Portable 6300 - Computer: HP EliteDesk 705-G1 Mini Desktop

Steve K9ZW

As I put together the core components for a ruggedized Flex-6300 I wanted to select a computer to use when the radio was not out with a laptop. Just brought in a HP EliteDesk 705-G1 Mini Desktop, AMD A8-7600B 2.2GHz Quad-Core, 8GB DDR3, 256GB Solid State Drive, 802.11n, Win7Pro 64-Bit. more at blog: http://k9zw.wordpress.com http://www.amazon.com/HP-EliteDesk-Desktop-A8-7600B-Quad-Core/dp/B01DJQW8KQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460943509&sr=8-1&keywords=HP+EliteDesk+705-G1+Mini+Desktop,+AMD+A8-7600B+2.2GHz+Quad-Core,+8GB+DDR3,+256GB+Solid+State+Drive,+802.11n,+Win7Pro+64-Bit Nice little PC that seems to do the job! 73 Steve K9ZW

k3Tim

That PC does look pretty nice...

Thanks for pointing it out.

Best,

k3Tim

Peter K1PGV

Looks like a good choice, at an impressive price point. extra points for being willing to go with AMD. When you put this into your ruggedized configuration, how will you cool It? Isn't this particular unit fanless? If so, that'd mean it's surrounded by open cool air.

Walt - KZ1F

Yep, I concur with your thoughts on that Peter. But you know what's really interesting? I do not know the exact breakdown, where you might, but I believe about half the price of that is for Windows 7 Pro. Sort of enticed by comments made by Simon and/or Enzo and/or Sal, I had researched small high performance fanless computers and it struck me those without an OS were about half the price of those with Windows. That seems to be supporting my findings on replacing the win10 disaster that came on my replacement PC with retail Windows .

Peter K1PGV

Walt - KZ1F

Well, first, yes, that was a bit of hyperbole. However, when downgrades to Windows 10 are force applied the world-wide installed base of 250 million is taking great license with numbers. If I am not mistaken (it has been awhile) rumor had it that Windows Server 2003 was, in fact, the same kernel as WinXP or maybe it was Win2000 but with somewhat different code paths, dictated by registry settings. While my experience is WinXP was Microsoft's best running consumer OS, I don't believe it was near as stable as their commercial OS Windows Server series, Windows 2012 etc. I suspect, albeit quite uncertain, that Windows10 has no commercial equivalent code base.

I am certainly willing to stipulate one day Windows 10 may well be a credible rival to WinXP's stellar record. My experience, first hand and otherwise, is that it currently is not. I do recall a comment you had made about the state of Edge not long ago. As far as I am concerned it is currently incredibly buggy and/or brittle. My sense is that sentiment is shared by many informed people. So, from a marketing perspective, forcing a buggy, still beta, consumer product on unwilling and/or unsuspecting people, is 'a disaster'. And, that also applies from a purely technical perspective as well.

That said, for consumers who volunteer for the Microsoft beta program they deserve what they get. I don't give those folks rights to complain, not that they need or solicit my permission.  

If I were vested at all in having a robust and solid Microsoft Windows I'd spend an extra $250 (or whatever) and buy a retail Win7 and proceed to **** the Windows 10 image Dell forced on me away. From a marketing perspective to force Dell, and others, to put the latest Windows on every machine they sell, good for Microsoft, bad for consumers. JMHO.

And, finally, apologies to Steve. My comment was largely agreeing with Peter on your successful "go bag" environment. It was not my intent to turn this into a rank session on W10, which is such a target rich environment.

Steve K9ZW

As an FYI this little PC most likely won't travel outside of the shack.  

Looking at a CF30 i5 Toughbook Touchscreen for that duty.  

As for which Windows, as a general preference I prefer to have the the most current, yet stable, versions on my machines.  I don't have enough time to play "bleeding edge" by doing early adoption, and I certainly can't be spending time tinkering to keep a long-in-the-tooth old operating system running.

That said when it works, don't break it by upgrading is the balance.  As such I did have a OS2-Warp system running until two years ago.  Served the particular task to well, was isolated from the outside world so it didn't have to play at all with anything else, and until the custom hardware became unreliable there was no reason to touch it.  Downed that system once a year to clean and never an issue.

Back to the little HP - these are offered on specials fairly often, and I was able to snag this one new for $320.24 with tax and shipping, which was a lot better than the typical $499.00 plus tax.  

73

Steve
K9ZW

Walt - KZ1F

In the next week or so I will receive my Pine64. This Thursday 16.04 goes GA and that on the Pine will be my shack control such that I can talk with it from Linux, my preferred OS, or even Windows. In this way XPSSDR can control the shack remotely. Steve, I commend your taste in solid OSs...For the longest time OS/2 was my preferred dev and system environment, stock analysis, PMNOS, OSNOS, and kz1f.ampr.org.

Steve K9ZW

Things have so moved forward since the days I was helping install Ferranti Argus Pro PC running CP/M+86 or some such.

Interestingly Ferranti's technology is the grandfather stuff to our FlexRadio Flex-6x00 series as their PCs used the ULA (Uncommitted Logic Array) which I think was a sort of half-baked/incomplete base like the FPGA but was hardwired somehow rather than the "FP" part of a FPGA.  I think some of their small scale computer stuff flew on at least on of the OSCAR satellites along the way.

Now we have more processing power in a lot of promotional items like some of the calculators I've been given. 

For the field deployable I am wondering if there is a printer than would be consider "field robust"?  

73

Steve

K9ZW