Underwater Computer For Ocean Research

Jafa writes "Following the article on space laptops, here's an article on a computer built for underwater. Not as in a typical dive computer, or for higher pressure air environments, but wet and under pressure. The article is fairly short on technical details, but it sounds like it uses key chords in place of a typical keyboard. We've got space, underwater, and nano. What other frontiers or environments are left for computers to work in?"

Comments

New environment: war

[Polo]

Here is a link to the Army Landwarrior system which uses ruggedized 4x1x8" dual-processor pentium systems to help foot soldiers. It's part of the Advanced Warfighting Experiment. The systems are encased in gel to ruggedize them, cool then and shock proof them.

The scary part - they run win 2k

Hmmm, build your own at home?

[Mr. Flibble]

I think the lack of a keyboard is bad, but I guess needed in such an environment. I wonder how they make the monitor work? The interesting thing is that (despite the I/O connections) you could waterproof a current computer with something as simple as epoxy.

Back in the '80's the guy who taught me BASIC on a TRS 80 was working on some sort of encrypted security sensor (I was allowed to see it, and only know a little of what it did, but hey, I was 11 at the time!) Anyways, since the sensor and its electronics had to be in a variable environment, what he did was encase the electronics in epoxy. The small board and chips easially fit inside an ice cube, and thats exactly how he encased them. He left the wires for the power and sensors out of the ice cube tray, then poured epoxy into the trays. Bingo. Totally encased eletronics. Now this did not look too great, but it worked...

You could do a similar thing with todays electronics though. the only problem would be the power supply and peripherals (and TOTAL lack of upgrades....) (Cooling would be easy, use a water-soluble material to mould around the heatsink, when the epoxy sets, wash away the mould, leaving a hole to the outside.

Thats my theory anyways. I think epoxy would work. (At least to a depth of 30 feet, I don't know if it could handle the pressure of say 150 feet. You would have to design the system carefully for those depths!)

Of course, I guess that simple pressure cases could do this just as easially simply hook the system up to the bcd and it should work for keeping the system properly pressurized...

Just some random geeky thoughts...
I feel like encasing one of my 486's in epoxy now to try that out....

The Aussies have it beat

[owens]

The referenced article gives few details, but I'm willing to bet that the WetPC beats the SeaPC hands down (literally).

Other environments...

[jmv]

What other frontiers or environments are left for computers to work in?

What about very hot environments? It would be pretty easy to make a computer work at very cold temperature, but what about one that would work at very hot temperature like would be needed for a mission to Venus (200-400 C). This is really a fundamental semi-conductor problem. Does anyone know what's the hottest environment they've managed to make a processor run so far?