Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

Post all questions and information about the CF-27 in here.
Message
Author
Sensible Teapot
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:50 pm

Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#1 Post by Sensible Teapot »

Or is it just that CF-27 owners never have problems that need solving?
I hope that's it, but I somehow doubt it. lol
OK, who am I?
I'm Steve and I live in the North West of England. Married, 3 grown kids and retired.
My CF-27 is a very strange creature and not standard by any means.
The model number in full is CF-27EJ6K3EE. It has a Pentium 2 chip which runs at 300 mhz and 128 mb of on-board RAM + a 256 mb stick in the slot making a total of 384. It has a DVD drive and a 10.75" screen which is NOT a touchscreen now and never was. It also has a WWAN connection extendable ariel.
To connect to the web, I use a Netgear 54MbpsWireless PC card model WG511 v2. People who know about these things will scoff and say that this wireless card requires a minimum spec of a Pentium 3 .... Not true. OK, that's what it says on the box but it still works on my CF-27.
As for software, it came as standard with Win 98SE and that works fine but I have a dual boot system and the other OS is Ubuntu Linux. I only put that on here yesterday and it runs a little slower than I would like but at least things seem to work OK. I'll experiment for a few days and then remove the Win 98SE OS and see if it gets any better.

That's all for now except to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Cheers,
Steve

User avatar
Silver Trooper
Posts: 683
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:21 am
Location: Summerville, South Carolina

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#2 Post by Silver Trooper »

Welcome to the forum and the same wishes to you and yours! You ae probably one of the few (if not the only) that still uses a CF-27 on a regular basis. Most other members have gone past the 28 to 29's and several have even gone all the way to the 30. I have a couple of 28's, m34's, 29's and 18's. My daily driver is a 52 and I have a 74 I use for traveling. Most everyone on this forum has at least two or three, and many have more than they care to admit. Yes, it is a disease and it spreads like a plague, but we all love it. Again, welcome and don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have (if it is not something already covered in one of the stickies).
One CF-52, four CF-18's, 4.5 CF-28's, one CF-29, five CF-M34's, two CF-37's, one CF-P2 and two CF-P1's. There are also two Getac A320T's, one Fieldpac and two IBM Transnotes. Not to mention the AMD 5600 CPU with three monitors and several HP PDA's. Whew! Must quit buying...no, must have MORE! Then there are the weapons...

Ineptocracy: A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

User avatar
Rob
Toughbooktalk Founder
Posts: 3575
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:23 pm
Contact:

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#3 Post by Rob »

I sold a few 27s about 3 years back and even 3 years ago they were VERY VERY dated! Just to old to do anything with... I would agree that a P2@300 is MORE than enough to drive a PCMCIA WIFI card and anyone that says you NEED a P3 is an idiot! That laptop that you got should actually run Win2k (use the msconfig from XP to clear out the junk programs from starting with the computer so that it will boot faster).

Welcome!!!
~Rob - Vice President - Rugged Depot~
~Cell: (630)/300-8877~
~Owner - Toughbooktalk~
~Fully rugged Toughbook user since April 18th 2005~
~FZ-40ACAAHKM - Primary Toughbook / Workstation as of 7/29/22
~Win10 Pro (Win11 DG), Intel Core i5-1145G7 (up to 4.4GHz), vPro, 14.0" FHD Gloved Multi Touch, 16GB, 1TB Samsung SSD, Intel Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, 4G EM7690, GPS, Quad Pass (BIOS Selectable), Mic and Infrared 5MP Webcam, Standard Battery, TPM 2.0, Emissive Backlit Keyboard, Dual Batteries, USB A + HDMI + Serial X-PAK, Shoulder Strap, Flat~
~AT&T Business 1GB Fiber 1GB/1GB business static line~
~Gamber & Johnson Platinum Partner~

http://www.toughbooktalk.com
http://downloads.toughbooktalk.com/
http://www.rugged575.com - 300' UHF GMRS Radio Repeater
http://www.crete600.com - 310' UHF Linked GMRS Radio Repeater


~Emergency preparedness starts with reliable communication systems above all. Pretend the internet and cell phones didn’t exist, how will you communicate? If you’re interested in learning more, ask me!~

Sensible Teapot
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:50 pm

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#4 Post by Sensible Teapot »

Hi Guys (That includes all Guyesses)
I have been lax trying stuff on my CF-27 but I have my excuses all lined up and ready to use.
I have been doing Christmassy type things.
My wife wanted her dining room table back, (So selfish of her. Has she never heard of "trays"?)
My proper excuse is that I bought some stuff off eBay.uk to use with this Toughbook and until it gets here, I'm kinda screwed.
I also won an auction for 3 more laptops including 2 Toughbooks and if you think the CF-27 is old, wait 'til you see these babies, lol. One is a Fujitsu Lifebook Series "C" P3 but we don't mention that one. The next one is a Panasonic Toughbook CF-35 and the other is a CF-41.
I know what you're thinking .... "This guy's an idiot" and you may well be right. The thing is that they cost me, including postage, a TOTAL of £13.98. That's about $20 FOR ALL 3. EBay item # 170418642044
The good news is that when they arrived just before Christmas, all 3 worked. I don't mean they all fired up to the XP desktop but it was almost as good. They each got as far as you would expect considering that they don't have a hard drive between them.
So, apart from the 3 laptops, I also bought 3 x 6gb hard drives but they are not here yet.

