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Related: McLaren needs a 20-year-old Compaq laptop to maintain its F1 supercar http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-laptop-maintenance

Related: McLaren needs a 20-year-old Compaq laptop to maintain its F1 supercar http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-laptop-maintenance http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-...

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
McLaren decided to standardize on a conditional access card for security, which made sense back then, but it used a pcmcia interface. None of these are dealbreakers but it runs DOS which doesn't have modern drivers for USB adapters or new laptops. I imagine they could fix this in a variety of ways, but probably don't care and the number of old HP laptops compatible with this system vastly dwarf the number of F1's made, so there will never be a worry about not having one. Nor is this laptop customer facing, so its low priority to make it "look good." I also imagine booting up a hypervisor environment and dealing with dongles and adapters might be annoying/too technical/too buggy for the mechanics to have to deal with when they just want to work on a car and have an old but fool-proof laptop with almost no wear and tear ready to go.
- lmm 10y ago
  Could one run DosBOX or similar and have the host system pass-through PCMCIA (connected via a USB adapter or some such)?
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    My experience with passing through peripherals to VMs is that often it doesn't work very well. Earlier this year, I was doing some embedded systems work. The board could send serial data to the computer as a USB CDC device. It wouldn't work at all in Windows, or a Linux VM in Windows, as Windows wouldn't even recognise the device. So I suspect that it may not be as easy or as cheap to use DosBox or a VM as it is to just use old laptops.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
chadgeidel 10y ago
I was shocked when I read this a while back. I'm surprised they haven't changed the interface at least once. McLaren knows the full specification of the interface, has gobs of engineering talent, and customers that wouldn't bat an eye at tens of thousands of dollars in "upgrade costs" to maintain their cars. It seems like something that would be right in their wheelhouse.
asimuvPR 10y ago
I tune Porsches that require windows xp machines with an Rs232 port. I just buy a couple from ebay and keep stock of old parts (mostly old IBM t-series).
- takeda 10y ago
  I would imagine that VirtualBox + USB<->RS232 adapter would do the trick. Did you tried that.
  - asimuvPR 10y ago
    Doesn't work as well as it should for some reason. I've began to reverse engineer the software to try and port it to something newer. We could also buy newer ECUs but then we lose years of tuning.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Reminds me of a admin/support story from a university i ran into. Apparently one day the person was called on to look at a computer over at the physics department. When he got there, he found it to be a 486 running DOS hooked up to some particle sensor or other. The reason it had not been replaced, beyond the cost and the year needed to ensure that the new sensor gave comparable results to the old one, was that DOS gave them direct access to the hardware, while Windows had too many layers of indirection.
  - sgt 10y ago
    I am dabbling in changing my ECU map on my turbodiesel BMW and I specifically decided on not doing a Windows VM (the tuning software requires it for upload), because I am worried of timing issues when flashing the ECU via the cable. I did not make this choice randomly; in the past I've also had issues with USB timing issues through VirtualBox on interfaces that required very precise timing and had a serial conversion to an older circuit board.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

McLaren decided to standardize on a conditional access card for security, which made sense back then, but it used a pcmcia interface. None of these are dealbreakers but it runs DOS which doesn't have modern drivers for USB adapters or new laptops. I imagine they could fix this in a variety of ways, but probably don't care and the number of old HP laptops compatible with this system vastly dwarf the number of F1's made, so there will never be a worry about not having one. Nor is this laptop customer facing, so its low priority to make it "look good." I also imagine booting up a hypervisor environment and dealing with dongles and adapters might be annoying/too technical/too buggy for the mechanics to have to deal with when they just want to work on a car and have an old but fool-proof laptop with almost no wear and tear ready to go.

lmm 10y ago
Could one run DosBOX or similar and have the host system pass-through PCMCIA (connected via a USB adapter or some such)?
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  My experience with passing through peripherals to VMs is that often it doesn't work very well. Earlier this year, I was doing some embedded systems work. The board could send serial data to the computer as a USB CDC device. It wouldn't work at all in Windows, or a Linux VM in Windows, as Windows wouldn't even recognise the device. So I suspect that it may not be as easy or as cheap to use DosBox or a VM as it is to just use old laptops.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

chadgeidel 10y ago

I was shocked when I read this a while back. I'm surprised they haven't changed the interface at least once. McLaren knows the full specification of the interface, has gobs of engineering talent, and customers that wouldn't bat an eye at tens of thousands of dollars in "upgrade costs" to maintain their cars. It seems like something that would be right in their wheelhouse.

asimuvPR 10y ago

I tune Porsches that require windows xp machines with an Rs232 port. I just buy a couple from ebay and keep stock of old parts (mostly old IBM t-series).

takeda 10y ago
I would imagine that VirtualBox + USB<->RS232 adapter would do the trick. Did you tried that.
- asimuvPR 10y ago
  Doesn't work as well as it should for some reason. I've began to reverse engineer the software to try and port it to something newer. We could also buy newer ECUs but then we lose years of tuning.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Reminds me of a admin/support story from a university i ran into. Apparently one day the person was called on to look at a computer over at the physics department. When he got there, he found it to be a 486 running DOS hooked up to some particle sensor or other. The reason it had not been replaced, beyond the cost and the year needed to ensure that the new sensor gave comparable results to the old one, was that DOS gave them direct access to the hardware, while Windows had too many layers of indirection.
- sgt 10y ago
  I am dabbling in changing my ECU map on my turbodiesel BMW and I specifically decided on not doing a Windows VM (the tuning software requires it for upload), because I am worried of timing issues when flashing the ECU via the cable. I did not make this choice randomly; in the past I've also had issues with USB timing issues through VirtualBox on interfaces that required very precise timing and had a serial conversion to an older circuit board.