tabletlaptops that were popular some decade ago. This is gonna be such a wall of text...
* 14...15" non wide panel, 4:3 preferred. 16:9 and 16:10 are not acceptable. 1400x1050 or 1600x1200 screen are ideal, DPI much higher than 150 no thank you.
* Since the panel will be rotateable it must be IPS, VA, OLED or µLED. When it comes to LCDs, VA is preferred due to much less blurring than IPS while still having as good contrast for an LCD. Backlight zoning will be necessary too to improve the relatively poor contrast of a LCD a bit more when comparing to CRT or xLED based panels. µLED will be favored over OLED due significantly less issues with burn in and both are favored over LCDs. xLEDs in those formats and DPI will probably never be available...
* full 24bit or maybe even 30bit display interface rather than usual 18bit that laptops have. No dithering stuff please.
* Wacom based or otherwise WinTab compatible RF based pen input. Capacitive inputs no thanks. Resistive might work but the point is doing art and good pressure sense and localization of the tip are essential.
* All cables coming out of one side, preferably on the back. i.e LAN, power and sound must all be on one side, either left or back. Front may not have any sort of connectors, most particularly sound output since I want nothing poking my gut 🤣
* Palm length area on sides near bottom need to be clear of connectors so I can grab the thing nicely from there with nothing poking into my palm.
* Must have nicely laid out INS+DEL+HOME+END+PGUP+PGDN keys, right side CTRL key is mandatory. Leftmost key in bottom row is CTRL and not Fn. No system key should be hidden behind Fn, all stuff you see on a normal desktop keyboard must also be present on the laptop keyboard.
* Dvorak layout on the keyboard with keys of QWERTY and US-int layout also marked. Hardware switch for selecting between the two so that there's no need for logical layout changes needed on OS level.
* Trackpoint is necessary, touchpad optional, 3 mouse buttons preferred too. Sensitivity of the trackpoint should be fairly high so that a relatively light touch scoots the cursor from one edge of screen to other.
* Battery should be in front, this has way better balancing than devices where battery is in back/middle. Battery should also be just bare 18650 cells that I can buy myself, no trouble sourcing replacements ! Some quarter of the machine could be battery cells, long life is more important than compact size and weight.
* More than 2 RAM connectors, large size modules are expensive compared to several smaller sized ones.
* Both PCMCIA/CardBus and ExpressCard slots rather than just one or other.
* 1Gbit LAN is a requirement, with a nice metal connector that won't break if someone stumbles into the cable. I don't want to do stuff like this again : http://www.tmeeco.eu/BitShit/LANportRepair0.jpg 😵
* Dock with COM, LPT, DVI / HDMI /DP, plenty of USB, PS/2 and other ports on it, Must have real PCI slot(s) and perhaps even ISA slot, PCI-E is not necessary and ExpressCard already gives it. Dock should also have room for a 3.5" SATA HDD, floppy drive and an optical drive if one doesn't fit on the machine itself.
* Generous amount of realestate for audio, no interferences and noises etc. are acceptable. Must have a real line in aswell as a line out in addition to real headphone output, direct coupled with relay protection, no series capacitors. Digital I/O is a bonus and can appear on dock. Microphone input is unnecessary, internal microphone should be present though. Speakers are not necessary and can be completely omitted, it is impossible to get -good- sound out of laptop speakers. Film caps and e-caps only in signal path, MLCCs and tantalums are not allowed there, only in power bypass circuits.
* Body needs to be made of magnesium or aluminium, can be cast, milled or pressed(in case of aluminium). Plastic is not acceptable. Thickness of bottom part should be 2cm+, for a comfy grip. Rectangular design without any curves other than corners please. Must survive drop from half a meter on any outer area without damage to screen or motherboard etc.
* May not overheat if there's no fan running, good amount of the body can be purposed as heatsink if needed. Passive operation without surface temps of the machine going over 40ºC must be sustainable for hours under non gaming etc. use. Fan and CPU must be accessible just by popping the bottom cover off, no dismantle everything nonsense that most current machines do please.
* No need for any sort of GPU, the machine is used for work mostly. Reduced heat and maximized battery life are much more valued over performance.
* No UEFI, secureboot and other garbage. All chipset timings etc. should always be available much like a typical desktop. Should support config profiles for different OSes and should have comprehensive bootloader in the BIOS.
* Has to be actually usable with win9x and DOS, even if all drivers aren't available for base hardware (dock can help out too here). Must be fully usable with XP and 7, linux flavors are also welcome.
Many of these things aren't unrealistic, one can dream ~
