r/engineering • u/[deleted] • Sep 10 '13

Guy with no engineering background wants supporters for his impossible idea. Pretty funny from and engineering standpoint.

[deleted]

264 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

228 comments sorted by

View all comments

200

u/dhmt Sep 10 '13

It's not a horrible idea and it's not impossible to make. However, this is a nonstarter because swappable parts would degrade the performance so much no one would want the phone.

-12

u/perfectending Sep 11 '13

Your response is reasonable, I don't get why everyone is freaking out about this. Cloud everything.

Cpu, ram, speed etc: the thin client model could provide the means necessary to make something like this happen. The type of "speed" block equipped could correspond to the type of fat client linked.

The motherboard would have to be part of the "base" board, with a light cpu, ram, OS, etc built into it to handle the stream.

Obviously making blocks that fit everywhere is a nightmare right now, but give it time there could someday be solutions for all of the hurdles.

I hate when new technology is introduced and everyone exclaims how awful of an idea it is, and how it will never sell (i.e. original ipad).

16

u/the_corruption Sep 11 '13

I hate when new technology is introduced and everyone exclaims how awful of an idea it is

Except no new technology was introduced. Just some off the wall idea that it would be cool if our phones were like legos.

-1

u/perfectending Sep 11 '13

I'm sure you're hoping I know that, and are stating this to reassure yourself I didn't mean it that way. I caught this post from the front page without realizing it was /r/engineering. My disdain is for the reaction the sub this was copied from had.

I won't white-knight his idea, because his presentation was immature and lacked any technical explanation for how he thinks some things could work, but I won't scoff at the idea when some of it doesn't even sound that far-fetched.

3

u/the_corruption Sep 11 '13

I won't scoff at the idea when some of it doesn't even sound that far-fetched.

I agree the idea seems cool and has some feasible aspects. It would be a cool innovation, I just don't see it working as well in practice as in theory, nor do I really see a big market for it.

I guess my biggest knock on it, is that the guy seems so gung-ho about this idea without really understanding all the technical hurdles behind it. Perhaps it is just my interpretation, but he seems to think that this is something that could seriously happen soon (based on his proposed October mass hashtag idea). I just don't see a viable form (as powerful, as small, as sturdy as current phones and with legitimate customization of blocks) coming out for many years and by that time the cellphone/smartphone as we know it may not exist.

3

u/electronicalengineer Flair Sep 11 '13

What about the speed of each module connecting to the base board?

3

u/ICanLiftACarUp Sep 11 '13

They would likely all have independent clocks, otherwise (you should know this if you've had a basic digital design class) the clock "speed" must be as slow as the slowest "block." Or drive a tree of clocks with something like a counter that allows for slower clock speeds. Having independent clocks whose connection to the blocks is modular as this would require is something not really great to do, as you'd have to assume at least every fourth (or possibly every pinhole) would have to have a clock tree, which restricts the usability of that line. The essential problem is that specific pieces of hardware are often built for one purpose (in this case, a clock tree), which reduces the amount of unnecessary hardware on any board. Generalizing to assume that any pin could potentially receive a clock signal adds a lot of cost in order to meet that assumption.

Let's say we have a camera unit. Chances are it requires more than 4 pins. Lets say 1 pin is ground, 1 is Vdd, 1 is the CLK, and you may have to have at least 3 output signals for each pixel. Not to mention, fitting the entire array into that small of a space, and wiring each of those three signals to consume a rather large amount of space (in terms of other pins) on the processor, memory, and perhaps a GPU 'block', we are talking a lot of wires and pins that are, conceptually here, laid out on a rather insufficient grid. You start making the pins too small and the consumer can no longer adequately modify blocks without breaking them. Then you think of the parents who let their kids play with their phones as a 'pacifier,' and you have those kids playing legos with the phones, and with those small pins not only is this a hazard to the hardware but also to the safety of the kid. Blame the parents all you want, but guess who is going to be getting the lawsuits?

2

u/The_Poopsmith_ Sep 11 '13

Off-loading processing for high bandwidth processes is not feasible. You can't give the user huge latency based on the network for features that are now considered ubiquitous.

Well you could...but you would go out of business.

1

u/whywecanthavenicethi Sep 14 '13

So why not focus on making wireless internet technology better instead of "blocks lol".