Military Grade Laptops 296
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 ;)
crazy price... (Score:3, Insightful)
but hey, what do i know, my laptop weighs 9 lbs and never leaves my house.
Re:Be more careful! (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of us are just clumsy though, and live in clumsy households. I have been known to break bits of my flat such as doorframes with my flailing limbs so I'm sure my iBook has a MTBA (Mean Time Between Accidents) of about 24 months, even without butter!
Re:crazy price... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Reliable Hardware Platforms Deserve Solid Software (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Clearly you don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Slate slashdotted already? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps msn should invest in some military grade servers, it's already really hard to get trough...
Here's the text for those who can't get it:
The military's laptop of choice provokes shock and awe.
By Paul Boutin
Posted Friday, March 21, 2003, at 2:38 PM PT
Tough enough for war
Just as Desert Storm boosted the sales of Hummers and GPS handhelds, Gulf War II will spawn its own crossover hits, pieces of military equipment that become civilian fetish objects. A prediction: One of the war's big winners will be Itronix's GoBook MAX [gobookmax.com], a sort of Windows laptop on steroids. The GoBook MAX has already been spotted in video from the front, and Air Force firemen deployed in Turkey have them. If Gulf War II is the first Internet war, then a computer should be its first piece of military chic.
No wider than an entry-level ThinkPad [ibm.com] but much thicker and heftier, the $4,500 GoBook MAX is a waterproof, vaporproof, shockproof piece of field equipment. "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," crows the GoBook's brochure. Unlike most laptop makers, Itronix [itronix.com] specializes in handheld gadgets for hardhats, not wussy desktop PCs. The GoBook MAX is designed for civilian emergency-response teams as well as soldiers in the field. In my hands-on tests, it easily survived a few tosses across the floor of a local Starbucks--plus a spill of my third double espresso onto its keyboard. Its rubber-gripped handle makes it feel like sports gear rather than fragile electronics.
Itronix says the MAX is big among FBI bomb squads and NYPD anti-terrorist units. For government buyers, the MAX comes bundled with a restricted software package called CoBRA [defensegroupinc.com] (or Chemical Biological Response Aide), a search engine that can identify some 60,000 chemical agents, plus a few dozen biological threats. Select the symptoms of victims at a disaster scene, and CoBRA will tell you how long you have before your hazmat suit craps out.
For civilians, the MAX offers features to rival new Centrino [msn.com]-powered laptops. Its 700 MHz CPU isn't the fastest, but built-in Cisco Wi-Fi and a heavy-duty antenna are available as factory options. Dual USB jacks and aPCMCIA [google.com] slot, protected by sturdy latches, are standard. CoBRA sales reps claim eight hours of work time from one charge to its heavy-duty (and just plain heavy) battery. Chem-bio response teams can't take off lunch to recharge.
But the company's roughneck and military clientele belies its much larger potential market: professional parents. Finally, a laptop worthy of the term "toddler-proof." No disastrous crashes to the kitchen floor. No months of data lost to an incident with the sippy cup. Hazardous materials? Toss it in the dishwasher. Need to get out of the house? The handle flips back to mount the MAX open across the wheel of an SUV for mobile use. There's even an add-on DVD drive for movies.
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."
____________________end copy__________________________ __
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Re:iBooks... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:crazy price... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Could they make a faster version? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 think you mean 'open' (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
But is it EMP-proof? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But is it EMP-proof? (Score:3, Insightful)
Naw, anyone can make a coil of large gauge wire and a fast switched capacitor bank to make a high amperage pulse through it.....the question is, will it really be effective at damaging electronic equipment at a hundred yards or more away on a consistent basis? And even if it did, what if that equipment was in rugged military chassis, or more usually inside tank, armored transport, ship, concrete (with rebar) bunker, etc.
I can only conclude the military has tried this stuff & found it not up to promise.
Re:crazy price... (Score:1, Insightful)
Have a little respect for people willing to fight and die for your security and way of life. Your issue is with the leadership and its decisions -- if you criticize the led you will find yourself in deep trouble when you really need them.
Re:I think you mean 'open' (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the kernel, I guess that depends on what you mean by "microkernel". The basic BSD kernel is less that a thousand lines of code, which seems pretty micro to me. And it seems to me that the vast majority of BSODs I've encountered have been in the Windows Kernel.
Solaris isn't really Unix (and not exactly "Open" either). I guess I come from a generation of low level hardware-software hacks who see Unix as Open by definition, and anything not Open is not Unix. -=N9FZX