Mac vs PC in marine environment

[Rumrace]

I just drew in Fusion 360 a 1909 Industrial Electric train in O scale I used and HP with 16Gig. The whole train is 48 parts it crashed around 30 major parts so I could not assemble the whole train. I moved the model over to a 16 meg Mac and assembled the whole model Then broke it up into printable groups which add up to 30 hours to print. Then with the PC I used Prusa slicer to cut the train into .02mm layers and handed the 6 prints over to a raspberry pi Via the HP to software called octopus. The HP is now a temporary dumb terminal. The 8 gig Rasperry has no problem instructing the printers computer the Rambo exact details of each print. A couple million variables on a couple million polygons easy cause it’s Unix.

My all weather 1 atmosphere case printed in ASA or PC this is the chassis

[Rumrace]

This is the vessel the carriage slides into then there are two “l”!curved wireways to water tight ports. A printed print jam jar style lid and I print water gland nuts cause they only make them I Black I like like white yellow and blue ASA and PC

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by slugsgomoo

It may not force you, but if you're not doing the critical updates as they're released and you're connected to the internet, you're asking for trouble. There have been a few major bug fixes in both OSX & iOS that delaying on is extremely unwise.

Apple is also much more likely to break your applications after an OS update than Microsoft is, but YMMV.

I am platform agnostic and run them all where needed- I will say that hardware wise, when you get to the same price range you're getting pretty similar results, but a bit more bang for the buck with a Windows/Linux system versus Apple.

I'd also say that anyone running <16gb of ram with today's operating systems is asking for pain unless they're a very light user. Hell, my work machine has 16gb, and I flirt with max memory constantly, and all I'm doing is email/browser/etc.

Well my anecdote
Before I switched to a Mac I selected the same hardware from multiple vendors to make the he equivalent to a Mac Pro and would have saved $50 not counting shipping
That was 2009

I switched because I just wanted a machine that worked and was tired of updating drivers
Until the M1 came out an Apple box was the same he that you could get if you wanted as you could get in someone else’s wintel box
The only place where the Apple is fell down was gaming but you could always dual boot

On any modern he you can switch boot devices if one fails

[Rumrace]

The reason why is a water tight case to fit a raspberry costs 60$. The case has slots to feed bands or tie wraps or screw down plates. I made a water cooled version but the normal case has layers of solid walls with structure walls in between. Heat travels away to thin walls to structural voids to thicker walls. So it’s a heat sink also.
Structure is 60% solid except around ports or threaded connections at 90%
Takes 14 hours to print a complete set of parts. Anyone with a printer is welcome to the data. My instrument covers are about to go public domaine also.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by sailor4life7777

Hi guys, how long do macs and PCs last in a marine environment onboard a cruising boat? I would imagine given the build quality of macs that they would last much longer than PCS in a marine environment, but does anyone have real world experience with the 2?

Yes, I have been using both for about 20 years or so.
Only death due to the oceanic environment was a Dell netbook ( remember them?) which became airborne and landed about 3 metres away about 6 years ago.
Apart from that I buy a new Macbook every five years or so just because I can.
Nav stuff, charts, sailmail, Ais, is on the ship's computer which is currently an Acer Veriton 670 running W7. I also have a spare one, they cost about +/- $AU100 . Powered directly with 19V DC so no nonsense re pure sine wave or anything. Maybe six years or so with them.
Prior to that my PCs would have hard drive failure - didn't keep a record that I can access easily - but 2 over 15 years or so. Don't think it was environment related.

Parallels was mentioned re the Mac. Interesting article here
https://au.pcmag.com/virtualization/44682/vmware-fusion
As recommended - despite having a 2022 MB Pro with the M1 thingo - I am keeping my 2015 Macbook just because it can run all my nav stuff.

I do have OpenCPN on the new one and yes it can handle the GlobalSat BU354 pucks.

[Simi 60]

We run a 15 year old HP laptop that I bought new for about $400 - now Linux based
And 2 Lenovo tiny, one an i5 and an i7 that would be 10 years old bought 6 years ago for around $200 each, both on win10

They have all been running flawlessly onboard for 6 years.

I have my old gaming box onboard with about 12tb of hard drives in it and now we have LFP may fire that up and get some battlefield 4 action happenning

[skkeith]

Originally Posted by blu3534

anti-sailboat, that 's not good

But let's say you'd like to run Coastal Explorer or Expedition, two really pro-sailboat applications. How would you do that without Windows?

You can't (and that's my point, Mac/PC/Linux doesn't matter much nowadays, use what you need and/or know).

