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Topic: Laptops for field engineers

John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 09-07-2001 09:39 AM

Sorry to drag this up again, but what speed laptop do you think will be required for theater servicing in the near future?

Right now, I have an 166mhz processor. Do you think that will still be OK for the next few years? It seems that all the "real" processing is done in the R2, CP500, QSC monitor or whatever. So I'm beginning to think I don't need anything faster. (It's all bottle-necked through a RS232 line.) Besides, now I can get good, feature-loaded cheap 166mhz processor laptops off of e-bay! I'm thinking of upgrading for features, not speed.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 09-07-2001 09:21 PM

A 166 Pentitum seems to be just fine for now.

I am still using a 486/50 for most of the theatre servicing issues....it has been just fine up until running WinDras on a CP-650...that was the first time that it's speed was not adequate...It is still just fine for tuning the CP-650 though!

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-07-2001 10:14 PM

I am useing a IBM thinkpad 365 P 133 and it hasn't crashed
I find that some of the faster laptops seem to have more problems with the R2 on communications errors my HP palmtop which is a 8086 processor never has a problem with the r2

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Jon Bartow
Master Film Handler

Posts: 287
From: Massachusetts
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 09-08-2001 11:37 AM

I'm using a AMD K6-2 380Mhz laptop. Never had any problems with any of the software. (the exeption being when I forget to boot in dos mode and try to run the R2 under windows.

)

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Greg Mueller
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1687
From: Port Gamble, WA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-08-2001 12:57 PM

My wife brought home a review of laptops from "Government Computer News" (she works in a city planning department) which picked the Dell Lattitude C800 as best pick. Specially good were the graphics speed and some other speed tests. It uses a PIII 800 and ran 50% faster on bench mark scores than the competition. The review was dated 8/27/01

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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/

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Don Sneed
Master Film Handler

Posts: 451
From: Texas City, TX, USA
Registered: Aug 2001

posted 09-10-2001 01:31 AM

Hey Gordon, I use a Panasonic CF-72 toughbook, no problem with the R-2, Dolby CP-500,CP-650,DA-20, SDDS (DFP-2000 & DFP-3000) , DTS-6AD, & Ultra-Stereo DSP-60, I live in Galeston Texas, but service the theaters in Guam, Japan, and the USA. I love this laptop, it has been the best, I had three other Dells that only lasted a year or so...plus it is a tough machine...hopes this helps

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-10-2001 07:02 PM

I am happy with the old thinkpad beats the hell out of the Toshibas
The only problem is the panasonics don't support some of the OS2 drivers and that is my base operating system

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Stefan Scholz
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 223
From: Schoenberg, Germany
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 09-11-2001 01:08 PM

I haverecently learned that Power Books by Mac with virtualPC do work quite well. And seem to be more reliable than my Dell notebook with Win 95. Did anybody try Mac? Does it work with the r2, as this normally requires a pure DOS machine.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-12-2001 03:48 PM

I'm seriously considering whether or not I should ditch this damn WinSmell laptop I'm stuck with but I have to run the DSP-60 and SDDS setup software among other things. My question is how to get the RS-232/serial cable to hook up to a P.B. and how Virtual PC handles serial cable communication.

The other thing is if or how I can find an application that'll connect to a CC:Mail server. That is the e-mail client I am stuck with.

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