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Rugged Computing News, Guides, and Technical History

Read practical and technical articles about COTS computers, rugged portable workstations, portable servers, storage, expansion slots, cooling, displays, networking, and the history of personal computing. The COTS Computers blog is written to help engineers, technical buyers, procurement teams, and curious computer users make better-informed decisions.

The Expansion Slot

Where computer hardware, industry history, engineering experience, and personal observations connect.

Portable graphics workstation - Dual RTX 2080Ti's

Portable graphics workstation - Dual RTX 2080Ti's

Myles KelvinBlog
Portable Workstation Three 24" Displays Dual RTX-2080Ti Dual Intel Xeon Platinum Dual Liquid coolers "MegaPAC-L3 - the most powerful portable workstation on the planet!" BUILT WITH BOLDGRID Ultimate portable workstation Dual RTX-2080Ti's Dual Intel Xeon Platinum processors Three 24" 4K or HD displays SUPER SWEET HEADING MegaPAC-L3 - The most powerful portable workstation The MegaPAC-L3 is the latest iteration of the hugely successful MegaPAC family. Available now with three 24" displays* in eith
Data diode dual server rack-mount

Data diode dual server rack-mount

Myles KelvinBlog
Data Diode Dual Server Portexa | BAE Data Diode Dual, fully independent motherboards Single Intel Xeon E5-1660-V4 or Dual E5-2687W-V3 / side 8 Cores, 3.1GHz base freq / 10 Cores 3.0GHz / side Up to 512GB RAM / side. Fiber connection to BAE Data Diode 2U Chassis, 18" deep The Portexa DDDS is a 2U rack-mountable dual server with space for a BAE data diode. It has been recently updated to perform effortlessly with Gigabit connections. Two completely independent computer systems flank the data diode
Largest 1U Rack-mount display

Largest 1U Rack-mount display

Myles KelvinBlog
Biggest 1U rack mount display 23" 1u rack-mount display. "We need to put a big display, keyboard, webcam, CAC card reader, microphone, and some audio pass-through connectors in a rack - which we will then transport and deploy in a tent. Oh - and the screen needs to be 23", HD. and... it all has to fit in a standard 1U rack-space." No problem! Find Out More 23" HD Display 1920 x 1080 23" diagonal display. 19" RacK, 1U 1U is 1.75" This thing is thin. Backlit KEYBOARD L or R mousepad CAC Readers Du
World's first portable with 120TB removable storage

World's first portable with 120TB removable storage

Myles KelvinBlog
Featured Video [embed height="630" width="1120"]https://youtu.be/he5mGqamqMA[/embed] 120TB+ Removable Storage Portable Power Now available with more than 120TB of removable SSD storage, the NetPAC-RHD16 is the most powerful portable server on the planet. Learn More NetPAC-RHD16 The most powerful portable server on the planet Maximum performance portable Most powerful portable: NetPAC-RHD-16 The brief? Make the most powerful portable computer on the planet. Oh - and all the drives must be removab
Which Intel processor?

Which Intel processor?

Myles KelvinBlog
Intel Xeon 6 Families i9 X Family i7 8th generation i5 No Hyper-threading Intel Xeon and i7/i9 chips compared - accurate(ish) as of June 2018 Intel makes processors form mobile to supercomputer. "Many computer users would be amazed at the diversity of processor offerings from Intel." Professional Applications Intel i7, i9, and Xeon For those looking for a higher cache limit, or more RAM supported by their processors, the Xeon, for the most part, will out-perform the i5/i7 models. The Xeon proces
PCIe Lanes

PCIe Lanes

Myles KelvinBlog
PCIe Lanes explained An introduction PCI Express, PCIe, or Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, can be a somewhat complicated computer specification. When your computer first boots, PCIe is what determines the devices that are attached or plugged into the motherboard. It identifies the links between each device, creates a traffic map, and negotiates the width of each link. This identification of devices and connections uses the same protocol as PCI, so no changes were required when changin
Portable computers with expansion slots

Portable computers with expansion slots

Myles KelvinBlog
Portable computers with expansion slots Expansion Slots There are still portable computers with expansion slots available. They are a niche product for users that need to connect to systems in the real world. Light-weight laptops with USB-C have a reasonable amount of processing power, and lots of bandwidth in the USB-C ports... but they are significantly more difficult to configure as test and measurement equipment than a rugged portable with PCIe expansion slots. (Legacy configurations support
Biggest screen portable computer

Biggest screen portable computer

Myles KelvinBlog
Maximum performance portable Triple screen 24" portable computer - Portexa FlexPAC-III-24 "The most powerful portable computer on the planet!" Tech Spec 3 x 24" 4K or 2K displays Dual Xeon Touch screen option Massive RAID Biggest Screen Portable - 3 x 24" There is no getting away from the fact that this is a big portable. It's the biggest screen portable! It's also the most powerful portable on the planet. Three 24" 2K or 4K displays and a full-sized motherboard which allows for up to dual Xeon
Transportable workstation with high capacity cooling system

Transportable workstation with high capacity cooling system

Myles KelvinBlog
Mil-Spec transportable workstation - MilPAC-III Dual Xeon workstation with video inputs and screen mirroring in daily use worldwide by the US Navy. The MilPAC-III is perfect for GeoINT, UAV integration, Video optimization and compression. Mil-Spec tested for shock, vibration, EMI, RFI, transport and Mil-Std 901D for torpedo strike. Now available with sunlight readable displays and a high capacity filtered cooling system. MilPAC-III Datasheet MilPAC-III Transportable workstation. Now available wi
Computer based portable test equipment

Computer based portable test equipment

Myles KelvinBlog
Computer based test equipment Portable computers with expansion slots offer a high performance solution to custom or low run-rate test and measurement applications. Computer based test equipment can be ready fast, and offer performance in excess of tradition equipment from test & measurement vendors. Portable PC's are now available with massive processing power thanks to server-grade technology. Dual Xeon processors, enormous RAM capacity (up to 1TB or more of RAM) and massive SSD drives that ar

About the COTS Computers Blog

Find technical explanations, historical context, and practical examples related to rugged and portable computing.

The blog covers portable computers, rugged workstations, deployable servers, storage, expansion hardware, displays, networking, USB, PCIe, and the history of personal computing.

It is intended for engineers, technical buyers, procurement professionals, field teams, and anyone researching how portable and rugged computer systems work. 

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