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Military Grade Laptops
bllb writes "Slate has an article about the "waterproof, vaporproof, shockproof" laptops the military is using. It's not at the cutting edge of performance, but it's nice to see some bombproof hardware." Most of the laptops I've owned over the years died through dropping or drowning, so maybe I should look into something a little more sturdy ;)
My wife used to work for Itronix and these will run indefinetly at 140 degrees (the official numbers.) While I was in the infantry I once spent the month of August in Death Valley and I can tell you we NEVER hit 140, 127 with MOPP4 and kevlar is no picnic, but it wouldn't of phased this laptop. They don't have the high end horse power of the p4 laptop I am on right now, but knowing what these things can go through, they are amazing.
That is what the Canadian Army uses. Rugged especially the CF-27 although the 28 is a bit less rugged.
http://www.gobookmax.com/gobookmax/images/gobookma x.pdf
Mobile Pentium III/700, 256 MB of PC100 SDRAM, 20 GB IBM DJSA-200 hard disk, external 10x TEAC USB CD-ROM, external USB floppy, 4MB Silicon Motion LynxEM+ graphics, 10.4in SVGA touchscreen TFT, ESS Allegro PCI audio, integrated mono speaker, V.90 modem, integrated CISCO Wirelsss LAN PC Card, one Type II PC Card slot, plus support for VGA, serial and two USB, Windows 2000 Professional. Dimensions: 284 x 233 x 62mm (W x D x H) excludion handle. Weight 3.3 kg. [7.28 pounds]
Note: The PDF wouldn't let me copy and paste the text, but I think I got it all right.
Dolch has been making these sorts of things for years now. Mostly aimed at scientific, construction, and engeneering field work (the military only started widely deploying laptops fairly recently). Their laptops can handle 15G's while running and 50 when turned off.
To anser all the people asking if the ibook can stand up to more than 1 fall, the anser is yes
there are currently 3 ibooks in my immediate family, and all have been dropped several times(usually resulting from younger siblings wanting a turn). The highest drop mine has taken was about 2.5 meters and there is no notable damage aside from a few scratches here and there.
while I haven't tried myself I do remember reading that ibooks can survive some time in an oven, being run over by trucks, being hit in the screen w/ a baseball bat, in fact I'm fairly certain they can survive water, altho not when on(apples old 5300's could)...
Don't save your orgasms for Heaven; Heaven knows we need them here.
I'm a professional soldier, so here's what I have to say.
:)
If I'm called on to go to visit my colleagues who are already in Iraq, I'll be carrying over 130 lbs of protective gear, weapons, ammo, rucksack and equipment, and the bulk of it goes on my back. A plane and a parachute gets me to my DZ and I walk from there.
Military equipment is bulky and heavy. Take the PLGR (Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver). The last picture shows it's size. This puppy weighs 2.75 pounds and is huge. Compare to any Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance and others whose products weigh less than a pound and are a quarter of the size. (Blah, blah, Selective Availability. Another discussion.)
Another example: The Mortar Ballistic Computer weighs 7 lbs and makes my Gameboy Advance (cheap entertainment in the field) look like a Cray Supercomputer. Oh, and it's roughly 20x larger than the GBA.
So if I had the room in my ruck for a laptop (I don't), and I could justify spending $4500 on it - four months' pay (I took a slight paycut when I quit my sysadmin job in Silicon Valley for the opportunity to get gassed in Iraq), you could bet I'd be buying one of these and not FOUR pieces of crap that are going to break when I hit the DZ.
Cheers!