What's your tuning PC?

I was almost going to stick this into the computer upgrade thread but then thought about it and didn't.

For one, I'd like to ask is anyone using a tablet or phone or something like that to run DHP or HPT?
I was using a few different laptops with different operating systems and whatnot but I've settled on one that is perfect for my needs. I picked up an IBM Thinkpad T30 off craigslist a while back for bit under $100 as I recall.

this thing

I'm lovin' it! It was produced in 2001 and my primary reason for getting it besides my love for thinkpads in general is it's the last model with a serial (RS232) port which I use for DHP. I've used usb adapters in the past and I haven't had the best luck with them. The other reason is it's pretty ideally sized to have in the car - 14" traditional 4:3 display. Also Thinkpads all have the light that shines down at the keyboard with is great in the car at night! The laptop is old but plenty fast out of the box for any tuner we'd be using for this car. In fact with windows xp, it's fast as hell with the upgrades. I've put in a Kingspec 32gb SSD, a 2.5GHz cpu (faster than any you could order the laptop new with), and a SXGA+ display - 1400x1050 instead of the usual 1024x768. That gives you a lot more viewing space to look at your tables and graphs for tuning. As of now, the ram is still the 512mb it came with. Since I use it for tuning affairs only, I don't think it ever uses much over half of that. Only downside is the battery is pretty shot as to be expected with any old laptop but car chargers are readily available on ebay for around $10 and it works fine.

What are you all using? I know there's a certain Dell model that's very popular..?

I use Parallels on a MacBook Pro (work's computer). It's been very easy to keep my tuning OS and files over the years even though the computer keeps getting better! Have to make sure you have a USB tuner or else a good USB-serial dongle.

MacBook Pro 13

Parallels? Is that running windows under the mac OS deal?

turtleman wrote:

Parallels? Is that running windows under the mac OS deal?

yes. It's an X86 emulator. When it's running you can install just about any OS. I have ChromeOS, W2K and XP all in different Parallels files. You can install Linux/whatever too. It very nicely shares my USB devices - when I plug in something new I get asked if I wanted to connect this device to the MacOS or which Windows OS I wanted to see it. It's very impressive.

I use VM Ware Fusion running XP on MacOS.