As for me using this CF-27 on a day to day basis, that's not strictly true. I'm not a masochist, for Gawd's sake. For daily use I have a Compaq desktop, a Sony Vaio laptop and an Advent Netbook. I didn't buy the Toughbook to use for normal PC stuff. I bought it for one job and one job only. To write the novel that I know is inside me and trying to get out. They may not suit everybody but the keyboard on this CF-27 is perfect for me.
As for getting a newer version. It's possible but only if it has the same look as the CF-27. I mean, what is the point of buying a Toughbook that looks like any other laptop out there?
Think of it this way, would you buy an SUV (that's a 4x4 in UK) that looks like a Toyota Prius?
No, of course not. So why buy a Toughbook that looks like a wimp?
Cheers,
Steve

Fool in the Desert
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:51 am

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#5 Post by Fool in the Desert »

Hi Steve,

As you know from another forum, you are not alone in the world. I disagree with Rob that the 27 is "just to old to do anything with". Mind, that may be something to do with my age as well!

I run a Cf-27 Model No. CF-YCZC276E, Pentium II 298Mhz with 64mb on board RAM and 128mb in the expansion slot. Wireless connectivity is provided via an iqsystems "ultra high speed" 54g notebook adapter (PCMCIA card). I use two hard drives, which I swap, depending upon my use at the time.

One is a 10gb Hitachi which runs Win2000. I use this principally for running GPS which I will expand on later.

The other is a 40gb Toshiba. I took this out of a CF-29 that I bought recently, firstly because it appeared not to be working, but mainly because I wanted to upgrade the 29 to a larger capacity anyway. Just out of interest, I stuck it in the 27, and it booted up straight away - running XP SP3 which was already loaded on it! This take about 90 seconds to boot from cold, even without stripping any of the crap out of it. I know this may seem like a long time to some, but to someone who once spent 2000 quid (of someone else's money) on a Dell 286 which was the dog's bollox at the time, 90 seconds is relatively quick. And then maybe patience also has something to do with age - I can make a coffee while the computer boots.

I've had this CF-27 for over 5 years now and it has never let me down, whether being used in wet muddy fields in Wales, sub-zero temperatures in Scotland or as at present, in 50C+ in the Sahara. I can honestly say I have never had a single issue with it - even the battery is still good for about 1 hour when running just my GPS in Win2k. Considering I bought it for less than 50GBP (it didn't have a drive caddy so the seller listed it as spares or repairs), I think I've had my money's worth. I've added a DVD drive module, a 4GB Hitachi microdrive (for storing all my GPS maps), and I have various other utilities that I can use via USB or PCMCIA interfaces.

As I said, my principal use is for GPS at present, (although I still use it for routine word processing and spreadsheet duties when I'm away from base). For this, I use a Deluo Universal USB receiver (the magentic type that goes on the roof of you vehicle) and Fugawi software. This combination works flawlessly and is surprisingly accurate. My only gripe is that you can't get maps to load automatically when moving from one sheet to another. At the moment, I'm playing around with Oziexplorer, which offers this facility. I keep over 100 georeferenced maps, covering the part of Libya I'm working in, loaded on the microdrive. These are .gif files of about 1.5MB each, so they are a little slow to load, but I can live with this. I also have a little utility that records waypoints/time continuously, so that I can georeference all my photographs back in camp. In the UK, the Deluo/CF-27 combo works perfectly with Autoroute 2007 and probably with many other similar programmes. Much better than a 2" TomTom stuck on the windscreen!

Internet access out here is via a satellite provider and broadband speed is limited by the demands on the system, rather than the wireless card I use. In fact, the card is quicker than the one built in to the desktop I have here. I use Mozilla as a web browser and run Avira Premium antivirus. I was sitting in the desert, about 1km away from one of our camps, a short while back and up popped my son (at home in the UK) on Messenger. I told him to put my coordinates into Google Earth and he was amazed to see that I was nearly in Egypt! Ain't technology wonderful? When I was here 20 odd years ago, it was virtually impossible to even make an international phone call.

I also occasionally use the in-built infra red to transfer pictures from my phone, but the transfer range is about 2 inches!!

On one hard drive I run Open Office and on the other, Microsoft Office 2007 - both are slowish loading, but once up and running, my typing speed is the limiting factor.

I bought the CF-29 so I could take my HP Pavillion home: I feared for it's life in the dusty conditions here. One of my colleagues here has already had two Sony Vaio's pack up on him. I'm looking forward to seeing if it matches the CF-27 in longevity and I don't plan on retiring the old beast yet.

