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 ;)

Makes sense

[SlimFastForYou]

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. ;)

toughbooks

[hawwy]

wired ran an article [wired.com] a few weeks ago about how the army was using rugged panasonic laptops [panasonic.com] 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.

iBooks...

[Squidgee]

FYI, iBooks are also very, very sturdy. Mine took a leap from a table (~3ft up) due to dog, and survived. And it was on, with the screen open, and CD-ROM drive out (It shootso ut form the side). And it landed on its side.

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.

Re:Yes, but...

[dooby]

I was thinking more of the baked Powerbook G4 [mac.com], but anyway, the article implies the 'GoBook MAX' will survive an oven...

Hardened hard drives

[87C751]

Hard drives can be made to withstand a lot of punishment. 10 years ago, I saw a demo at a trade show where a 2.5" HP hard drive was attached to the end of a 30" bar. A motor and crank lifted the end of the bar 18" above a steel plate and then dropped it. There was an O-scope hooked up to the read channel, and it barely fluctuated at impact.

Granted, I don't expect consumer-channel equipment to be that strong.

Rather impressive but...

[Anonymous Coward]

That it can be dropped 54 times from 1 meter and still function normally is neat. However, I'd be really impressed if it could be dropped once from 54 meters and still survive.

Why only drop them 54 times?

[Sheriff Fatman]

"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,"

Surely if these things could handle more than 54 'drops', they'd advertise the fact... which implies they *can't* handle being dropped 55 times. Which mean, seeing as they've already been dropped 54 times during testing, one more slip and goodbye laptop...

--

I spent 2 yrs playing IT guy for a tank battalion

[disputin]

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

Must be good news for the insurance companies

[sabri]

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 build similar machines

[snyrt]

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 [tag.com]

Re:Offical Specs

[dsmey]

Odd. My Sony Vaio came with that IBM DJSA-series hard drive, and it croaked after the first 1-foot drop it took while the PC was running. Sony replaced it with a Toshiba.

I'd have to see the hard drive compartment to believe it.

Re:But is it EMP-proof?

[blincoln]

And is anyone else surprised that there have been no EMP 'terrorist' attacks yet? Cheap, simple, minimal training, incredibly effective...

Yeah, if you can get your hands on a nonexistent EMP weapon. Aside from nuclear weapons, EMP devices are all theoretical.

Yes, I know about the Popular Science/Mechanics article where they made it seem like every terrorist could build a magic EMP bomb, and that the US was going to deploy them in Iraq. As soon as the war started, I saw a clip on the news where they asked a military rep about them, and he basically said "I don't think you're going to see anything like that. We've tried that idea in the past, and it just didn't work out."

Re:Why only drop them 54 times?

[Cerlyn]

I am not a statistician, but I used to do test work, so I'll take a stab at answering this question.

Chances are, the number 54 has something to do with the desired confidence level and the odds of the product failing. While I do not know the math (I have only seen the charts) and it seems strange, statisticans have come up with ways to measure how confident one can be about certain odds being met.

For instance, I'm pretty sure the testing I used to do often required us to be 90% confident that a single-use item would have a failure rate of less than one in ten million. While a 100% confidence level would require us to have tested ten million items, at the 90% confidence level we only had to test about 22.

And yes, we did only test each item 22 times. I've always wondered what we would have done if the 23rd had failed - techinically, the item had passed the test.

No shit...

[kikta]

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

Torture Testing

[Gerry Gleason]

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.

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Infantry Proof

[Detritus]

That's tough to do. I once saw an electronics box from a tactical missile launcher in the repair shop. It made a sloshing noise when moved. Some bright G.I. had removed the cover from the dessicant cartridge holder and inserted a garden hose. The box did work after it was disassembled, dried out and reassembled.

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.

Re:Be more careful!

[Dun Malg]

As opposed to the ones the US and British seem to be using in Iraq over the last couple of days?

Pffff! Helicopters are inherently dangerous and malfunction-prone. ALL the armed services crash helicopters with unnerving regularity. When I was with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), we rode in helicopters a LOT, and I have personally been in THREE crashes/hard-landings. The problem with helicopters is that they're pretty much doomed if they lose power or if any of the control systems crap out. Compounding this is the fact that they vibrate like you wouldn't believe, which has a tendency to make things "come loose". In wartime, the helos are logging a LOT more hours than in garrison, so the number of failures resulting in crashes will go up. As awful as it sounds, a couple helicopters going down from mechanical failure is statistically inevitable on an operation of this scale.

Different laptops for different purposes

[Stonent1]

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.

But can it handle the heat??

[mr. methane]

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.