I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to
get into Vista or switch to Apple. I also don't want to be carrying
anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long
boat trip. All these considerations apply on the sailboat as well.

I've been taking a laptop on longer cruises for track planning and in case I
need to reload charts in the GPS. It doesn't stow anywhere easily though
and I'd hate to have it go adrift given its cost and all the stuff on it.

I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's
about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably
the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard
disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as
well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and
panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even
easier to use. Built in webcam.

Not terribly fast but just about perfect for a small cruising boat and
traveling light. A under $475 it won't be a major disaster if anything
happens to it. Worth owning even if you have a larger laptop, I think.

--
Roger Long

"Roger Long" wrote:

I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to
get into Vista or switch to Apple. I also don't want to be carrying
anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long
boat trip. All these considerations apply on the sailboat as well.

I've been taking a laptop on longer cruises for track planning and in case I
need to reload charts in the GPS. It doesn't stow anywhere easily though
and I'd hate to have it go adrift given its cost and all the stuff on it.

I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's
about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP (Probably
the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory instead of a hard
disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and MMC/SD card slot as
well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with some cool zooming and
panning features that make it's more than adequate size and clarity even
easier to use. Built in webcam.

Not terribly fast but just about perfect for a small cruising boat and
traveling light. A under $475 it won't be a major disaster if anything
happens to it. Worth owning even if you have a larger laptop, I think.


The Eee PC is indeed a cool machine -- great for
Skype & email too.
BTW, I just bought (actually assembled) a new machine with XP on it.

Michael Porter Marine Design
mporter at mp-marine dot com
www.mp-marine.com
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to
get into Vista or switch to Apple. I also don't want to be carrying
anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long
boat trip. All these considerations apply on the sailboat as well.

I've been taking a laptop on longer cruises for track planning and in case
I need to reload charts in the GPS. It doesn't stow anywhere easily
though and I'd hate to have it go adrift given its cost and all the stuff
on it.

I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy. It's
about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP
(Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory
instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports and
MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice screen with
some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more than adequate
size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam.

Not terribly fast but just about perfect for a small cruising boat and
traveling light. A under $475 it won't be a major disaster if anything
happens to it. Worth owning even if you have a larger laptop, I think.

--
Roger Long


Does it have wireless ethernet ? What is the capacity ?

Sterling

"Silver K" wrote


Does it have wireless ethernet ? What is the capacity ?


Yes, wireless built in. 16 GM of solid state memory instead of a mechanical
hard disk (strange not to hear a disk grinding when you click something). 1
GM of regular memory. The built in MMR/SD card reader allows for even more
storage.

Battery life isn't great. I used it 45 minutes this morning on a full
charge and it said it was down to 30% after but that's not real critical for
most of what I'll be using it for. It's also sometimes slow in responding
which I wouldn't expect from solid state memory but you can't expect a lot
from something this small. It's not a lot slower than my desktop machine
sometimes when it's doing heavy stuff.

BTW it's an Asus Eee PC 900.

--
Roger Long

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:17:22 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

"Silver K" wrote


Does it have wireless ethernet ? What is the capacity ?


Yes, wireless built in. 16 GM of solid state memory instead of a
mechanical
hard disk (strange not to hear a disk grinding when you click something).
1
GM of regular memory. The built in MMR/SD card reader allows for even
more
storage.

Battery life isn't great. I used it 45 minutes this morning on a full
charge and it said it was down to 30% after but that's not real critical
for
most of what I'll be using it for. It's also sometimes slow in responding
which I wouldn't expect from solid state memory but you can't expect a lot
from something this small. It's not a lot slower than my desktop machine
sometimes when it's doing heavy stuff.

BTW it's an Asus Eee PC 900.

What's old is new again!

http://oldcomputers.net/trs100.html

I used to supply these to news reporters so they could write stories
in the field and transmit them via an acoustic coupler that fit over
the mouthpiece of a pay phone to our ATEX mainframe editorial system.

I still have one of them that I saved for posterity. I have all the
manuals and accessories. It still works perfectly.

Ran all day or longer on 4 AA batteries. The news biz continued to use
these for a LONG time after they were obsolete, because they worked so
well for this particular application, and usually survived being
dropped and otherwise abused.



I had an old HP portable... one of the first solid-state ones. Battery
lasted 20 hours, with all sorts of programs on ROM chips. It was a bit slow
and the LCD screen sucked, but it wasn't bad. I finally dropped it.


--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:09:43 -0400, Gogarty
wrote:

Which brings to mind another thought. Has anyone but a used ToughBook on eBay?

