PC BASED Marine GPS/FISHFINDER
 

Anyone ever look into using these on the boat? I have been able to get a solid state PC from work and have look at the CRUZPRO fishfinder. Haven't been able to find any others. Seems somewhat straight forward if you have a PC tha can handle the condition onboard.

I looked into it a long time ago before I got a chartplotter, probalem was 1) getting a mchine that woud stand up to boat conditions, they are out there but very pricy and 2) finding a remote display that would also tsand up to conditions. I decided I was better off with dedicated marine electronics units.

If I didnt have access to a solidstate machine from the office, at no cost I wouldn't even be considering it myself. However, with the PC Based platform, I could upgrade software easily, rather than looking at a 2-3 year replacement cycle for a dedicated unit.

For GPS Chart Plotting Software I would recommend Fugawi. Long before I had a chart plotter I had an old Ibm Thinkpad with a Garmin 12 GPS via serial cable. I worked good for 2 whole seasons, until the Hard drive heads crashed. :)

That's why I have a solidstate disk.