Hey, that's a cool thread! May I interpret it as a thread about odd shaped PCs ?
If so, I have a few ideas for you! 😁 :
a)BTX form factor. Dell made a few PCs with that layout (Optiplex Desktop series ?)
The cool thing was, that PCI cards finally were nolonger "hanging" upside-down.
I mean, the component side was on the upper side (correct), just like ISA cards of old times.
This was way better for heat dissipation, also.
b)Goupil computers
#1 ???
#2 big and in red colouring, kinda like japanese PCs
#3 all-in-one
#4 mimics the japanese Sharp X68000 PC
#50 huge server monster in black (reminde me of these German ESCOM machines)
Goupil Golf. A "portable" with a huge plasma screen.
http://msx.fab.free.fr/mpc2/goupil/goupil.htm
poor translation (original was French)
c) BBC Master 128 w/ Master 512 module
This interesting machine came from Great Britain (for the young readers, a small ex-European isle).
By installing an optional co-processor board, the machine became schizophrenic and
either got an alternate 65C02 or 80186 PC personality.
It also had an odd-ball Operating System called "DOS Plus", which was CP/M-86 with built-in DOS emulation.
I mentioned it a little bit in the old PC compatibility cards thread. 😉
PC compatibility cards
d)thin clients
Successors of glass terminals. They often run on a crippled copy of WinCE and are based on various platforms.
Some of them run on x86 architecture. They usually incorporate old, reliable 2D/3D chips from the server department (ATI Rage, etc.).
Some of them include PCI slots, IDE, parallel, serial and USB.
By design, all of them have got NICs installed. Support for legacy OSes is very good (even OS/2).
Sample: HP T5700
e)late 90s/early 2000s set-top boxes
They were made for surfing the web in the living room.
More than often, they included a crippled PC mainboard.
Performance class ranged from Pentium MMX to Pentium III.
Sample. T-Online S100
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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