As in all things...some pieces are easy...and some not so easy. The above devices strike me as being fairly straightforward. But when it comes to Video Display and Sound--there are more hurdles to overcome.
Sound is problematic in that I don't clearly grasp it from a low-level standpoint. Sound, especially the sound chips are extremely proprietary. And in reality, anything analog is totally out of my realm of knowledge. So I'm just going to ignore it for now, and assume it can be packaged-up and shipped-out over the Firewire.
From a Video Display standpoint, what I see as necessary is the totally new creation of a "Standardized Graphical Command Language" used to drive the equivalent of a "Graphically Capable Dumb Terminal". Here too, I am a bit fuzzy on what, if anything, is currently available out there in the marketplace. Does X-Terminal qualify? How about whatever runs that Windows Terminal Server, MetaFrame, Citrix Systems thing? What is that? Is there an equivalent of a "graphical terminal" used in that environment?
I believe that whatever would work needs to have a fairly "lean" "low-level" command language providing capabilities like block-fill with color, line and curve drawing, BitBlit capabilities. Low level 3-D may or may not be out of the question. What is not desirable is some large piece of bloat. In this case, I see leaner as better.
Of course this display--whatever it is--would simply plug into the Firewire port.
10. Variations on a Theme
Having brought up Windows Terminal Services and Citrix in the previous section, let's momentarily shift gears.
Lets assume we're at work. Let's unhook our PDA from the base station, and keeping everything else the same, replace the Firewire chip in the PDA with a Gigabyte Ethernet Chip. Then let's remove the outside covering and repackage our PDA into a "Blade Configuration". Make the Blade capable of being inserted into a huge rack along with hundreds of other blades in the computer room of the large corporation we work at.
Now let's connect each blade into the Gigabyte Ethernet Network running throughout the building. At the desktop let's connect the Base Station to the Ethernet network. Now assuming correct addressability, the Blade directly communicates to the Base Station through the network. A SINGLE TRANSLATION that bridges packets from Ethernet to Firewire must occur upon entry or exit to the base station--before the packets hit the peripherals.
Of course what I'm describing goes by many names...Thin Client, Network Computer. But the overall concept survives package modifications--BLADE or PDA--everything works identically!
11. Conclusions
With the exception of a readily available "Graphical Display Terminal" and accompanying "Graphical Display Command Language" it would seem to me that the possibility for this type of architecture is well within our grasp.
The advantages are:
- Portability.
- True Plug and Play Compatibility.
- Flexibility in Physical Topology and Component Packaging.
- Peripherals increase in overall market scope leading to lower costs.
- Hardware (CPU), OS, Programming Language is totally neutral!
Early on I alluded to some current developments in chips that could be used to drive this vision. Briefly some of the developments in Firewire chips deal with the concept of "tailgating". For instance, chips combining Firewire/ATA/API capabilities allowing for currently available IDE hard drives, CD, and DVD drives to operate seamlessly over the Firewire. Or another class of Firewire chips facilitating the streaming of A/V Mpeg from digital cameras. And, in addition, the advent of open software specifications such as OHCI 1.1 and SBP-2 that facilitate the utilization of these new firewire hardware chips.
But I've already gone on too long--and those discussions are full-blown papers in themselves.
In conclusion, the realization of the dream is to: Preserve personal preferences at the OS and Application Level, and take advantage of cheap readily available OPEN PERIPHERALS, all in a simple, fool-proof, PnP environment.
Or as Jonathan Boyles puts it--"To be able to work on your stuff everywhere!"
About the Author:
My name is Jim Kirkley from Columbus, Ohio and I have been employed in the computer field from the early 1980's. I have been involved in programming everything from IBM mainframes and Series 1's to PC's and proprietary point of sale systems.
- "Open Peripheral Hardware Connectivity, Part I"
- "Open Peripheral Hardware Connectivity, Part II"
- "Open Peripheral Hardware Connectivity, Part III"
- "Open Peripheral Hardware Connectivity, Part IV"
