Another way forward could be to use a standard low-noise, no-fan computer.
Typically these are also quite small and simple (lower risc of failures)
everything-on-one-board computers. Not all Pc's are alike the monsters
sitting under the desk keeping our feets warm.
/Bjarke
I remember reading an article in one of the sailing rags on how to build
your own boat computer using a flash memory card...no spinning disk, no
fan...minimal opportunity for salt-water corrossion.
Anybody remember what magazine and issue, or where to get such plans?
Glenn.
s/v Seawing
www.seawing.net
There are a few different ways of acheiving this these days. Personally
I'd take the bootable USB flashdrive approach. There are a number of
advantages to this - for one just carrying the USB device around allows
you to 'boot up' anywhere there is a compatible motherboard. A 2 gig
flashdrive would give enough capacity for a windows operating system
installation and a few small applications and can be had for under
£100 - In the US of A about 1/2 that. In the US a 4 gig drive is
around US$200 and an 8 gig can be had for $489 see
http://www.supermediastore.com/2gbpendrive.html
8 gig is more than my last business laptop had and it still serves me
well as a carry around tool!
The first thing you need is PC with a motherboard that is USB boot
compatible. There are several approaches - a standard motherboard, a
laptop, one of the boat PC's or car PC's on the market today or a
specialised small form factor PC such as PC104. The specialised
products will have more power efficiency since they are generally
designed to run from non mains supplies.
A google of 'Bootable USB' or 'boot from USB' will return a good list
of reading.
Try
http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~shaher/Bootable_USB.html
http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php
A helpful article can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx it is
interesting to note that this MS article is 17 months old and is
already well behind the technology curve.
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html
Ian
