Out of Curiousity..what are the Minimum Requirements for a Lap top to Run a Stand alone?..(I am out of my League here so any pertinent Info would be appreciated).I am thinking Why get a "super laptop"(like a Laptop costing 2k or More,Hypathetically) if a small OLDER laptop,say PII or PIII processor will work,and what OS should the Laptop have?..thanks guys.Dave.

 

the os can be windows 95 for all i care, as long as it supports the program and meet the space requirements. and as for the laptop i would spring for the decent good one cause you want a comp that will keep up with everything..such as readings and tach..and all that stuff. what kind of ems were you looking into..?

:AA:

 

I run a PI 133 running WIN98, it's slow at loading maps, but you don't do it often, try to find one with a 9 pin serial port, it's cheaper in the long run, and it will work for sure, the serial to usb adaptors don't work all the time, and add to the cost. I think my tuning laptop cost like 100 bucks.

 

My laptop is a P1-133. Running Windows 98SE. Works like lightning for the DOS based E6X software. It runs Halwin X ok.

The E8 and up versions of Halwin need more power, though. I think PII minimum.

 

For the most part, the hardware requirements of most tuning software is minimal as long as there is a serial port on the machine. For years I used a Pentium 75 w/ 48 MB of RAM. Some of the newer software does perform better on a faster CPU though. For example, Megatune really likes a machine faster then 233 MHz and don't even consider running MegaLogViewer (Megasquirt's log analysis software) on anything less then a fast P3 (it uses Java, so it's slow).

 

Serial ports are hard to come by on anything less than ~6yrs old - they basically disappeared from laptops at the end of the PIII era. You can add a serial port via cardbus adapters, or for the new ExpressCard slot for the newest laptops http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.p...ctID=9721&SID=

You could probably pick up an old PII or PIII laptop for the cost of the serial adapter though.

 

those serial-to-USB adapters work fine, i have a $10 one off eBay and it has worked all the time for me.
but yeah, an older laptop should be fine for most tuning software.
if you want to get a new one you can get them for under $400 these days, and they will be plenty fast enough.

 

I second the statement about PCMCIA/Cardbus serial adapters. I've always had issues with USB adapters, but never my Startech PCMCIA adapter. It has real UARTs instead of the software based emulation provided by USB adapters. A bit pricey though at $80 wholesale but it does provide two ports...