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Ping Larry
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:10:02 -0500, CaveLamb
wrote: wrote: On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:30:55 -0500, CaveLamb wrote: Gordon wrote: Any advice on a boat computer? I think you bought a notebook a while back. Good , bad, ugly? Thanks G We'll have to wait to see what Lary says. I've been leaning toward a mini-ITX fanless system - with a fan in the case and a 12 volt power supply. Heat is nearly as bad for electronics as water. So we are running in a hostile environment. The other issue is mounting. An ITX case is small and can be tucked in almost any corner. The display can be wall mounted. No need to take up precious horizontal filing space. The screen is still a problem for me. I've yet to find one at a reasonable price that runs on 12 volts. All your boat computer problems can be solved with an old Panasonic Toughbook. You can find a CF-28 or CF29 very cheaply on Ebay. They were designed to be used by contractors on building sites in the rain and mud, and they are also popular with Law Enforcement. You can spill as many cups of coffee as you wish on the screen and keyboard without worry. The screen is readable in sunlight, and they are drop tested 6 feet onto concrete. The models I mentioned are very common, and will run Windows XP or 98 My friend has a couple of them. Our common opinion is that they are simply too slow for the heavy graphics load for charts. But they are, indeed, Tough! Good Lord! And I ran two different chartplotter applications on an OLD Toshiba with no problems at all (one at a time :-). I now run it on a Eee with solid state memory now with no noticeable delay. Cheers, Bruce (bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom) |
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