Got Getac?
27 April 2017 | St. Marys, GA
Capn Andy/Early Summer Heat
Once again I fell off the computer-holic wagon. I had broken the display on the Toughbook CF-52 that I hoped would be my new work-a-day computer. It wouldn’t have Navigatrix, but the Ubuntu operating system and less emphasis on nautical applications. When I started to work on it mid-winter, the display looked funny, so I took it apart to see if it was a loose cable issue. It became a broken cable issue when I fumbled it and tore a ribbon cable. The cable was part of the display, so I had to get another.
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The Chinese vendor sent me the wrong part and it took a long time to get here. Then they sent me the correct part, but when it arrived I saw it was the same wrong part. So I had two displays, brand new, that didn’t apply to any computer I had. I ordered again from another vendor in China, this happened in mid-March and by the middle of April I was convinced the part was lost somewhere. The tracking information never left China and ended on March 19. So, after convincing the vendor that the part was lost, I got my money back.
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Now I ordered the part yet again from an American, and it cost a bit more, but it will probably actually get here. I tried different ways of searching for Toughbook parts, thinking I could probably get a whole parts computer that had a good display, but had some other problem, and was then cheap, “not working or for parts”.
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I was tired and mistakenly clicked on a Toughbook, but it was not the CF-52, it was the CF-C1. What is this? It was at $.99 with a couple days to go in the auction. I looked it up at CNET and another pc review site. It was a very rugged Toughbook, water resistant keyboard that drains water off if it lands there. It was specified to keep running when dropped 30 inches onto the floor. Well, that would be a nifty computer in pilothouse. The CF-52 can’t stand water and when mine was tossed off the chartable off Frying Pan Shoals, it’s display looked like a kaleidoscope. I ended up buying a CF-C1 for about 60 bucks and 12 bucks shipping. It was complete except for the charging supply.
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Another Toughbook caught my eye, another one that I hadn’t heard of before. It was the Getac Toughbook. Not Panasonic. Much more expensive new, but there were a ton of them available on eBay, ex-military surplus. They all had no hard disk drive, no battery, no charger.
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The specifications and reviews were amazing. These computers meet all MISPEC standards. Even the toughest Panasonics only list those items in the MILSPEC standard that they can meet. The Getac can withstand 100 kgs on its case, so if I wanted to stomp on my computer, it would still carry on without missing a beat. They are fanless and dissipate heat with an elaborate copper core. They have heaters in case it’s cold outside, and heat up the components to keep them running, if their manufacturers can’t provide disk drives, for instance, that can’t run at 40 below. Water is no problem. Shock is ignored. This laptop would be the one you could beat all your other laptops to death with.
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It was hard to resist the urge to buy one. A new one would fall into the $2500 plus range, easily going up into the 6, 7, 8 thousand dollar range. I felt good buying one for about $100. When it arrived, we marveled at the construction. Every opening for USB ports, or any other opening, were secured with a little waterproof door. One door had a latch that had its own micro-latch. It was like someone had a bad experience on a chopper in Afghanistan, so now there is a latch on a latch. No dust or water can get into the computer. There are no ventilation holes for a fan to cool it. It cools like a big piece of rock, it has thermal mass. It is massive for a laptop computer, weighing about 8 lbs.
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We found the Panasonic toughbook power supply would power up the Getac, and we put in a USB stick with the latest Ubuntu operating system. It booted up and ran like a Hummer on the Autobahn. The local boatyard computer expert was salivating while we surfed the web and looked at videos on YouTube. Some computer displays, most computer displays, distort colors and shadings if you are not centered on the screen. Thus, if you are off to one side, it’s hard to make out images. Not this one.
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The downside is that all the stuff it didn’t come with, like hard drive, battery, charge cable, are proprietary and cost quite a lot. I do know how to make a parallel cable and I think I have the information available to make a hard drive cable for this computer, and then hook up an SSD, maybe a little 256 gig to it. If I do, I will post how to make it.
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The photo is from http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_getac_b300.html.