wrote in message . ..
FWIW, John Neal comments in his cruising book that he has used common
desktop computers on his boat for years without trouble.

OK

Well reason Im asking is cause a good friend and his
wife just sold EVERYTHING and drove down to Florida and
bought a 32' sail boat and taking a year to "cruise"

They started planning three years back for this by
taking all kinds of classes, etc

se link

http://www.sailkabuki.com/

Anyway..... I don't own a boat and don't know anything
abt sailing... but his adventure has me fascinated!

As a result Ive posted a few messages on the "nuts and
bolts" for doing such a thing

From all of this discussion I have learned that I have two choices:
Use a cheap, fixable and adptable Desk top PC with an LCD monitor to
hold power usage down, and an inverter to supply the power, or
use a laptop.
The first choice uses more epower, the second choice loses on
varsatility and fixability.
For me Computers is a learn-as-you-go thing and therefore I am leaning
to the cheap PC route. Maybe I can use the LCD monitor also as TV for
watching movies and therfore would get a larger monitor thatn usually
comes with a laptop.