Had a very interesting trip to Micro Center today. In addition to purchasing the revised version of
The Amiga Book, there were a number of HP vendor reps on site demoing hardware. One very interesting item was
this thing, which I'm having a hard time articulating how to compare it to something else. Take an all-in-one style desktop (like an iMac), make it a touchscreen, give it a gigantic trackpad (like the size of a notebook), project a second display onto the trackpad (like a dynamic, modern-day keyboard overlay from the C64 era), and then embed a whole bunch of cameras into the projector. There are some cute little consumer programs that it comes with, but what I think is the real power of it is that you can put an object on the trackpad, push a button to scan it, and duplicate it in a 3D printer. And the price of this thing is only $1900 USD (plus the printer).
Already holding a copy of The Amiga Book in my hand, I asked the vendor if HP had a no-frills industrial version of the system, for nuts like us who use Amigas and need new supplies of case parts that get lost or broken. I was pleasantly surprised when he said he remembered the Amiga and what a revolutionary product it was, and was amazed that people still use them and develop for them. We chatted a bit and I told him about some recent things like USB2 and faster-than-the-original emulation via UAE/Amiga Forever. At any rate, he said that HP isn't planning a different version of this system yet, but they are developing a 3D printer derived from inkjet technology (instead of extruded plastic) that they say will be 5-10 times faster than current 3D printers on the market (a half hour to print instead of five hours). The object scanning technology is based on R&D from
Intel. Intel isn't selling to the general public yet, but developers can get access, to make that hypothetical, cut-down, scanning-only version of the system.
So imagine you need a replacement trapdoor for your A600. At the moment, the most likely replication scenario involves rendering the object manually (or hoping that someone's already done that) and then getting it printed and shipped to you. But seeing the HP machine today makes me realize that we're on the cusp of the scenario instead being: someone who does have a trapdoor throws it on the scanner, sends you the file, and then you print it at home. Hell, this thing seemed like it's almost big enough to capture the entire A600 case. Even now one of these systems might be a worthwhile business investment for someone like AmigaKit. Given the objects I've seen so far, the quality of 3D printing isn't yet quite where I'd like it to be, but at the rate which this technology is advancing and prices are dropping, in 2 or 3 years time, I think this is going to be really exciting stuff.
