Portable Data Collection Terminals?

Manuka asks: "Does anyone know of a good system that is reasonably rugged, about the same size and dimesions as a notebook, only with a touchscreen panel facing outwards, rather than inwards (keyboard optional)? The ability to run Linux would be ideal! I've had a helluva time finding anything like this, the closest I've come is the NemaLITE system from Laversab, which is beefy, 10 lbs, and more than twice what I'm willing to pay for something like this. It does not need to be excessively powerful, as it will be running a basic database application. "

Rugged Laptop

[SuperGeek]

apparently they withstand tornados and being run over by trucks ..

panasonic's tough book [panasonic.com]


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This probably isn't what you were looking for, but

[hey!]

We wrestled with the same issue.

In the end, we chose the PalmPilot.

Advantages: Cheap, Small (ergo less vulnerable), easy to program and to integrate, easy to use, comes with other useful apps like e-mail and expense reports, has serial port for GPS reception and can be got with an integrated bar code reader. The platfor is not going to disappear overnight like the Newton did (what happens to your project when the supplier goes belly up?). It has "curb appeal", as they say in real estate. Recently, I showed the palm to a user who was saying he didn't have money for even one handheld. The next day we got an order for a dozen.

Disadvantages: You have to plan the application to fit in a very small screen. No removable storage yet. Application needs to be planned carefully to fit in limited memory and processing resources (e.g. no mega record tables that are linearly searched).


The removable storage is a nice thing, because if you destroy the unit you can just plug it into another unit to recover your data.

We considered ruggedized computers, but the Pilot's light weight means that in most cases you're actually less vulnerable than a ruggedized computer. I've dropped the palm on to carpets numerous times with no problem, although a concrete floor is pretty dicey, it probably will survive if its in a case. The small form factor helps too.The problem with field computing is people having to juggle an awkward piece of equipment the size of a large book and the approximate weight ofa brick. As a result, it gets put in places it shouldn't be, like on the dashboard of a truck where it can slide off. With the palm, you just slip it into your pants pocket.

The palms are so cheap releative to slate style computers the main survival issue is what happens to your data if you absolutely destroy the unit. The unit is lightweight and has no moving parts other than the buttons, so the most vulnerable thing is the glass. If your glass is broken, you can still hotsynch and get your data, unless you have found some way of thoroughly destroying the unit like dropping it into a deep fat fryer.

sorta

[cswan]

I've seen units that resemble the NEMAlite (or maybe it was an earlier version of it?) being used by, I think, RPS truck drivers. They tote these little doodads around for confirming their shipments, and (I assume) for dispatching.

The unit I saw had one PCMCIA slot (holding a card attached to an LED barcode pen), 16Meg of RAM, dualscan touch screen, and some strange windows-based typing software. Yes, the whole unit was Windows-based, but this unit only weighed about five pounds or less (didn't have 'expansion slots' like the NEMAlite does.)

Unless you are pretty good with installing linux from a serial port, I don't know if a unit like this would be an option (there was no keyboard port on the unit.)

Try Extech

[Snock]

I'm not sure if they still make portable datalogging gear but I have a couple dozen or so of their portable dot matrix printers (4x4x2" run from batteries) and they're pretty decent.

If you're looking for a wireless terminal...

[Anonymous Coward]

and you have MS Terminal Server and/or Winframe (I know, those are costly and not OSS), you can try Wyse's discontinued Winterm 2930 [wyse.com]. This is a 3lb wireless terminal that connects to the Winframe box and has complete control over its session. 8.5" 256 color touch-screen, communicates at 2.4 Ghz with max bandwidth of 1.6 mbps... Not bad from what I've seen, but it can't do linux (unless someone has ported the ICA-3 protocol).


************************************************** ***
My nick's Cryogenic, but I haven't received my password yet!!

Ask Bill Gates

[citmanual]

As I recall, during his first year at school (or maybe it was high school), Bill Gates and Paul Allen invented a traffic data getter thingy. I think it printed out paper that then got analyzed in the standard punch card method.

Just an interesting tidbit.

Larger option: Vadem Clio

[bko]

Vadem (http://www.vadem.com/ [vadem.com]) has made a WinCE machine called the Clio. They are about 3.5 pounds and have a design which includes both a keyboard AND handwriting recognition, and the form factors for both in a single unit.

They run between $700-$1000 (if you're not afraid of a refurb, they're $600).

They can boot both NetBSD and Linux, but doing so renders the slate form factor useless since there's no handwriting recognition software for Linux.

I have one that I use for taking notes and the like.

They aren't ruggedized so they're not great from that perspective, but they *are* cheap so depending on application you may be able to just replace brokens.

Since they have a PCMCIA slot, you could have people write out to a compact flash card to preserve data even if the unit fails.

Anyway, I've been pretty happy with the unit so far. Getting it to sync to BSD/Linux is evil evil evil with the built in apps but if you're writing your own app it should be fine as long as you go Ethernet or PCMCIA. Syncing via the built in sync requires Windows... :(