RSSProfile: HP's Blackbird 002 and the Ideal of the PC
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published September 21, 2007, 9:00 AM
It seems an eon has passed since the PC could be considered a thing of beauty. Even two decades ago, during the rise of Macintosh and the highly animated duel between the artful Commodore Amiga and the 8 MHz Atari ST, the computer itself, sitting there on the desk turned off, wasn't expected to be something of awe. Its beauty was in its function. Back then, "PC" was a brand whose very meaning was practicality, frugality, conservativeness. The personal computer may or may not be an art medium, but it has rarely in its history been an art form.
Still today, the computer is not universally recognized as something that elicits emotion, like a sports car or a tailored suit or even a simple sculpture. Even Apple restricts an iMac's beauty to its "interface," and hides its central components behind its widescreen monitor. When we emote about computing, more often than not, it's about how it aggravates us - or rather, how its manufacturers and software publishers aggravate us. Our feelings remind us constantly not of what the computer has evolved into but what we wish it could be.
The ascension of the motherboard as a consumer item unto itself has, in only the last few years, given rise to a class of computer user who cares as much about the machine as its function. While a great majority of computer users care as little about the box that crunches numbers on their desk as the one that keeps the Jell-O cold in their kitchen, a few have come to appreciate the craftsmanship, the engineering, the achievement of being able to calculate so much in so little space. The motherboard helped provoke users to care again, even more so than the CPU or the graphics card. Like shadetree auto mechanics who come to appreciate the beauty of the piston engine, computer builders take pride in the engines in which they invest. And so they care as much about the chassis in which their motherboards are encased, as in the devices themselves.
Rahul Sood came to prominence as a system builder - someone with as great a passion about a computer's form as its function. One day a few decades ago, Rahul's parents made an investment in his future, purchasing him an Apple IIc. It immediately became his pride and joy. He began demonstrating that pride by painting it some color, any color, other than beige.
For example, you've got two different companies. Each company is building a box - I hate that word, by the way, but that's what they're building - and they might have "Intel inside" and they might have an ATI sticker, and another company might have an AMD sticker and an nVidia sticker, and at the end of the day, there's two different boxes with different stickers, and they're competing on price and sort of commoditizing themselves, and not thinking about anything else that the customer wants other than the price.
Blackbird - specifically, the HP Blackbird 002 - is the pinnacle creation of Canada's foremost system builder. Rahul and his team were responsible for the Voodoo Omen, one of the gaming community's most highly praised premium models, still seen today most often clad in a most resplendent orange.
But painting systems was what Rahul was doing since he was a kid, and it was getting old.
Next: Something completely different
[All photography courtesy HP Gaming Division]
Blackbird may be a good idea but I feel the concept is 'too little, too late' Has anyone noticed that notebooks are starting to outsell desktops? Or that the newer tech really is not much better that the old tech. Here's where I hole-heartily agree with horsecharles. A older P4 (non-HT) is just as good as a dual-core 64bit system. My Athlon XP system works just sweet on 512MB RAM. Me not being a gamer these days actually helps my bank account. Which is also why i'll buy an older 4G iPod for $80 than a new one for $250! Many computer users also want slim, less instrusive, less cabling, simple, combined easy to move around package... Myself included. This type of system will only be selling to the uber-geeks of computer users. The users that have the cash to spend for something like this. maybe it's my older age talking but these days, 5 grand for an aesthetically pleasing system is just not worth it. Which is why i applaud AMD for taking a different road than Intel for CPUs.
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|Rahul has proven himself as a capable judge on gaming technology, even better than alienware. I have always loved mods and gaming machines even if I have been unable to be at the top of the specs and i end up building a machine just capable do play what I want and investing further on in upgrades. This machine promises the best of custom made PC´s with the prestige of both voodoo and HP and they allow for future expansion and an amazing design. You can build something similar and can mod it to your hearts content, but it wont be a voodoo or a HP unless you buy it. ;-D
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|Join the HP Blackbird Facebook for more info and discussion...
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4869167697
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|Big deal, so they can paint a system different-- even lay out innards in different fashion... that's more cosmetic--Richard Simmons / This Old House-- rather than truly genius / inventive.
True visionaries would attempt to port both unused inventions gathering dust, and elements of high end workstations and servers-- to the masses.
For instance:
a system including any of the following: Cell Processor(or with 2-4 other processors, each w/ eight cores), Sun's grid array technology that allows dozens & dozens of processors and ram modules to be utilized AND no bus needed, etc.
Even something as simple as a system with only a flash drive-- i'd pay the premium... whether for gaming or advanced work.
