I guess it comes down to what is sufficient. I built a VIA M10000 system
for this purpose and am not happy with it. You are going to be very hard
put to compete with one of these 10" Pentium M based laptops that with the
monitor are as small if not smaller than my ITX system, quieter and as
energy efficient. Put it into a port replicate (or not into one) under the
chart table or in a cabinet and you have the same thing only faster and you
can pull it out and take it to the internet cafe.

For now, I am using my monster laptop with the WUXGA display. I don't
intend on using a PC for navigation or anything critical because I don't
trust them enough. I use them for route planning and all that fun stuff.
And least you think I am a technophobe, I'm not, I am a recently retired
software engineer.

That said, I am a PC junky and can't resist toying with all this stuff.
Even not using it for critical functions, I feel the need for at least two
PCs on board if not three. I might start quivering and shaking if the only
one I had died.

By the way, did anyone mention printing? I am using one of those Canon
portables, can't remeber the number right off, but so far it has been
awsome. Battery powered and with bluetooth it lives in a cabinet and when I
need to use it, just pull it out, pop it open, turn it on, put it on the
table with some paper and I'm printing. Thirty seconds from waterproof bag
to printing.

I wish you luck on this poroject. I may be a customer some day.

John

wrote in message
oups.com...
Well, at least I know there is interest out there (and of course, there
are those who aren't interested, thanks for your input too). Thanks
for the great info, everone!

Just some things that I've learned and I'll share.

- Johnhh, the VIA is a little slower, definitely, but I've found it to
be more than sufficient for most everyday tasks, and it exceeds most
hardware requirements for navigation programs (everything I've seen
except for Nobeltec's Admiral "recommended" hardware, it blows away the
minimum requirements). Even Pentium M's can't meet Admiral's
recommended hardware. I've looked at Pentium M, but I think the cost
isn't worth it. It would jack up the price by a couple hundred and the
performance gain isn't really worth it. Of course, people know
"Pentium" though.

- I looked at Shuttle, but they seem to have focused on Pentium 4
processors. The problem is power consumption there. The P4 chip
itself can draw 70-90 Watts, my whole system draws ~25W at idle, ~50 at
peak performance. VIA runs cooler and much more efficient.

- Embedded OS is a great idea. I don't know much about Win XP
Embedded, but I'll definitely be looking at that. I know there are
devices that allow you to boot a PC from CF card, just like any IDE
drive, I just thought they were too small for Win XP (the largest I've
seen is 2 GB). Maybe Embedded gets around that.

- Currently, I'm using a 2.5" disk in a shock-resistant mounting
bracket (exactly like you said, Meindert). It's worked well so far.
Power consumption is minimal, and I think negligible if we're talking
about P4 chips. I did an experiment recently, where I installed 2 2.5"
drives, ran a stress test and measured power consumption, then I
removed one drive and ran the same test. I couldn't see a noticeable
difference (on an analog ammeter, maybe I'd have seen a difference on
digital, regarless, it was minimal if anything). The manufacturer says
it consumes .6 W at idle (no measurement at peak), so spinning drives
that aren't being accessed really isn't as big a problem as one might
think, at least not with this drive. One recent customer had 2 drives,
one for everyday access, the other for backup. This kept power
consumption to a minimum.

Eric