On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:03:52 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 08:46:21 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:


~~ snippage ~~

Any advice?

Actually, I can address this.

The problem with computer based operations on a boat, even one like
your Parker, is shock mounting the computer. It's almost impossible
to do correctly on a small boat with a store bought computer. I've
seen some gimbal type shock mounts, but on anything less than 40 feet,
they are useless.

I tried to use one on my Contender and gave up. I couldn't get the
computer to stay up long enough to do any good unless the water was
like glass and even then, the vibrations from the outboards would
cause it to go berzerk evey once in a while. Even remote mounting the
computer in a box with pads everywhere didn't help.

There's a bunch of marie laptops out there, but from the reviews I've
read (and that is by no means complete), this type of application for
laptops is not the greatest in the marine environment.

I went with the dedicated chartplotter - it does what it's supposed to
do.

Take care.

Tom

"The beatings will stop when morale improves."
E. Teach, 1717


There are some very small PCs out there now, such as the small footprint
units made by Shuttle. Perhaps it would be easy to vibrate-isolate.

I've used my laptop on Yo Ho a couple of times, and it wasn't much fun,
though it did become easier when I substituted a good trackball for the
mouse.

I tried that.

Then again, the Contender is a very different boat than a Parker.

Later,

Tom