this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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You're right, it was totally meant to group together devices which share zero characteristics outside being vaguely the same size and shape.
Do a subnet router running on Debian in a data center with an ATX board and my gaming PC have the same form factor?
Are you trying to equivocate motherboard form factor (a specific terminology used for the sizes and locations of screw-holes in motherboards) with entirely different types of device that happen to have similar shapes and sizes?
The motherboards in those computers could have the same motherboard form factor, but that doesn't make comparing a rack-mounted router with specific design constraints to your gaming PC a reasonable thing to do. Your gaming PC is, most likely, far better at its job than a router in a data centre would be, and the DC router is most likely far better at its job than your gaming PC would be, because they're totally different categories of device. Likewise, a Wifi router and an Xbox are totally different categories of device. Even discussing just form factor alone, the Wikipedia summary you posted includes:
An Xbox lacks many of the things considered as basic functionality for a router, such as a second Ethernet port. Likewise, a wifi router tends to lack many of the things considered crucial for modern game systems, such as a GPU and video output. In both cases it's perfectly possible (at least in theory, though I'm sure at least one person has actually done it) to reconfigure one for the alternative purpose, but that is utilising the device well outside of its design parameters.
Yes! Exactly! A comparison between two things based on form factor is not useful! My original point
Was that a comparison between Nintendo switch and steamdeck because "they have the same form factor" is not fitting, which I tried to illustrate with my router to Xbox comparison!
Form factor very clearly isn't the only consideration though, and when combined with the other factors it becomes very useful. The comparison here is of two devices for playing video games, and form factor makes a difference there. Back in the early 2000s, people weren't really comparing the GBA to the PS2, the Xbox, the GameCube and the Dreamcast. These simply were different markets. Likewise, the Steam Deck and the Switch are more comparable than the Deck and the PS5 specifically because of form factor, even though as computing devices the Deck and the PS5 are more similar (both are running custom AMD Zen 2 CPUs with custom RDNA 2 GPUs, for example). The Steam Deck is, in practice, only slightly more "a PC" than the PS4 is.
You realize that's the argument you're making...?
See, your "argument" so far has been "you're wrong" without ever answering anything or engaging on anything. I repeat my question: what is a "form factor" in your mind? Because yes, to me a "form factor" is exactly that: size, shape, dimensions. Wikipedia confirmed my definition. You just keep telling me how ridiculous I'm apparently being without ever telling me why...