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Thinking outside the beige box PCs evolving in color and form as functions change and motherboards grow smaller 03/30/99 By Doug Bedell / Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News
Let's face it: The beige boxiness of most desktop computers makes them look anything but personal. In fact, most have a starkly institutional countenance. But computer makers are gradually getting a message from consumers: If we're expected to install PCs in every nook and cranny of our living space, they better be simpler and blend better with decor and lifestyles. And just maybe they should be expressions of - gasp! - individuality. "You could have done an orange or green PC two years ago, of course, but you couldn't balance color with the same ease of technology that's available now," says Steve Whalley, PC initiative manager for Intel. Well, the times and colors are changing. So, apparently, is the shape of the PC, from the looks of two recent Intel developer forums. In September and February, Intel sponsored glitzy computer fashion shows. The firm's Bunny People mascots wheeled out an army of strange-looking, fully operational "concept PCs" while hopping around to pulsing disco music. At the last event, Intel product group vice president Pat Gelsinger, clad casually in golf shirt, grabbed the mike and pronounced the death of boring beige. "Style matters!" he bellowed. The ensuing parade included an 8-inch-square pyramid, a treelike system on a pole, a bunny-shaped box for kids, a twisted unit that swivels, a blue fish-looking model for teens, and the Fun-kshun, a strange orange and blue box on a pedestal. One form even mimicked a waterfront view of the Sydney Harbor skyline. "We didn't know how people were going to react to this," Mr. Whalley says. Although Intel says it has been working on newfangled PC design since about 1992, Apple's iMac was the first to really capitalize on an untapped consumer desire to break away from beige. The cool, Bondi blue look of the iMac has propelled it to a niche as the top-selling Macintosh in history. News last week from Apple, in fact, included alarms that the company is actually running low on stock. Industry experts attribute its stunning success to its operating simplicity and untraditional appearance. The iMac just looks friendly to people. At the Macworld trade show earlier this year, Apple interim chief executive Steven Jobs acknowledged that the look of the home computer is more important than he previously imagined. "In our consumer surveys," Mr. Jobs said, "this is more important than all the mumbo-jumbo we normally associate with buying a computer." In fact, the biggest news from Macworld became the introduction of new iMac colors - grape, tangerine, strawberry and lime. The Bondi hue of the original iMac will now be called blueberry, Mr. Jobs said.
Pod concept
It's one thing to give Macs a new design. They long ago sported the Universal Serial Bus, or USB, port interfaces that allow quick, no-sweat installs of printers, scanners and other peripherals. Generally, Mac designs have never needed the same access to innards necessary with PCs and their components. That made the iMac's pod design quite easy. But PC makers - pushed by Intel and its desire to make computers more enticing to the 49 percent of American homes without one - are only now moving to USB and other form changes that allow that same kind of design freedom. Without USB ports, for example, the PC has needed a behind-the-box "cord monster" made up of clumsy connections and cables. The tiny, plug-in-anything capabilities of the USB ports changed all that for designers. Space needed to set up PC boxes also presented hurdles. Computers can only be shrunk when they have smaller motherboards to hold the PC guts. Making smaller boards often means eliminating features. And that's a big deal in the computer world because lots of companies make products designed for standard motherboard interfaces. Eliminate a feature, and companies have to retool or lose market share. "Getting to smaller real estate was a big jump," says Mr. Whalley. "You don't want a massive square monitor and beige box if you're going to put this thing in the family room or bedroom." Intel is pushing its new board design along with this new philosophy on function and looks. Rapid development of affordable flat monitors, touch-activated screens and USB peripheral devices has finally helped open the door for radical design changes. To coalesce all the changes into something tangible, Mr. Whalley's Intel group commissioned several design firms to come up with concept PCs built around Intel's new FlexATX motherboard configuration, which is almost a third smaller than the current standards. "They basically came to us with a box of parts and said, 'Here. Make something cool,' " says Phil Frank, senior industrial designer for Ziba Design. "They were sort of hinting at the Apple philosophy. They were saying, 'We need to take care of the consumer and make things simpler.' " Other design houses joined in. And the menagerie of potential products rolled out at the Intel forums was eye-popping. An InSync model can be strapped on like a backpack to provide ubiquitous music and Internet connectivity. An Ikebana design sprouted brightly colored peripherals like a flower arrangement. Some were made to mount flat on a wall. Others could sit like sculpture on the mantel. All were built around existing technologies and actually work. Intel has purchased two Ziba designs - the Aztec and Twister - that it says will allow computer makers to mass-produce them. At least one other design house reports a popular computer maker is close to beginning production of its entry.