Something revolutionary in performance is needed-- i can do things not much better or faster on today's systems than on Pentium 3's from the 90's...
the only noticeable advantage nowadays is that i can now run more useless crap simultaneously w/o compromising system stability as much: 1. hog OS'es with tons of unnecessary background services running, 2. handfuls of redundant security apps that each target a different sub-niche, 3. scads of installed oem crapware- each needing to: A. auto-start w/ windows, B. check for an update every 10 minutes, C. send helpful statistics back to their home base on a constant basis, D. pre-load themselves in memory/cache... ready at a nanosecond's notice.
But yet, i still can't meaningfully multi-task several commercial-grade apps no matter how powerful system/os/processor/ram w/o experiencing slowdowns / needing reboots.
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|Blame the apps then. No application should ever require a reboot of the OS: period.
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|"Performance is important, it's a factor, but it shouldn't be about 100% performance."
i think the point was more about beauty, uniqueness, and art.
in that sense, it is VERY inventive.
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|Here's a video and audio podcast that you might be interested in:
http://www.podtech.net/h...-massive-product-launch
http://www.podtech.net/h...ackbird-002-will-soar-2
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|Nice to see the pricing on this reflect close-to-par CDN/USD:
$5,500.00 (USD)
$5,507.15 (CAD)
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|Thanks to the devaluation of the US dollars, you will soon see it will cost more in USD than in CAD. That's not far away, I would say by the end of the year.
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|I made a bet with someone on here about the dollar reaching parity before the years' end (can't remember who though). I want my cookie.
But yes, it's great to see pricing adjustments made.
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|Aethetics in computer design?
Apple has done this since the 1980's.
Get with the program BN.
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|Mr Skinner,
Your comments as usual well noted, however I'm typing this on a Dell XPS M1330. CPU is Intel T7700, on board ram 4gb, GFX Nvidia GS 8400M DDR3,
and that's just it's guts.
Weights about 2.4lb with standard battery, and is promoted as the slimmest 13.3" notebook available.
Whether it's a chick magnet? I'll never know, but it only took me about 6 hours to vlite it's OS to make it work like it looks.
Cheers
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|"CPU is Intel T7700, on board ram 4gb, GFX Nvidia GS 8400M DDR3"
That's all well and fine now, but in 3 years time it will be old hat.
My point is that the more 'stylish' computers get the less they can be re-used as it were.
This is a shame as it means more and more PCs will be thrown away (that includes you Mac people too).
It shouldn't have to be that way.
ATX cases should be an ISO standard for computer boxes so that components could be changed and updated as time goes on.
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|Skinner, I doubt you RTFA, but they actually covered that.
I'm also guessing you've never priced or purchased a Voodoo computer before.
Voodoo's prices actually aren't all that bad, for one. You just have to remember to factor in your labour. Count the amount of hours it would take you to mod, multiplied by what you'd pay yourself.
Next - the components. Having purchased a Voodoo box before, I know for a fact they use standard components. You can swap 'em in and out with no problems. Your comment is invalid.
Third - what they don't talk about is drivers. I was pleasantly surprised back in the day to find that Voodoo had hand-picked and selected drivers that no only don't conflict, but work well with each other. This is apparent when you start mucking around with them. Voodoo may use slighly older drivers, maybe even beta drivers at the time, but their testing process assures that all works well.
Fourth - this may no longer be their practice, but Voodoo has always shipped machines with recovery discs. I'm not talking a hidden partition, or CD you basically reinstall. I'm talking about a Ghost image with all of the drivers, tweaks, etc, ready to go, sysprepped, and a copy of the BIOS settings.
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|considering most OEM MFGs have already gone to BTX, i'd say ATX is on it's way out (even tho i see no reason to use BTX over ATX)
ive seen articles on the blackbird before, it's not just a pretty box with expenive components inside. it's a completely customized gaming/extreme-performance rig. it's completely heatpiped/watercooled and still has amazing airflow. hp didnt just combine the top components, they made a uniquely good and powerful performance PC.
would i buy it if i had the money? probably not, i'd rather not rely on someone else to build my PC, no matter how much it's customized, but i'd recommend it to anyone who'd normally buy an alienware...
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|Mr Skinner,
Tax man will replace this in 12 months, indeed I'm waiting for the new Alienware with 64GB Flashdrive & a variety of HD complimentary options, along with dual Nvidia SLI's to become available in OZ.
Cheers mate,
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|Perhaps I am the only one, but I would like to see the return of the beige box.
It is the style icon of the 90s.
And we all know the 90s was the best era*.
Plus you can mod it, if the desire takes you, to look like anything you want.
These new 'stylish' computers limit what you can do on the inside AND on the outside as they are often too small to get to the RAM, CPU, motherboard etc and already have enough crap on the outside to stop you from modding it too much.
But then I suppose I'm not the in the genre of people they're trying to market this to...
*If you were in the 60s you won't be able to remember it.
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|you can have mine, got about a dozen in a closet.
all my computers are in custom cases now. :-)
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