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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 ;)
Will they survive 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven?
Seriously though, I've owned laptops for about ten years now and I've never dropped one.Stop coating your hands with butter before you pick the laptop up!
Putting moderation advice in your
"We drop each one 54 times from one meter, bake it in an oven, chill it in a freezer, vibrate it, and submit it to a shower of hurricane proportions,"
Who the fuck would buy a beaten up piece of shit like that??
the fact that you can buy 4 new laptops equivalent in speed, ram, hdd space, etc almost makes it not worth while. i think i'd take 4 new notebooks than one that's heavy clunky and extremely well designed.
but hey, what do i know, my laptop weighs 9 lbs and never leaves my house.
I write code.
But does it survive a BSOD?
I remember a Washington Post Article where some Marine Private was evaluating his 733t new computer. "I could beat someone to death with this battery pack..."
My laptop just took a lil fall and the screen went cracky cracky. I can still read what the screen says, but its too bad that this laptop wasn't the one I dropped.
;)
I wonder how they have the hard drive set up, or if they use flash. Normally, any hard drive experiencing even a small shock can be easily destroyed if the head is reading.
700 MhZ isn't too great but you could always take it in the shower for some good 'ol pr0n.
wired ran an article a few weeks ago about how the army was using rugged panasonic laptops for operations. one of their gis guys was having trouble manipulating huge images with them and had the government ship over a titanium powerbook which is apparently holding up fine.
OK, what about aweproof?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Having said that, it's also clear that some operating systems, owing to their monlithic architecture, will never improve. At least with Unix, you can discard what you don't need, reducing the volume of code that has to be checked. That's a major reason why Microsoft's "Trustworthy Computing" initiative is such a joke -- you can't get rid of the crapola, heck you can't even see the crapola!
...-.-
Ss you want to sell laptops to the US Army?
Yes, would you like to test it out?
Yes, Put it over there.
[Officer aims a rifle at the laptop and puts a hole the size of a small tangerine through the case]
I'm sorry. Your product has failed our quality inspection. Have a nice day.
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
My friend also sent his for a trip down the stairs (Screen open, iBook on), and it still works A.O.K.
So, you could also buy an iBook, and it will survive the same falls.
So these things aren't susceptible to running Duke Nukem Forever, eh? ;)
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.
You obviously don't understand the NEED for rugadized computers. What good is 4 crappy comercial laptops when your on a ship that is torpedoed or a plane that crashes? Those four laptops will be toast, but a properly rugadized computer has a good choice of still running. This is important when your LIFE may depend on that laptop.
I mod down any one who says "I'm sure I will get modded down for this"
Granted, I don't expect consumer-channel equipment to be that strong.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
The laptop isn't the problem. Most people are smart
enough to keep it out of the rain and dust. Most of the components are sealed. The real problem was copiers and printers. If someone made a copier or printer that could be bounced around working in heat, cold and dust, they'd make a killing with the US Army.
I don't need a sig - I gave up smoking
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.
Since the US military never are the ones being bombed, but rather always the ones bombing.. what do they need this for?
Part of their image I guess.. "Oh yes, we're getting bombed all the time".
bomberclaad...
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
We drop each one 54 times from one meter
This seems rather time consuming. Why don't they just drop them once from a height of 54 meters? That would be the same, right?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Can they perform "military grade" encryption?
Heisenberg might have been here.
With the amount of money office workers spend on their cars alone, a couple thousand dollars more for a droppable, dishwasher-safe laptop is a no- brainer bargain in total cost of ownership. The GoBook MAX gives new meaning to the phrase "homeland security."
I don't think the TCO is an issue here; I'm sure that most insurance companies (who nowadays pay for broken laptops) will be seeing these robust laptops as a positive development.
Additionally, I really wonder if these laptops are protected against those EMP bombs..
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
I wonder if it's even possible to put a P4 in one of these things. If they're sealed ("waterproof, vaporproof") then I don't think they could cool a fast CPU. Even the new Pentium M laptops need fans and air vents.
i'm a pre-production engineer from technology advancement group, a company in dulles, va. we build systems very similar, though we've moved away from the laptops and build mostly rack mounted systems. our systems are build to be ruggedized from the component level in order to survive more shock than any other system around. all the chassis are custom designed and all components are tested thoroughly. our most impressive test is the barge test. we take our machine, put it inside it's fiberglass case, turn it on and link up to it with a wireless connection. we put it on a small barge in a lake and detonate depth charges beneath the barge. most of the time the barge will fall apart, the machine will go flying in the air and land floating in the water. while all this is happening it is linked to a system on land which is monitoring its work. we don't sell a system unless it can go through this test without missing a step. this is the beauty of ruggedized computers. there's a video of a barge test on our website
-"Hey, Baby. It's not a rash, it's textured love."
