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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.
A legacy dongle that requires use of obsolete systems to support it is like that Compac computer Mclauren's cars needed to run the custom interface card.
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).
Unless his already runs a nuclear power plant