Hm, even then, the physical footprint of a TiBook is pretty big. It would be neat if you command-stripped it to the side or back of a monitor, perhaps, I have done that with an Asus netbook, but the TiBook is also very big.
Back in 2005/2006 or so when my own TiBook's (QT2451CEN4M -- I was on the phone with Apple a lot) screen finally failed for the last time and I was running it in perma-desktop mode, I just dropped it on top of a 17-inch CRT I had. If at the time you'd given me the opportunity to trade it for a G4 mini I would probably have said yes so quickly you'd have retroactively felt it in the past. It is insanely inconvenient to use a TiBook as a desktop.
Below is a picture of that desk setup, it was a Viewsonic/OptiQuest CRT with a flat top deck, which was basically the only reason the setup worked at all.
Now, if Apple had introduced a miniature system in 2001/2002/2003 based on TiBook guts like the mini but different, then that would be a different situation, but as it stands, the TiBook itself is pretty bad for that task. I think in 2003, however, Apple was still a little bit off-put from that idea based on what happened with the Cube.
PCMCIA and Cardbus are neat, but what really is there for it these days other than (admittedly helpful) USB controllers or maybe if yours was ordered without Airport, a WaveLAN or a Linksys WPC54G (for OS X)?
I've spent a long part of my Windows-using life buying ThinkPads with as many expansion options as physically possible only to find out that a Sony Ericsson GC86 wasn't even very good or practical when it was new, and that as soon as you buy a cardbus/pcmcia media reader for your camera, you'll buy a new camera that requires a different card reader. Of course, some entire concepts like having a mobile data plan for your laptop have simply changed or moved on since, and now that we're standardized on both phone tethering for mobile data and SD and variants for cameras, those two situations are a little bit more stable.
Back in 2005/2006 or so when my own TiBook's (QT2451CEN4M -- I was on the phone with Apple a lot) screen finally failed for the last time and I was running it in perma-desktop mode, I just dropped it on top of a 17-inch CRT I had. If at the time you'd given me the opportunity to trade it for a G4 mini I would probably have said yes so quickly you'd have retroactively felt it in the past. It is insanely inconvenient to use a TiBook as a desktop.
Below is a picture of that desk setup, it was a Viewsonic/OptiQuest CRT with a flat top deck, which was basically the only reason the setup worked at all.
Now, if Apple had introduced a miniature system in 2001/2002/2003 based on TiBook guts like the mini but different, then that would be a different situation, but as it stands, the TiBook itself is pretty bad for that task. I think in 2003, however, Apple was still a little bit off-put from that idea based on what happened with the Cube.
PCMCIA and Cardbus are neat, but what really is there for it these days other than (admittedly helpful) USB controllers or maybe if yours was ordered without Airport, a WaveLAN or a Linksys WPC54G (for OS X)?
I've spent a long part of my Windows-using life buying ThinkPads with as many expansion options as physically possible only to find out that a Sony Ericsson GC86 wasn't even very good or practical when it was new, and that as soon as you buy a cardbus/pcmcia media reader for your camera, you'll buy a new camera that requires a different card reader. Of course, some entire concepts like having a mobile data plan for your laptop have simply changed or moved on since, and now that we're standardized on both phone tethering for mobile data and SD and variants for cameras, those two situations are a little bit more stable.