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Another "courageous" thing that Apple did was release a computer in 1983 without any fans, which was extremely heavy because it had a giant heat sink, and would
by apostacy 8y ago
Another "courageous" thing that Apple did was release a computer in 1983 without any fans, which was extremely heavy because it had a giant heat sink, and would still overheat constantly.[1]
And yes, this was apparently Steve Job's idea, as he felt that fans were "too noisy and inelegant". I imagine that he felt that fans were holding humanity back, and smugly told people who disagreed that they were clinging to obsolete technology.
It got so bad, that Apple actually advised their customers to physically lift and drop their Apple IIIs to re-seat the chips that had popped out from the excessive heat.[2]
Of course, if today Apple decided that fans were obsolete again, and the latest Macbooks were twice as heavy and still overheated, then it would become the new normal, and it would be hard to find computers that had fans anymore, and we would long for the days when we could just use computers for as long as we wanted without worrying about them overheating. And on the internet, commenters would say that it wasn't a big deal at all, and if you were some sort of power user that wanted to use your laptop for more than a few hours at a time, you should buy a $250 cooling pad for it.
[1]: http://lowendmac.com/2015/apple-iii-chaos-apples-first-failure/ http://lowendmac.com/2015/apple-iii-chaos-apples-first-failu...
[2]: https://www.tekrevue.com/apple-iii-drop/ https://www.tekrevue.com/apple-iii-drop/
- slededit 8y agoWe’re sort of in that world with the Mac mini. Except instead of overheating we just get laptop performance in a desktop. It still has a fan though.
- Izkata 8y agoWell, I have an Asus laptop that doesn't have a fan...
- Dylan16807 8y ago> Of course, if today Apple decided that fans were obsolete again If? Apple's recent laptops have been notoriously undercooled, and the processors can only run near full speed for a brief moment. The only difference is that they throttle instead of self-damaging.
- apostacy 8y agoThat's awful. Of course the pattern repeats: Apple deprecates something that shouldn't be deprecated, and offers a barely adequate replacement. Competitors copy Apple and also deprecate the feature, but their replacements are even worse.