So - it's horses for courses - if your needs are modest, the old 27 is far from being a design masterpiece door-stop.

Mark

User avatar
Rob
Toughbooktalk Founder
Posts: 3575
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:23 pm
Contact:

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#6 Post by Rob »

Mark, gorgeous! Nice way of doing things. Hey, I wasn't attacking anyone when I said that "CF-27's are to old to do anything with"... I was simply stating from my personal experience in re-selling to my customers. Seems as though no one wants anything but dual core these days... That's why I made that comment. As for what you use the 27 for I can see now that it is enough for you.

For me, I am a network engineer that transfers terabytes and terabytes of info a day with hundreds of computers. I also own and manage my own data center for hosting websites, so for me the fact that the CF-27's didn't even have network ports on them was an issue for me... Let alone the fact that if it did it wouldn't be gigabit...

To each of their own :cheers:
~Rob - Vice President - Rugged Depot~
~Cell: (630)/300-8877~
~Owner - Toughbooktalk~
~Fully rugged Toughbook user since April 18th 2005~
~FZ-40ACAAHKM - Primary Toughbook / Workstation as of 7/29/22
~Win10 Pro (Win11 DG), Intel Core i5-1145G7 (up to 4.4GHz), vPro, 14.0" FHD Gloved Multi Touch, 16GB, 1TB Samsung SSD, Intel Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, 4G EM7690, GPS, Quad Pass (BIOS Selectable), Mic and Infrared 5MP Webcam, Standard Battery, TPM 2.0, Emissive Backlit Keyboard, Dual Batteries, USB A + HDMI + Serial X-PAK, Shoulder Strap, Flat~
~AT&T Business 1GB Fiber 1GB/1GB business static line~
~Gamber & Johnson Platinum Partner~

http://www.toughbooktalk.com
http://downloads.toughbooktalk.com/
http://www.rugged575.com - 300' UHF GMRS Radio Repeater
http://www.crete600.com - 310' UHF Linked GMRS Radio Repeater


~Emergency preparedness starts with reliable communication systems above all. Pretend the internet and cell phones didn’t exist, how will you communicate? If you’re interested in learning more, ask me!~

User avatar
BatteryBackup
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:31 am
Location: Chicago IL
Contact:

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#7 Post by BatteryBackup »

Wow you transfer terabytes every day? you must have a pretty big datacenter. Let me know if you're hiring.

and I am really surprised that a machine that was built for windows 98se is enough for anyone. its 2010 people, just because what you have works doesn't mean its "good enough". any machine made in the past 5 years would be vastly superior in every way.

User avatar
ToughNut
Posts: 174
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:07 pm

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#8 Post by ToughNut »

BatteryBackup wrote:...just because what you have works doesn't mean its "good enough". any machine made in the past 5 years would be vastly superior in every way.
There has been leaps in technology and no one here will deny it. Like Steve and Mark, I too, run a CF-27 with Win2kPro, albeit irregularly, and it boils down to whether it fits the users' usage and expectations. Of course there are other manufacturers and models, with all the bells and whistles but I'd rather know that the darn thing will still be working in the next 5 years!

Ron in SG

Fool in the Desert
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:51 am

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#9 Post by Fool in the Desert »

I didn't think you were attacking anyone with your "to old to do anything with" statement Rob. I just had to comment in case my wife was reading :) But I do think that BatteryBackup missed the point I was trying to make.
BatteryBackup wrote:
and I am really surprised that a machine that was built for windows 98se is enough for anyone. its 2010 people, just because what you have works doesn't mean its "good enough". any machine made in the past 5 years would be vastly superior in every way.
I wouldn't argue about technological advance obviously, but measurement of superiority is a function of use. For most of us average users, the capability of modern computers far outstrips any use we will ever make of them. I am a great believer in appropriate technology. I don't use a CF-27 for applications that demand 2010 technology, but I would not use, for example, a Sony Vaio, in the conditions to which I subject the CF-27. Firstly, the applications I use don't demand it, but more importantly, it wouldn't last 5 minutes. So, which is superior?

I also use a Fuji Big Job digital camera, designed for use in harsh conditions. We have had many newer cameras here which would be considered "superior" in just about every aspect. However, mine is the only one which has survived for longer than 6 months here in the Sahara and is still taking high quality pictures.

Newer doesn't always mean better, although big business interests would like to convince us that this is the case.

And just in case, if anyone has a 1931 Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe they wish to swap for a vastly technologically superior BMW 5 Series Sport, please get in touch ;)

DDAYMEN
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 12:25 pm

Re: Am I the only owner of a CF-27 in this forum?

#10 Post by DDAYMEN »

I own 2 cf-27's, and currently use them just to check e-mails. My primary laptop is a cf-28, which suits me well. I still like the cf-27's, their military look and all, in fact I thought about upgrading the hard drive to a larger one, but haven't done so just yet. As for madern apps., yeah they aren't too good for that!

Post Reply

Return to “CF-27 Talk (Discontinued Model)”