I'm not sure what you meant by the term, but if you are talking about operating systems and kernels, Unix systems are generally monolithic whereas windows (nt and on) are microkernel(ish) architectures.
You say that on Unix you can throw away what you don't need but that on Windows you "can't even see the crapola". You certainly can't open up Solaris, cut out what you don't need, and recompile for a leaner version so I assume you meant Linux or BSD. But obviously you can only do that with those OSes because they are open source, it really has nothing to do with their architecture.
dan.
And is anyone else surprised that there have been no EMP 'terrorist' attacks yet? Cheap, simple, minimal training, incredibly effective...
But I've always dropped my laptops while carrying or transporting them, never while actually using them... so I went a different route.
Try getting a regular laptop, and putting it in one of the cases made by these guys (No, I don't work for them)
I've taken my laptop to all kinds of places, including some inhospitable places in the very area of the world where lots of bombs are currently being dropped; no problems. Those cases come with a lifetime warranty... they're waterproof, shock-resistant, dustproof (VERY important in the desert), and have automatic pressure relief valves for that unpressurized tactical airlift you're sometimes required to use.
They cost about 150$, but that's chump change compared to the price of a Mil-Spec computer; the money difference is much better spent upgrading the actual laptop.
YMMV, but that's the way I solved the problem.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Most of the laptops I've owned over the years died through dropping or drowning
Ewww Taco... That's a little more information than we needed thank you very much
*goes to take long shower*
I've been in the Marines for about 8 years and I've never seen these. I've seen some Panasonic Toughbooks but nowadays all we use are Dell latitudes. Of course, the Air Force has infinitely more $$$ than the Corps.
This guy is way out there
Supposedly before the M1 Garand rifle was accepted as the primary service rifle, immediately before World War II, the Army finished it's "scientific" testing and thought they would let the Marines check it out. The Marines soaked a couple of rifles in seawater, attached ropes and dragged them back and forth across sand, and then tried to fire the rifles. Gotta love pracical folk.
I somehow envision the Marine laptop evaluation to replace the 1 meter drop onto concrete test with bash-an-enemy-on-the-head test.
54 is such a strange number. :)
I guess after the 55th drop it was dead
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
The old Bell Labs standard called for 1/3 of system faults to be ascribed to hardware, 1/3 to software, and 1/3 to operator error. Most available operating systems clearly aren't there yet
That doesn't sound quite right. At least, if the users at Bell are anything like the users where I work, hardware and software really have to fail a lot more frequently if they're going to keep up with the operator errors.Anyway, Apple's "wonderful" repair centers are refusing to fix it under warranty because it is "accidental damage or mistreatment." Since iBooks do not have PCMCIA ports, and usb ethernet devices only work with Macs, she has two choices. She can either pay the outrageous $775 that Apple is charging to repair an ethernet jack with a few broken pins, or else buy an AirPort card and 802.11b base station.
It should also be mentioned that the power connector is very fragile. Being stepped on can bend it completely out of shape, and it is very difficult to get back in the right shape, because it has to be basically a perfect circle.
The test of laptop sturdiness, IMHO, is not whether it can survive the dramatic falls, but whether it can survive the minor, day to day damage over a prolonged period. Can it survive being tripped over, carried around in a backpack, etc? I have a 4 year old Dell laptop that I have treated far more roughly than my girlfriend has treated her 6 month old iBook. The Dell looks a little worse for the wear, but works perfectly. The iBook still looks shiny and new, but has been completely crippled.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
You can pick up a nice magnesium shell ToughBook for cheap, if you are willing to put up with some sloth. They would make an excellent war driving box! Here is one source: (I am not affiliated, and I have never ordered from them)
TelePro PC Store
"Life is life." --Laibach
In Antarctica, 1997. I had two rugged military laptops (Kontron) for data acquisition and an HP Vectra desktop for use indoors. One of the laptops video fried when a snow machine started a few feet from it and the other didn't have the right connectors. I had to program an eprom on some equipment outside and just put the Vectra+Monitor on a box. For 4 hours at -45C and it worked fine. I even have a picture. So it's not because there's a thicker case around a motherboard that it makes it more reliable...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I spent two years stationed at Quantico as a Tech and the printers that would come into our shop from TBS (The Basic School) were the worst. I swear those motherfuckers were using their HP Laserjet 4's as wheel chocks for their Humvee's. They were always filled with sand & one time I found a huge-ass spider nest above the fuser! "Shit, Devildog, I don't know what's wrong with it." :-D
Is a time honored practice for devices that need to stand up to a lot of abuse. A guitar player friend of mine swore by his Mesa Boggie amp, claiming that part of their manufacturing was dropping the amps and then fixing anything that broke and repeating until nothing breaks anymore. Sure, you might put a few dents or scratches on it (probably before putting the final finish coverring on), but it is much less likely to need servicing for any reason. Any marginal parts are broken and replaced before you get the unit.