Slow transformation
The transformation may not be swift. There is resistance within the manufacturing industry from factions that don't like disturbing customers and products by adopting new design standards. But change is in the air. Intel expects that in the second half of this year, computer makers will ship systems without stodgy old ISA slots that have stifled innovation. ISA slots are used to install network cards and other peripherals but are being gradually replaced in function by PCI and USB. In the second half of next year, the company predicts, systems will begin shedding their game ports, parallel ports, serial ports, and floppy disk drives, just like the iMac. "Really, the flashy new colors are just a manifestation of PC ease of use," says Mr. Whalley. "This new concept PC idea was really born with USB and PCI slot devices coming along now. It was really a time to start pruning the tree, so to speak - to let new technology flourish." A key to the whole effort is the smaller motherboard design being promoted by Intel. "Once we got smaller, then we said why do we have to put this in a beige square box? Why don't we put it in something we really want to put it in?" Mr. Whalley says. With the new motherboards, Ziba was able to produce its colorful Aztec prototype with an 8-inch square base. The pyramid design weighs only about eight pounds and runs at an ultralow noise level. It boots quickly and comes ready to connect to a home network and to high-speed connections to the Internet and other household devices. Electronics such as digital camcorders and DVD players connect through one of the two high-speed ports supporting FireWire, or IEEE 1394 - the high-speed connection fiber that is widely expected to play a major role in streaming video, data and audio through homes and offices within the next decade. While the ease of use softens the computer's image for new users, the performance should appeal to the serious. The Aztec and the other models sported configurations with a 500 MHz processor, a 100 MHz system bus, 128MB of memory, an Intel 740 graphics chip and a 6GB hard disk. The Aztec's pyramid design was topped with by a 5-inch-square DVD drive to play movies and store data. Ziba, a Portland, Ore., firm, came up with Aztec and Twister as its first venture for Intel, which owns the rights to both but has promised to sell to anyone who wants to manufacture the units. Later, it developed the lime green bunny-looking Castia, fishlike Koi and the Tetra, an orange model fronted by a DVD drive. "The way we targeted these designs, each one is specific to a special group of users," says Mr. Frank, Ziba's senior industrial designer. "They weren't designed to be, 'Yeah, yeah, that's nice.' They're supposed to be good opinion-makers. And they are." The blue, fish-looking Koi was intended for teenagers, the bunny for children, and the Tetra, a disc-shaped 4-pounder, could fit the lifestyle of the most mobile mom. "I think it's a huge benefit to the user," Mr. Frank says. "You get more of an emotional attachment to these kinds of machines. That was always the thing with the Mac. People say they love their Macs. That's partly because Macs always stressed design. "From my perspective as designer, this kind of thing is a long time coming."
Computer tree
Mike Nelson, spokesman for the design firm Stratos, agrees. His firm came up with Silicon Bonsai, a weird, fully functional computer tree whose parts slide up and down a pole. It can be used comfortably sitting or standing. The Bonsai can rest by a door, where the busy parent can check the weather or traffic on his way out. Or it could greet the latch-key kid coming home to a video e-mail from parents. The space needed to set up a Bonsai is negligible. Unlike its klutzy cousins, the Bonsai model can stand easily in a corner or next to a desk, freeing up tabletop surface. Cables and connectors are easily reached, not crammed behind a piece of heavy furniture. "It was important to design the computer so it looked visually appropriate to the home, not something to shut away behind the doors of a cabinet," Mr. Nelson says. "We wanted to create a household personal computer, with both traditional PC functionality and a 'smart home' interface. We wanted to avoid designing another desktop box." The prototype, made from machined aluminum and a cast iron flower stand, has become a showpiece in the Stratos office lobby, running multimedia presentations for waiting visitors. Reaction at the Intel events has been positive, Mr. Whalley says. Mr. Frank says his company and the Aztec were heaped with immediate inquiries. "Everyone was coming up and was like, 'Can I buy this? Where are you selling?' " he says. The momentum for change has come a long way from the days when Web sites gave instructions on how to properly spray paint your PC without gluing the floppy drive shut. It seems manufacturers are moving toward simpler, functional designs that take the 17-year-old beige PC on a stunning makeover. "The process was gimmicky in some ways, but the underlying message was quite clear after this," Mr. Whalley says. "Style is important to many people."
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