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Mr. Sandman · 01-05-2004, 11:07 AM

If you have a "big boat" with an enclosed cabin...a built in computer or laptop computer is the way to go hands down. I know of several guys that use nobletec and LOVE it. Maptec is also very good and priced cheaper. Nobeltec has some added features like automatic routing...(click where you want to got and it plots the best course..) both units support autopiolts as well so it can steer the course.
As far as the "screen" ...what you pay for are "NITS" a brightness rating. Laptops are hard to see in open sunlight. Some cabins though block out direct light so it is very visable. A T-Top helps but it is not perfect. They make super bright marine screens but they run about 3K for a 15" monitor.

My friend has a 57' west bay and has several 19" regular monitors in the pilot house and a 15" superbright monitor on the bridge. He runs nobletec (but has a sseprate screen for radar) (nobeltech supports radar overlay)

For the small boatman and open boat...IMO compuers will be here as well. You can do it but if you want to buy something off the self today it is costly. I have been playing around with putting together a solid state computer (more or less) using a pen drive as a primary boot disk. These are now avaialbe up to 2 GB via USB2.0 and bootable so you can install and run an simple OS. What this means is that you should be able to put together a simple computer with few or no moving parts. Software is install and runs off of the pen drive. I have not worked on it the last few months but I have obtained some parts recently...a waterproof keyboard and trackball. It is a matter of putting the pieces together and working out the details...maybe later this winter. I think I can get it to work with a normal flat screen monitor pretty cheap.
To be honest, I have lost some interest in this as my current system seems to meet my needs. BUT if I were a boat manufacturer I would be building computers (that could be upgraded)into the boat...the possible software options are endless and very flexible. But todate, little software has been written...here is a place one can make some $ IMO.

01-05-2004, 11:07 AM	#16
Mr. Sandman Registered User iTrader: (0) Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 7,649	If you have a "big boat" with an enclosed cabin...a built in computer or laptop computer is the way to go hands down. I know of several guys that use nobletec and LOVE it. Maptec is also very good and priced cheaper. Nobeltec has some added features like automatic routing...(click where you want to got and it plots the best course..) both units support autopiolts as well so it can steer the course. As far as the "screen" ...what you pay for are "NITS" a brightness rating. Laptops are hard to see in open sunlight. Some cabins though block out direct light so it is very visable. A T-Top helps but it is not perfect. They make super bright marine screens but they run about 3K for a 15" monitor. My friend has a 57' west bay and has several 19" regular monitors in the pilot house and a 15" superbright monitor on the bridge. He runs nobletec (but has a sseprate screen for radar) (nobeltech supports radar overlay) For the small boatman and open boat...IMO compuers will be here as well. You can do it but if you want to buy something off the self today it is costly. I have been playing around with putting together a solid state computer (more or less) using a pen drive as a primary boot disk. These are now avaialbe up to 2 GB via USB2.0 and bootable so you can install and run an simple OS. What this means is that you should be able to put together a simple computer with few or no moving parts. Software is install and runs off of the pen drive. I have not worked on it the last few months but I have obtained some parts recently...a waterproof keyboard and trackball. It is a matter of putting the pieces together and working out the details...maybe later this winter. I think I can get it to work with a normal flat screen monitor pretty cheap. To be honest, I have lost some interest in this as my current system seems to meet my needs. BUT if I were a boat manufacturer I would be building computers (that could be upgraded)into the boat...the possible software options are endless and very flexible. But todate, little software has been written...here is a place one can make some $ IMO.