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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 ;)
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??
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..."
I don't think I'd buy one of these laptops either because I'm not likely to be fighting a chemical spill or a fire while working on my laptop.
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!
...-.-
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.
Granted, I don't expect consumer-channel equipment to be that strong.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Did the dog survive after all this???
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Good for you. Most laptops can survive a 3 foot drop. Try doing a google search for laptop + 3 + feet + drop and see all the people talking about all their laptops that they dropped 3 feet and had them survive.
All your ibook has to do now is survive being baked in an oven, chilled in a freezer, vibrated, and submitted to a shower of hurricane proportions, and then it is relevant to this article.
Disclaimer: I own an ibook and am, in fact, typing on it now.
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.
That is because your data is 100% worthless. Even to you by your own admission.
The panasonic toughbook and the military units contain priceless data and in the military people will DIE if it fails.
you are a consumer with absolutely useless and value-less data.
it is not for you.
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.
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 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 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!
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?