Monster Machine: G4/PC Hybrid

[GadgetMaster]

Kevin 'Dr. Frankenstein' Rose creates a revolutionary hybrid PC built from Mac and PC hardware.
By Kevin Rose
 
I love my Mac and I love my PC, but what I don't love is having two monitors, two keyboards, and two mouses. Switching back and forth has become a royal pain. And since Jobs and Gates probably won't be releasing a Mac/PC combo box any time soon, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Why choose sides in the platform war when you can boot both operating systems simultaneously, on the same machine, on the same screen? Watch Tuesday's episode of "The Screen Savers" to witness the unveiling of my homemade G4/PC monster.

More at: TechTV

[Rob]

Its hardly revolutionary Eyetech using HiQ's Siamese System did the
same thing with an A1200 and a PC a few years ago now, and this kind
of switching equipment has been around longer than that.

If you want to try this sort of thing for youself you could try VNC
(Virtual Network Computing) all you need is two network cards.  There
are Client/Servers for most popular OS's including AmigaOS 68k.  You
don't have to rip your systems apart to do it either.

[asian1]

Hello
9 years ago I created PC + PowerPC hybrid machine, based on YARC SMP PowerPC 601 cards and TAOS AMP (pre-cursor of Intent / AmigaDE). I combined ordinary Dell PC with 2 Dual CPU 601 cards.

Perhaps if AmigaOne G4 Dual CPU card is out, I will combine it with Quad P4 Xeon inside CalPC case. For connection perhaps Myriad, Dolphin or SCSI card or others. I hope to run AmigaDE AMP (Assymetric Multi Processing) on top of such machines.

Another way is putting Omnicluster Pentium 3 cards inside AmigaOne Dual G4 machine. It is also possible to use TotalImpact Quad G4 with PC or AmigaOne.

[strobe]

YAWN, Who hasn't done this?

Damn TechTV is lame. What next, how to plug in your computer? How to use that new fangled "mouse" thing? How to type?

[dezignersrepublic]

If any of you use 2 pc's, both linux, both win or one of each try something called synergy.  Piece of software that lets you use one keyboard and mouse on both machines.

[Agafaster]

Youve obviously never heard of Belkin switchers then ... in goes a monitor, keyboard and mouse connection from each box, out comes a connection to a singular mouse, keyboard, monitor.
Works with macs, PCs, probably Amigas too - anything using the same screenmode helps. (ie 1024*768 @ 60 Hz f'rinstance.) you then use Ethernet if you want 'em to communicate with each other. AMP is a little bit overkill for just sharing a human interface between two different architectures, innit ? very groovy though...

[GadgetMaster]

Its not really the switching thing that caught my eye.

Rather the link to the following Mac clone project.

build your own G4

Pointing to this article:

BuildaMac

[ne_one]

In all the discussions about new hardware I've yet to see any mention of developing a PCI-based card that would provide a PPC CPU and allow you to share resources with a PC.

Is this technically possible? feasible? Where is Hazy when you need him?  :-D

[ShadesOfGrey]

The fact is, they already exist for PPC and x86 processors (among others).  This sort of thing has been done using SBCs for quite some time.  They're usually either packaged as expansion card (think bridgeboard or InsideOut) or in a 5.25" drive bay (the Index Access Amiga 'clone').

I don't have any current links, but you can probably find them if you search for "SBC", "single board computer", "PMC", "PCI mezzanine card", and "PPC".  These computers are primarily used in embedded systems, but they have been repackaged as consumer products in the past...  Though typically for x86 processors, not PPC.