Not on EBAY but a CF-48 from one of the online used laptop dealers.
It has been my primary boat computer for the last two years and many
thousands of miles. It has survived salt spray, being knocked
around, and one 3 foot drop. I paid less than $400 for it. It has
some battle scars but still works well.

There are any number of used laptop bargains for rugged machines like
the IBM Thinkpads. Typical price for a Pentium III is around $200.
I bought a so called factory reconditioned Thinkpad for my wife at
less than $300. It arrived in brand new factory packaging without a
mark on it and has worked perfectly on the boat for 3 years, still
looking like new. Typically we run the Thinkpad at the lower helm for
receiving Weather FAX and SSB EMAIL; Toughbook at the upper helm as
backup chartplotter and route planner.

I took an old Thinkpad on the 2002 Newport-Bermuda Race using saran
wrap over the keyboard to make it water resistant. We were on a Frers
41 which is a fairly wet boat. It survived the race even after
getting sprayed a few times.

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy.
It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP
(Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory
instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports
and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice
screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more
than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam.



If you buy a Serial to USB adapter like this:

http://www.electronicproductonline.c...hp?cPath=35_67
&products_id=1803&osCsid=02348a8645bc5c88ee61b13b3 3e7c519

(It comes with a CD manual and drivers for your WinXP that turn one USB
port into a COM serial port.)

Then, you can input NMEA data and the AIS receiver to the tiny PC and run
The Cap'n or other nav software on it, totally automating chart plotting,
trip planning, autopilot steerage, etc., just like the big boys have!

For your application, the XP model is probably best. I have a friend with
the Ubuntu Linux version which is much faster and leaves lots more memory
storage because the operating system is tiny in comparison to WinXP
bloatware.

Skype runs great on it....even with the webcam for Live TV!

Nice little PC, but little support from the computing community.

On Sep 25, 2:04 pm, Larry wrote:
"Roger Long" wrote :

I'm typing this on an ASUS Eee PC I bought yesterday at Best Buy.
It's about the size and weight of a thin hardback book, uses Window XP
(Probably the last XP machine available), and has solid state memory
instead of a hard disk. No drives or card slot but three USB ports
and MMC/SD card slot as well as Ethernet & video connectors. Nice
screen with some cool zooming and panning features that make it's more
than adequate size and clarity even easier to use. Built in webcam.

If you buy a Serial to USB adapter like this:

http://www.electronicproductonline.c...info.php?cPath...
&products_id=1803&osCsid=02348a8645bc5c88ee61b13b3 3e7c519

(It comes with a CD manual and drivers for your WinXP that turn one USB
port into a COM serial port.)

Then, you can input NMEA data and the AIS receiver to the tiny PC and run
The Cap'n or other nav software on it, totally automating chart plotting,
trip planning, autopilot steerage, etc., just like the big boys have!

For your application, the XP model is probably best. I have a friend with
the Ubuntu Linux version which is much faster and leaves lots more memory
storage because the operating system is tiny in comparison to WinXP
bloatware.

Skype runs great on it....even with the webcam for Live TV!

Nice little PC, but little support from the computing community.

I have the smaller Asus ee with 7" screen and the great thing about it
is that it runs Linux and boots up in 20 seconds instead of the 4
minutes of a Vista trash machine. When in airports or anywhere with
wifi, I can check my e-mail, answer them, shut it and be putting it
away before everybody else's Vista or Windows machines have booted.

On Sep 25, 2:33*am, "Roger Long" wrote:
I've wanted a small computer to take on my upcomming trip but reluctant to
get into Vista or *switch to Apple. *I also don't want to be carrying
anything very expensive or delicate on this trip which will involve a long
boat trip.
Roger Long

Hello Roger:

I use a Panasonic CF-29. Had it for 3 years. Its has a smaller foot
print runs XP and is supper durrable. But here we enter the philosophy
of design. Id rather have somthing designed to be droped 5 feet and
still work than buy three and throw each away when one croaks. In
other words, when ya buy three cheepos you now have a laptop that is
THREE times as large as a ONE laptop. The CF-29 is way heavy by laptop
standards. Get one used and they are very reasonable priced. Im a very
happy user. Heck Im even typin on it now.

Bob

"Roger Long" wrote in news:gbg6hf$d0p$1
@registered.motzarella.org:

BTW it's an Asus Eee PC 900.

--
Roger Long


As to runtime, buy a 120 watt inverter built right into the cigarette
lighter plug for it. Plugged into the house battery, it should run it down
in a week or so. You won't notice it as a load.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...Specifications
This 80W one at WalMart should run it continuously just fine.