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Under-laptop drawers

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Laptops are getting thinner, to the point where they're in danger of becoming edged weapons.

This increasing thinness is often accomplished by the simple expedient of removing functionality - serial ports are too fat for a slim laptop; CD drive takes up too much space; presumably the keyboard will eventually have to go and we'll just let the computer decide for itself what it wants to do.

Proposed, thencefore, is an Under-laptop device (or ULD, as the marketing department prefer to call it). It is about 9/32nds of an inch thick, and has a raised lip in which the base of the laptop snuggles. It's slightly wider than the actual laptop, and it is locked in place by two USB plugs that slide, latch-like, into the laptop's ports. This not only holds the ULD in place, but also provides it with power and data connectivity from the laptop.

The ULD itself is packed full of goodness. It has every imagineable kind of port (all interfaced via the USBs, and with additional USBs replicated on the ULD), a CD drive, serial port, potentially even a 5 1/4 floppy drive for nostalgists. Another option is to have some additional batteries, for longer working time.

Best of all, the ULD has a little drawer, which can be opened computronically, for holding paperclips, PostIts, pencils, or one very thin sandwich. It also has a retractable handle for carrying your laptop around.

All options are, of course, customizeable. You want a carbon-fibre ULD for a Dell 8210, with two serial ports, five USBs, a SCSI, an SD card reader, 1/4" headphone jack and a Tic-Tac dispenser? No problemo, amigo, comprendo?

MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 11 2017

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       // they're in danger of becoming edged weapons. //   

       <manic giggling>
8th of 7, Sep 11 2017
  

       Docking stations are WKTE.
pertinax, Sep 12 2017
  

       Yes, but they're rarely capable of inflicting lethal injury.
8th of 7, Sep 12 2017
  

       No 8" floppy drives?
RayfordSteele, Sep 13 2017
  

       Lukewarm ? If Samsung make it, then the sandwich might well be toasted ... or indeed charred.
8th of 7, Sep 13 2017
  

       The original MacBook Air was used as a cake knife shortly after it became available, to highlight its bladeyness.
notexactly, Feb 03 2018
  

       I sometimes myself wondering who these hordes of consumers are who are so anxious to purchase razor thin electronics. I've never heard ANYONE say "you know, I would buy that phone, but only if it had half the battery life and was 2 millimeters thinner". Not that I'm ungrateful. I recognize that the other end of the thinning phone is the wearable phone, and right next to that is the implanted phone and I'm okay with this kind of progress. It's just that the intermediary steps seem to be making products that aren't as good.
Voice, Feb 04 2018
  
      
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