What is "The brick" computer?

[dragos240]

Okay so i was searching things my dad used back in his era, and he told me about "The brick". I couldn't find too much on google. So perhaps you know... What is it?

[klange]

"The Brick" usually refers to one of these massive cell phones (https://wiki-land.wikispaces.com/file/view/brick_phone.jpg) circa late '70s, early '80s.

[ntowakbh]

Okay so i was searching things my dad used back in his era, and he told me about "The brick". I couldn't find too much on google. So perhaps you know... What is it?

The only "the brick" i've heard of, is the ancient cell phones. Humongous things x.x

[dragos240]

Hmm.... my dad said that it was a computer... any more ideas of what it would be?

[mtopro]

There is a Brick computer brand that has been around over 20years.
http://www.ergo-computing.com/
You had to have seen that through google though... I was thinking the huge cell phone too.

[MasterNetra]

A Brick Computer is any computer with windows on it. :p

[dragos240]

A Brick Computer is any computer with windows on it. :p

that would also be a bricked computer as well :p

[RichardLinx]

Well when computers were first being built they were the size of a house. I believe the largest computer ever built was the size of a cathedral - the computer your using right now would be more powerful then those massive things. He could just be referring to computers from the 1980-90s, they were pretty big then too, even if they were considered "desktop" computers.

[hansdown]

I do remember the brick phones. They actually sold shoulder straps to carry them, even going so far as to market them as fashion statements.

Here's something.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7432915/

[MasterNetra]

that would also be a bricked computer as well :p

Also known as a house too apparently. :p Microsoft should do construction instead OS's they probably be better at it. Making windows and bricking. :p

[Roofdaddy]

Yes it is a phone.

Free Kevin :lolflag:

:cry:Now I know I'm old .


After this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1079426
I just don't know anymore.

[lswb]

A company named ergo http://www.ergo-computing.com/ produced a very small and compact computer some years ago (maybe a 486 or original pentium processor?) It was about the physical size of a mac mini. Though it did not have much in the way of expansion capabilities, it was generally well reviewed at the time. With today's USB, external SATA, etc. interfaces, this form factor will likely be more popular.

[Wharf Rat]

Late 1980s early 1990s, there was a desktop computer built called a "Brick." I think it may have been a 386 or 486. No fan. It used the case as a heat sink. They were quite small, about the size of a common brick.

[swoll1980]

This would be a good candidate
http://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1-side.jpg
http://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1.jpg

[MikeTheC]

Well, the Macintosh Portable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Portable), Apple's first attempt at a "laptop"- or "notebook"-esq form, was not-so-affectionately dubbed the "DynaBrick" because it weighed nearly 16 lbs. (It was also known as the "MacLuggable" and the "MacHernia" way-back-when, too.)

[Chilli Bob]

I remember years ago the original Macintosh was called the brick, as it was around the size and shape of a Bessor block, but that may have been a regional thing.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Macintosh_128k_transparency.png/180px-Macintosh_128k_transparency.png

[Redache]

It's probably not a single product, but the Mac Idea sounds the most apt.
Ahh the 80's, Back when Mac's were popular :P.

[RichardLinx]

I remember years ago the original Macintosh was called the brick, as it was around the size and shape of a Bessor block, but that may have been a regional thing.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Macintosh_128k_transparency.png/180px-Macintosh_128k_transparency.png

I use to own one of those. It was a damn fine computer to. I can remember making "games/movies" in hypercard and playing robowars - You could make you own robots and battle them against each other dammit! Those were good times...

[oldpcguy]

I actually remember seeing adverts for "the Brick" back in the 80s. I've Googled but can see anything online.

Back in 1989 only my boss' boss' boss had a laptop. We had one PC for the whole department, the rest of us used green screens for both programming and word processing.

Desktops were the only option and there was no Internet, so data sync was by floppy.

Desktop PCs had to be huge as everything except the system Bus and CPU was on a separate card (daughter-card): memory, video and serial/parallel ports were all on separate cards.

The Brick was essentially a non-expandable desktop system-unit designed to work in a docking station.

I think it would have been a 386 with a 40 MB hard disk, 1 or 2 MB memory?

It was about the size of a house brick (25x12x10 cm or 10x6x4 inch). with some type of a docking-unit connector and lots of external ports. I suppose you could think of it as a laptop without a screen or keyboard.

So you bought one Brick and two docking stations (each with a screen, keyboard, mouse if you were lucky and possibly a printer). One for the office and one for home. Or one for your London office and one for your New York office (obviously you used Concorde to travel between the offices)

The advertisement was targeted at the "1980s executive" and showed a guy in a power-suit putting the "Brick" in his Samsonite hard briefcase at the end of the day and telling his (desk-bound) colleagues: "I can finish this off at home".

You moved files from work to home by bringing the core of your desk-PC home with you.

I thought it was a great idea, but I was never going to have one (or need one, back then you went home to do home stuff, not to check your Blackberry all evening).

home this helps,
oldpcguy

[sffvba[e0rt]

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