From: someone@anywheret.net   
      
   I saw those rack mounted cases. I also thought the objective is to travel as   
   *light* as possible.   
      
   So why these Huge, Heavy Monsters???   
      
   It just makes no sense that with all the computer *worship* - Digital   
   Idolatry going on, anyone would want something designed in the earlier part   
   of the 20th Century for the purpose of Industrial mounting of enormously   
   heavy and bulky electronic equipment, practically all of which used vacuum   
   tube circuits, along with their monster transformer power supplies almost   
   exclusively!   
      
   Sure, it's easy to understand putting storage drawers in those mounting   
   systems - with all those enormous B+ vacuum tube transformers already   
   mounted in them, patch bays and such, there'd naturally be room simply for   
   storage, or anything else for that matter...maybe even a walk-in closet ;)   
      
   When I worked with loudspeakers, we used plenty of EIA rack mounts, banks of   
   them in fact...kind of made NASA's Mission Control setups look 'compact' by   
   comparison - the ones that  comprised our main test console in the lab must   
   have been at least 7' tall - practically walk-in huge, and even had a couple   
   of tables sticking out of them near the bottom, so they could be sat at   
   comfortably while using them.   
      
   And whenever a switch setup was needed, such as the one that adjusted the   
   microphone distance and angular off center position for polar measurements   
   of the speaker under test in our anechoic chamber, using a total of TWO   
   switches, they were mounted in a full height mounting plate - space to Waste   
   with plenty more where that came from! ;)   
      
   The concept was, and still is a very valid one...except for SIZE now that   
   Practically everything electronic is VLSI miniaturized.   
   For example, even though they're still around, 1/4" (6.35mm) phone plugs   
   have been miniaturized down to 3.5mm 'miniature' and even 2.5mm   
   'subminiature' - so why not rack mountings and the racks to mount them   
   into???   
      
   Ouisie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)