New laptop PC help

[Dynotuner]

Fujitsu Tablet PC with outdoor display for "pit lane" downloads. An outdoor display is something you can't do without once you've used one. For the rest of the time I still use the Dell D600 series or my new Lenovo. The Lenovo sports a serial and parallel port adapter that fits into the ultra-slim drive bay. It works perfectly - as if the ports were native to the machine. The Lenovo (Thinkpad) seems to be more robust in build quality than many of the other laptops. I was still able to order a new one this year with XP rather than Vista too.

Ed Senf
Engine Management Sales, Inc.

[Artstar]

For those using Macs, how do you get around the lack of the parallel port? Are there any USB to parallel port adapters out there or do you use the MoTeC UTC adapter?

I'm hoping for the parallel port solution since I already have a parallel CAN cable I've been using all this time with my existing Toshiba (at least, until the display gave up the ghost on me).

[figgie]

For those using Macs, how do you get around the lack of the parallel port? Are there any USB to parallel port adapters out there or do you use the MoTeC UTC adapter?

I'm hoping for the parallel port solution since I already have a parallel CAN cable I've been using all this time with my existing Toshiba (at least, until the display gave up the ghost on me).

Not sure what the capabilities of the virtual software is on the MAC. I am a computer person by day and we have issues mapping physical USB to the virtual machines natively (VMware ESX server).

The answer we came up with and works quite well

www.usb-over-network.com

install server software on the MAC.
Install client software on the virtual XP machine.

Connect UTC over USB to usb port on the MAC.

Map connected USB port to XP machine.

Run software on Virtual XP machine and call it a day.

BTW, this software is compatible with many things to include secure key dongles. We use it to keep the sentinel USB dongles for Pro-E from walking with the users.

[Artstar]

Cheers for the reply figgie but the problem here is not with the mapping of the USB port itself as the software Parallels Desktop handles that beautifully and I would expect the UTC to be no different.

However, my concern is that I already have a MoTeC parallel to CAN cable and would like to continue to use it in an attempt to save myself some cash by not being required to buy the UTC adapter.

So in which case, is there a USB to parallel port adapter around for a Mac that will work for a MoTeC CAN cable given that a lot of USB to parallel port adapters in the Mac world seem to work only with printers and limited ones at that?

[figgie]

Cheers for the reply figgie but the problem here is not with the mapping of the USB port itself as the software Parallels Desktop handles that beautifully and I would expect the UTC to be no different.

However, my concern is that I already have a MoTeC parallel to CAN cable and would like to continue to use it in an attempt to save myself some cash by not being required to buy the UTC adapter.

So in which case, is there a USB to parallel port adapter around for a Mac that will work for a MoTeC CAN cable given that a lot of USB to parallel port adapters in the Mac world seem to work only with printers and limited ones at that?

There is a reason for that. Parallel port programming to serial streaming is extremly complex because you can get out of sync messages and the serial streamer (serial, usb, firewire, CAN etc) needs to buffer those packets until their time comes.

The other problem

CAN is a native serial stream.
USB is a native serial stream.
Parallel is not.

That means two conversion must take place.

From serial to parallel and then from Parallel back to serial. The room for errors is huge.

Now I know they make USB to parallel cables (USB to DB25 and not USB to IEEE-1284). You can try those but I would not hold my breath on them working correctly!

[Artstar]

Which is exactly why I was looking for a faint glimmer of hope that the delays inherent in USB-based port replicators would not severely affect the performance of the CAN cable as they do not in native port replicators.

That said, it looks like the CAN cable will have to go on eBay now. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

[stevieturbo]

Are there any simple wireless solutions for connecting a laptop, to the ecu ?

Could that be used to get around any cable/port differences ?

[Artstar]

Are there any simple wireless solutions for connecting a laptop, to the ecu ?

Could that be used to get around any cable/port differences ?

While they may be fine in radio telemetry, to actually perform tuning work on a car on the fly using wireless, I'd dare say that the latencies involved would be far too great to be considered feasible for that kind of work.

I'm just going to bite the bullet, buy the UTC and eBay off the parallel port CAN cable.

[Cooper72]

I have tested Macs using Paralells and it works great. The only issue that I had was the resolution was not quite up to par. I have not tried using Bootcamp on OSX Leopard yet whether you can change the screen going that route or not.

A great alternative to for a laptop is Panasonic Toughbooks. I have recently purchased a Panasonic CF-T5 which is a great little laptop. it was an item that I scoped out on Overstock.com which was refurbished toughbook from Panasonic.

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Panasonic-T5-Rugged-Touch-Screen-Laptop-Refurbished/3073550/product.html?

The truth is that it arrived in imaculate condition without a single scratch. It came with XP pro and so far it has been tested to be a great mule for tuners. Light weight (3 lbs) and has a unique hand strap so getting in and out of tight racecar cockpits is virtually no issue. I have tested it using the M4-M48, ADL2, PDM, M800 3.41. No issues so far. The DOS software screen refreshes to fullscreen no probs. I use a USB to serial for the older generation softwares, without any issues.

-Nate

really need helps from u guys, I'm running windows pro with parallel on my macbookpro, but I've problem with LAN connection when using motec ADL3 dash manager. can someone solve this for me. I'm new with mac

[Cooper72]

Really need helps from u guys, I'm running windows pro with parallel on my macbookpro, but I've problem with LAN connection when using motec ADL3 dash manager. can someone solve this for me. I'm new with mac