back to article Paper PCs design rolled out

A materials manufacturer has produced a paper-based compound which may soon find its way onto hardware factory lines, with recyclable PCs mooted as one possible target. Paper PP Alloy promises to cause a revolution in the world of laptop production, with its inexpensive production, super strength and environmentally friendly …

COMMENTS

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  1. jai

    environmentally friendly?

    to make it, you need to cut down more trees, and it's going to be difficult to get the paper back out to recycle?

    doesn't sound _that_ environmentally friendly to me

    1. Code Monkey

      Re: environmentally friendly?

      Agree on the recycling point but the "cut down more trees" argument is bogus. They do replant commercial forests aferwards.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: environmentally friendly?

      Recycling paper is a bit of a con really, the trees that paper is made out of are specifically grown to make paper. If they weren't being made into paper they wouldn't be grown at all, so recycling paper ultimately means fewer trees when compared to wasting it.

      It's also a pretty good CO2 sink.

      Anon - as I'm scared of hippies

      1. Ru

        "Recycling paper is a bit of a con"

        Recycled paper stock is good for newsprint and loo paper, but not so great for nice, high quality stuff. Recycling paper is of fairly minimal environmental or economical benefit.

        And if the trees weren't being grown for paper, what do you think would happen to the land? Left as an empty howling desert? No, it would most likely be used for timber.

        1. Captain DaFt

          Re: "Recycling paper is a bit of a con"

          Actually, since it's technically farm land, it'd just be used to grow what ever else was commercially viable, or used to build on.

          Nobody's just going to let it sit there unused when they could be making money with it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Printed circuit boards used to be made out of SRBP

    Synthetic Resin Bonded Paper.

    There's still a DIY meme of printing out paper circuit layouts and soldering on the components. Also, there are paper capacitors.

    Given all of this, we may not be far from being able to make an eBook reader out of an actual book. The book itself could have been made from recycled eBook readers.

    Recursion alert!

    1. darkmage0707077

      Re: Printed circuit boards used to be made out of SRBP

      Huh. Then get a some quantum physics in there, and you aaaaaalmost have what may be the prototype for a Myst book.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Enhancement

    "If all goes according to plan, then the cardboard box and plastic protection your PC arrives in today, could well be forming the enclosure of your PC tomorrow."

    Better still, with a bit of thought, they could make the box fold and twist, transformer-like, to form the PC case.

    1. Chemist

      Re: Enhancement

      Years ago I built a UK101 6502-based single board computer. Times was hard and it spent most of its life with the cardboard box it came in as its 'case'

      Would also be interesting to know the ratio of paper to polyprop being used.

      1. James Hughes 1

        You lucky lucky bastard

        My UK101 (well, the one I borrowed) just sat, open to the elements, on a single sheet of cardboard 'cos we couldn't afford boxes when I was a lad.

        1. Chemist

          Re: You lucky lucky bastard

          You wouldn't think I was lucky if you'd heard me after I soldered it all together and it didn't work !

          Not an easy thing to debug. I eventually used a crystal earpiece to go round the board and eventually found a duff 7400 - quick replace - it was all socketed - and away it went. Bloody MS BASIC had a bug in its garbage collector but that''s another story.

  4. DPWDC

    I'm melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world...

    Might make accidental Coffee spillage more interesting!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Let's call it...

    A Notepad!

    My coat's on already

    1. darkmage0707077
      Joke

      Re: Let's call it...

      Sorry, Microsoft trademarked that already, I think...

  6. Anonymoose Cowherd

    I suppose if the paper comes from recycled stock and it reduces the amount of plastic needed, then that's probably a good thing, even if it can't itself be recycled at the end of it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not really

      many plastics can be recycled, so actually making one from plastic may be MORE friendly.

      1. dogged

        Re: Not really

        I doubt that. You could burn this stuff on your wood-burner and it'd be carbon neutral and likely less rich in all those really nasty organic mixups you so often get from burning plastics.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: Not really

          Are you seriously suggesting burning a mixture of PP plastic and wood in a wood burner? I pity your neighbours who have to breath in your toxic smoke - not to mention whoever has the job of cleaning your wood burner.

        2. DuncanL
          Boffin

          Re: Re: Not really

          IANAS*, but this IS (mostly) plastic - they're combining plastic and paper to get the strength from fibres while reducing the more expensive plastic; but it's still got plenty of icky things in it that you wouldn't want to burn.

          (* I Am Not A Scientist....)

          1. dogged

            Re: Re: Re: Not really

            Fair enough, then ;)

          2. Stuart Archer
            Headmaster

            Re: Re: Re: Not really

            Polypropylene burns fairly cleanly, as chemically it contains only carbon and hydrogen, although you'd probably need a modified burner in some way to deal with the fact it would melt. Plastics that give off toxic gases tend to be things like PVC and polystyrene, giving you a wonderful mix of chlorides and styrenes/benzenes!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Paper PCs - What next?

    What next, paper cars? Trabant rides again!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This looks perfect for the Raspberry Pi

  9. tallen
    Flame

    Should prove fun...

    ...when the laptop battery catches fire.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hope they don't use wood from Apple tree's....

    That process has been patented....still at least it won't have rounded corners, just folds.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Grow more pot!" - Jello Biafra

    four times more paper from an acre of marijuana than from an acre of trees and who would not like a poofage covered PC?

    1. Aaron 10
      Thumb Up

      Re: "Grow more pot!" - Jello Biafra

      Hmmm. Why NOT use hemp instead of paper? Interesting...

  12. Ye Cats
    Go

    At last! HP have something they can use their excess packaging for rather than inflicting it on their hapless customers.

    (A pointer, in case you have no idea what I am talking about :

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/

    )

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Pipe Reams

    As ever, conflicting standards are alive, well, and ancient. Are we talking about the printer's ream, or the stationer's ream? There's a full twenty sheets in it.

    Is it time for the ream to be redefined as a digital ream of 512 sheets?

  14. b166er

    So much for the paperless office, again.

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