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20-Yr-Old Compaq Laptop Is Still Crucial to Maintaining McLaren's Multi-Million Dollar Cars (jalopnik.com)
An anonymous reader writes: It may come as a surprise to many, but the 20-year-old Compaq LTE 5280 still plays a vital role in maintaining multi-million dollar McLaren F1s. Jalopnik recently visited McLaren's Special Operations workshop where it found several of Compaq's old laptops serving their masters. Why do they rely on these dated computers, you ask? A McLaren Special Operations staff explains, "The reason we need those specific Compaq laptops is that they run a bespoke CA card which is installed into them. The CA card is an interface between the laptop software (which is DOS based) and the car. We are currently working on a new interface which will be compatible with modern laptops as the old Compaqs are getting less and less reliable and harder to find." For those wondering, the Compaq LTE 5280 comes with a 120MHz Intel Pentium processor, up to "80MB" of RAM, and up to 1.2GB of HDD.
Yes, an old fashioned dongle that makes them require a 20-year-old laptop.
When did they go, "Oh hey maybe we should replace this" - a month ago? And really, what could be in that card but some TTL?
It's not like a faster laptop would make the car run faster. In the end it only becomes an issue when there is a need to replace diagnostics equipment and there aren't enough spares.
I suspect a bit of hardware and software effort could port the interface and stack to an Arduino and then you could access it from a phone or tablet for another 20 years. But the pragmatic part of me wouldn't want to why something unless it's broken.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
For those wondering, the Compaq LTE 5280 comes with a 120MHz Intel Pentium processor, up to "80MB" of RAM, and up to 16MB of HDD.
Remember back in the Pentium days when RAM was cheaper than hard-disc space?
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If it aint broke, don't fix it.
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Not as bad as DeLorean: it requires Mr. Fusion, which hasn't even been invented yet.
Table-ized A.I.
Those specs seem backwards. Perhaps it had 16MB of ram and an 80MB hard drive?
I have worked with organizations that used similarly old stuff and would buy stacks of replacements. The problem was that nearly all the replacements were failing in the same way before any use. Some glue that was fine for 10 years would suddenly start to run and dissolve other important bits. Certain bits would just corrode even thought they had been kept in a pretty damn good environment. LCD screens looked like something like bacteria were growing inside as some strange chemical process crept along.
One other magical thing is that it seems that if you don't use a hard drive for years that it will spin up, work fine for a very short while and then fail very rapidly. Probably some lubricant just dried up or mutated.
I feel their pain.
In a previous life, I did the end-user computing environment for a large healthcare company. At one facility we had a PC running a pneumatic tube system. The tube system controller card was full-length ISA. That machine was getting upgraded....never.
I'm sure a dozens of us have have similar stories -- old fax cards come to mind.
came with 8 or 16 MB of ram, expandable to 72 or 80 MB. Where the summary is wrong is that it came with an 810MB HD (or a 1.35GB HD)
>> For those wondering, the Compaq LTE 5280 comes with a 120MHz Intel Pentium processor, up to "80MB" of RAM, and up to 16MB of HDD.
I bet it still runs faster than a modern PC running Windows 10 and Office 365.
Just because it would be funny to see: Windows has detected the following new device: McLaren 675LT. Would you like to install a driver for this device?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
As an owner of a 5280 (including the insane for the time 80mb ram configuration) I know exactly how a lazy reading could lead to a 16MB "harddrive". Like most laptops of the time the 5280 didn't have a SO-DIMM like standardized slots and so the ram was soldered right on the motherboard. The biggest configuration was the 16MB model, hence "up to" 16MB. But there was a way to get more ram after purchase - a proprietary 5280 daughterboard screwed in behind the rear port cover could add additional ram (largest daughterboard had 64MB) for a total of 80MB when combined with the top range model.
Also the 1.3GB HD configuration was only at release. Larger harddrives where available later on (I've got a 2.1GB) since the HD was the only thing not proprietary to the 5280 and so it could be easily updated without engineering new parts (HD is right between the two multibays and can be exposed without tools).
Because it is beneficial to almost everyone in the industry to believe that "everybody" uses only the newest gear, there is a systematic distortion of the facts of what might be called "product demography." I've seen this everywhere I've worked, including several years at a (long-gone) Fortune 500 computer company.
It seems that almost everyone relies on 15 and 20-year old equipment. Everyone scratches their head in amazement at what's in the back of the server room and the unbelievable story of why it is still in service--but it is there.
I've had several conversations with people at the computer company that went about like this.
"We don't need to support that model, it's too old, nobody is using it."
"I think a lot of people are still using it."
"Why do you think that?"
"For one reason, because we still use it ourselves."
"WHAAAAT?"
"Sure. Check with Lewis on the 4th floor of building III. They have three of them."
"What on earth for?"
"Because of [reasons X, Y, and Z]. And they can't get rid of them because the new models [have problems Q, R, and S].
"Oh, well, that's a completely unique situation. Nobody else in the world is using them."
"Trust me, if we're using them our customers are using them. Unless you believe that everyone else in the world is better managed and more up-to-date than we are."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Call McLaren, they would like to buy your laptop...
There are many industrial processes and machines running ancient hardware. Also common in the medical field.
A local radio station I service (IT) finally replaced an audio editing computer last year. This computer was running Windows 95. Why? A 'bespoke' audio editing card, which required an EISA bus. So why not some other software solution? Because this software did EXACTLY what they wanted to do, was very easy to use, and very easy to train new users on. We maintained an inventory of spare parts -- including a spare motherboard -- to keep the system running.
So why did they replace it? The audio editing card (which was a dedicated computer on a daughter card) began to fail, and that's the part they didn't have a spare for. The replacement product they are using is Adobe Audition.
I know of many other industrial and medical machines that are running old versions of windows on old hardware because they have proprietary software or hardware that is not cost-effective to upgrade (and is working perfectly fine). Some of the software and hardware would be tens of thousands (in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars to upgrade -- just to run a more modern OS. If a return on investment cannot be identified, the hardware will not be upgraded.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
DOS only ever noticed 1MB. To get more you needed a high memory manager.
If they used a DOS app, then it would have most likely used HIMIS.SYS and EMM386.EXE to access that huge 80MB pool of memory.
Or maybe it's some hideous 16 bit windows 3.1 application, who knows?
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
It's a 20-year-old laptop being used to service a 20-year-old car. I don't find this very strange. It's not like any current McLarens still require the same laptop.
hi
Unless his already runs a nuclear power plant