But regarding hardware: if you care about decent performance and modest power consumption, the current pinnacle is an Arm Mac (there wouldn't be an Asahi project if the hardware were not that impressive). Of course you are bound to the MacOS but why not? The UI is nice and quite consistent, the underpinning is UNIX. With Timemachine (and a spare unit) you'd be up again in minutes should the hardware fail*. Apple had their issues in the past, bloody keyboard... But they fixed things and now - for normal people - the far best computing device in marine environment is a Mac imo.

Edit: Of course if you don't need such power, a Raspi or what Dockhead mentioned (thanks for the link!) is very fine too.

*Btw: I'd like to see your Mom when her Mint computer fails... Oh, and printing? What an awfull tree-killing activity, how dare she doing this??

Let me explain myself more:

Anti-sailboat for the reason that when I put something on the boat I carefully examine what my needs are and then decide the simplest way to accomplish this with the least amount of power. Also reliability, maintenance and emergency situations need to be considered. I try to avoid adding extra unneeded complication wherever possible.

On the point about my Mom in particular you missed my point. She can no more fix a Linux OS than she can a Windows OS, (or than you can). I can actually fix a Windows OS and a Linux one and a Mac one but I sure don't want to fix any OS underway I would just swap out the file system; rest to factory default.

About Macs, I have no experience with the ARM mentioned, but I am on an MacPro 8 core i8 2.3ghz now, and this thing is a dog it can barely edit a video without burning up. Not the fault of the hardware, the OS I am sure. I would never have it on my boat. But I don't really see a use case either, they will not run any of the high performance CAD programs or games, this is true of your ARM hardware as well, so why would you even buy one over a Linux machine? Windows I understand...

[Ballsnall]

Originally Posted by sailor4life7777

Hi guys, how long do macs and PCs last in a marine environment onboard a cruising boat? I would imagine given the build quality of macs that they would last much longer than PCS in a marine environment, but does anyone have real world experience with the 2?

3 years and 2 months for a Mac. Windows, 2 years and 11 months. Electronics in a marine environment don't care what the operating system is.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Ballsnall

3 years and 2 months for a Mac. Windows, 2 years and 11 months. Electronics in a marine environment don't care what the operating system is.

What sort of 'marine environment' do you inhabit?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Ballsnall

3 years and 2 months for a Mac. Windows, 2 years and 11 months. Electronics in a marine environment don't care what the operating system is.

That's kinder than my work environment. I rarely get more than 2 years out of my work computers.


I plan to replace them every two years, and I also upgrade my boat computer approximately that often. Boat computer (unlike work computer) is dirt cheap; it's really not a big deal.

[250224]

Originally Posted by Ballsnall

3 years and 2 months for a Mac. Windows, 2 years and 11 months.

You are jocking, right?

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That's kinder than my work environment. I rarely get more than 2 years out of my work computers..I plan to replace them every two years, and I also upgrade my boat computer approximately that often. Boat computer (unlike work computer) is dirt cheap; it's really not a big deal.

Why not? I would be much to lazy to upgrade that often.

Apple's M1 was something new but otherwise, I think, not much innovation in computing in recent years?

[El Pinguino]

I'm at a bit of a loss re this 'marine environment' thing.


It reminds me of the time I bought a ham radio maybe 14 years ago. Mentioned to the Icom man that it would be going on my boat. He promptly stated that would void the warranty or somesuch. Seems there would be no such concerns if it was in my holiday residence at Portsea Back Beach, half a kilometre from the Bass Strait surf in a near continuous salt aerosol.

Oh , and that radio and my 27 year old 710 and my 20 year old Pactor together with two tuners of similar vintage all seem to be happily ticking along unaffected by the 'marine environment'.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by blu3534

. . . Why not? I would be much to lazy to upgrade that often.

Apple's M1 was something new but otherwise, I think, not much innovation in computing in recent years?

I wear them out. I travel for my business, maybe 60 or 70 flights a year. Constantly on the move, wear and tear on all the gear, especially computers.


I don't mind because although you may be right about the innovation, computers do get gradually better. Every new computer is somewhat better than the last one.

[MicHughV]

I'm at a bit of a loss re this 'marine environment' thing.

I'm with you on this. On my first boat I had a Stephens SSB and a Kenwood Ham radio, both mounted, side by side, an arm's lenght from the companionway. Never had a lick of problems with either in 15 years. Both radio's were then transposed to my next boat, in more or less the same location, where they continued to perform flawlessly for the next 5 years. That boat was then sold with the radio's to the next owner, who presumably still has them.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by blu3534

You are jocking, right?



Why not? I would be much to lazy to upgrade that often.

Apple's M1 was something new but otherwise, I think, not much innovation in computing in recent years?

The M1 is much more than just a new type of CPU. It is more like a system on a chip plus they have implemented unified memory, where you have one pool of memory for everything incl. graphics.

The system is revolutionary, not evolutionary. Also, you don’t wear a Mac Mini out; you may buy a new keyboard but the computer lasts until it isn’t supported by software anymore.