I owned an older Itronix military grade model at one time. It was pretty cool, I threw it in the oven a few times and into a lake once, and it kept on working. But, we I finally threw it across the room and it landed on its corner... the hard drive ceased to function. ;-)
A friend who worked in the radio repair shop reported less success with several radio sets that had been run over by tanks in the motor pool during vehicle maintenance.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Even that site has errors.
It decides to apply english to computer terms. That's a big mistake.
A list of his errors:
CD-ROM. A CD-ROM is a DRIVE, not a DISC. A CD is a disc, or, if one wants to use the long form, a CD-ROM disc is a disc that fits in a CD-ROM. This is extremely common usage by those in the know, therefore the author is de-facto wrong.
UFO. While I'm not a Raelian, I'm very sure the common usage of the word UFO by such people is to mean anything that is unidentifiable as human.
OK. Flat out stupid griping by a person who has nothing to gripe about. OK is a valid acronym, spelt without periods. Don't like it? TS. Yeah, that's an acronym too. Look it up and be amazed! Oh, and on the internet we rarely put periods in acronyms. Common usage and all that again...
Drive. Please gripe more! Not! What the hell is this all about? Common usage by Billions and Billions (served) is Hard Disk. Don't like it? TS again!
Lite. Hey asshole, I'm a humanist and I spell it analog. Nice job putting words in people's mouths and ignoring how 300 million people spell things. Also good job ignoring entire dictionaries worth of information telling you you're wrong. I'll say it again: Asshole.
How can I trust a site that doesn't accept the common usage of words in their respective fields? Stop treading on people's toes, lest you be trodden on, pretentious grammarian.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Walkabout (who make a lot of 'hardened' laptops') have a few slower, but very versatile books that have IR ports that can be rigged to be used over packet radio for network connectivity. They have a stylus that you have to use as a pointer device, but they're small, not terribly heavy for a milspec laptop.
.. and you can get them with a gigahertz proc, which is nice. They can come with a DVD drive, and the media bays are swappable. They might have a CDRW or something like that. They're -hardy- little machines, too, and fast. You hardly notice that 'slightly slower' processor.
Now, Panasonic Toughbooks are NICE. They're completely touchscreen, you can use fingers, pencils, pens, the provided stylus.. just about anything. They have onboard peripherals that are in air-tight / waterproof compartments
I've seen some video on CNN of a "secret" miltary facility in the Iraq area and just about everyone there had something from the Dell Inspiron 8x00 series. Certainly not battlefield ready but certainly useful for mobility and power when crunching a lot of data and a fast GPU for displaying graphical information.
If they're developing notebooks for the army, why not make this thing stop bullets, or shrapnel? What would be really cool would be if it could take a bullet without giving out. It would be even cooler if the bullet could go through the laptop and still run. Of course, then the thing would have to hook up to Skynet, too.
Think about it...this isnt just for the military.
A student in one of my classes works as a foreman at a local construction company. They just happen to be testing these things out for use in place of blueprints. i.e. He and the onsite Engineer look at the actual CAD designs of the architect, and are able to hook up a live "point by point" discussion with the Architect moving the CAD design around and highlighting things in real time.
Mariners and Campers should find this useful. Mechanics maybe.
All kinds of places.
McDoobie
Ok, time for me to 'fess up.
As a backbone router geek, I have had the liberty of working from my home for the last couple of years, usually keeping whatever hours please me, and often doing my work from my bed, while watching "Law and Order" reruns captured on Tivo. (Belated kudos to the couple of co-workers who heard the Tivo 'ding' and managed not to bust out laughing during those weekly staff calls)
I've attended conference calls while slouched in the hot tub, completely submerged except for my head, while occasionally muttering an approving comment into my headset, usually to cover up the noise of the filtering system kicking in.
I've done major configurations on well-known business portals while smoking a cigar and hoping the 802.11 link won't crap out before I 'wr mem'.
But I've always wanted to do late-night maintenance work FROM my hot tub. And it's within range of my 802.11 equipment. But I just don't have the guts to bring my beloved Dell laptop that close to water.
But now this piece of equipment may allow me to achieve my goal: Getting paid for being as close to a chronic vegetative state as possible.