The first two Fixed Storage Devices shown are two hard disks HD0 and HD1. The second two are FTSD0 and FTSD1. FTSD stands for Future Technology Storage Device - perhaps a kind of solid state mass storage device not yet invented. Devices dock automatically with appropriate power and high-speed serial bus connectors. All storage devices present a data block (INT13 type) interface at their high speed serial bus sockets.
Once all the necessary fixed storage units have been installed, the remaining bays in the Fixed Storage cage across the top of the PC chassis can be occupied by whatever specialist subsystems the user desires. Examples which interest me are listed below.
One of my interests is listening to short-wave broadcasts. My ideal PC therefore contains an HF receiver module. At the present state of the art, a 3½ inch bay unit the size of a hard disk is probably too small to contain a complete HF receiver. In this case, the module contains the controller for an external HF receiver. This is, in a sense, similar to the arrangement in aircraft, where the pilot's control panel contains an HF receiver controller while the actual 'black box' receiver is installed where there is much more space available.
In my ideal PC, this HF receiver is controlled by an HF receiver applet running in a browser window. The applet accesses broadcast station data from a database held in the PC's fixed storage.
The physical receiver's audio output is routed to the PC sound card as either analogue audio or as a 56kbps or 64kbps digital audio stream. Audio transmissions can be recorded as audio files stored and catalogued within the PC's fixed storage. Its antenna connection is at the top of the module. The module docks automatically with power and high speed serial bus plugs built into its docking bay.
The natural companion for my HF receiver is an HF Amateur Band transceiver. Again, at the present state of the art, a 3½ inch bay unit the size of a hard disk is definitely too small to contain a complete HF Amateur Band transceiver. Certainly, the linear RF power amplifier would have to be external. Apart from the limited space, the PC's power supply could not cope. The internal module in this case is therefore necessarily a controller for an external 'black box' transceiver.
Again, like the HF receiver, the HF Amateur Band transceiver is controlled by an applet running inside a browser window. This applet accesses its own contact database. The applet also has extra 'dialog box' control panels for communicating with circuitry built for experimenting with things like spread spectrum transmissions. The software behind these extra control panels controls special and experimental DIY circuit cards housed in what I call a Breadboard Module located in another 3½ inch 'hard drive' bay.
When I was at school I wanted to build what I thought was the ultimate radio receiver. It would be able to receive efficiently any signal anywhere from VLF to infra red. There was no higher purpose behind this ambition other than to be able to receive over the full range of the radio spectrum. I wanted to be able to eavesdrop on absolutely everything.
Then I realised that those parts of the radio spectrum containing private communications are universally boring. Since private radio communication is moving over more and more to key encrypted digital transmission, you cannot listen in anyway - unless you have an odd cluster of Cray1s handy to try to break the keys. Shipping, aeronautical, military and police bands can at first seem intriguing. However, I soon found these also boring since I am not part of the conversations or the people and events to which they refer.
The radio and television public broadcast bands can be interesting, but not in a way that would make me want to receive them on a PC enhanced communications receiver. They are designed for reception on much cheaper equipment deigned for the purpose. These too are therefore of no interest with regards to my ideal PC.
Nevertheless, there is still plenty within the radio spectrum that is definitely of great and absorbing interest to me. I am very interested in natural radio phenomena. These include:
Of course I am also interested in artificial radio transmissions. These include:
It is with these interests in mind that I include a spectrum scanner in my wish list of Internal Devices for my ideal PC. Again, building a spectrum scanner with a range from 20 Hz to 200 GHz into a 3½ inch 'drive' module is like trying to get a gallon into a pint pot. The unit internal to the PC is of necessity a controller for many separate items of external equipment occupying many racks. Nevertheless, my interest is in only small stretches of the whole radio spectrum. I therefore need external units for scanning only those parts of the radio spectrum in which my interests lie.
This spectrum scanner controller module too is driven by an applet running in a browser. One of the main features of this applet is its large highly scaleable spectrum display.
From what I can gather, radio amateurs have set up pan continental networks of VHF repeater stations through which any one of them can send a message to any other over distances far beyond normal VHF transmission range. I do not know whether these networks have been linked across the oceans by satellite to form an integrated global network yet, but if they haven't, I expect they soon will be.
Furthermore, as I understand it, these networks can - or will soon - be able to carry high speed digital transmissions. I believe some people are at least experimenting with various network layer packet protocols which can support the TCP/IP group of protocols. This opens the gate for all the higher Internet protocols like HTTP, FTP and SMTP which ride on top of TCP/IP.
This would, I am sure, quickly give rise to an amateur radio based Internet, which could support radio based email boxes, Web servers and search engines. The major problem is the limited bandwidth and hence transmission speed. However, provided hams stick to simple and sensible web pages with a minimum of 'bells and whistles', I am sure the available speed would be adequate. Besides, 'new' modes of transmission like spread spectrum, could help increase the actual transmission speed.
My reasons for wanting to see an Alternative Internet on amateur radio networks include:
The Internet is naturally what is called a pull medium. Users or recipients of information must actively seek out the information they want and pull it from a server. In other words, if you do not go looking for it, you will not find it. It will not come to you or impose itself upon you of its own accord.
This is in contrast to broadcasting, marketing and advertising in which those who have information relentlessly push it at (impose it upon) everybody. The world of ecommerce seems bent of turning the Internet into a push type delivery medium. This, to my mind, is eroding and overwhelming the Internet's original golden purpose of providing all - both great and small - with free exclusively demand driven access to the open writings of each without censorship.
For a non-ecommercialised Alternative Internet to be realised via amateur radio, there is one change to the rules of amateur radio I think would have to be made. As I understand it, restrictions apply concerning what radio amateurs may, and may not, talk about 'over the air'. I assume these restrictions apply also to the content of data transmissions exchanged by radio amateurs. These restrictions are sensible in the broadcast push context of voice and other types of transmission which the recipient may not have specifically solicited. However, strictly within in the context of an Alternative Internet operated on the pull principles inherent in Internet protocols, I think these restrictions should be lifted to permit uncensored free speech.
I would much rather stumble inadvertently across the Web site of a political fanatic expressing an opinion with which I vehemently disagree than be forced to listen to a salesman desperately trying to sell me something I don't want.
It is for this reason that my ideal PC contains an Amateur Band VHF transceiver module. The module is obviously too small to contain the whole transceiver under present technology. However, it should be able to contain its main functionality, with the few parts requiring more space and power relegated to an external box. Like the other radio devices, the VHF transceiver is also controlled by an applet running in a browser window or on a Java-enabled desk top. The radio based Alternative Internet is accessed through another instance of my ideal PC's TCP/IP stack, which may operate from its own set of standard ports different from those used by the ordinary Internet.
If you are a radio amateur with any news on the development of an amateur radio-based Alternative Internet, please email me.
It may not be possible or expedient to accommodate the 2.4 GHz RF transceiver unit for a wireless local area network in the unshielded environment of the PC option card. In this case, the transceiver is accommodated within a fully shielded '3½ inch drive' casing in one of the bays across the top of the PC chassis.
Removable Media Storage Devices are installed horizontally in an internal 'mini tower' of docking bays. Only 3½ inch devices are accommodated. I therefore anticipate the development and universal acceptance of a 3½ inch standard for DVD discs. Devices dock straight into their respective connectors to power and high speed serial bus. The docking mechanism automatically terminates the high speed serial bus at the appropriate device according to which docking bays are currently occupied.
The internal power supply is simply a power distribution unit which ensures that each component and subsystem within the PC chassis receives the secure, stable, clean supply of the power it requires. The inverter and backup battery are external to the PC chassis.