You need a 20-year-old Compaq laptop to maintain the F1 supercar

I found this story this morning and thought it was really quite interesting.  We all know that you can "tune" or reprogram any modern car with a Laptop.  You simply interface with the ECU and tweak whatever setting you want.  If you are using an aftermarket ECU like a Haltech there is a USB plug and some software however, on a 2001 Chevy S10 Xtreme (like mine) you need a device like HPTuners to make the connection to the ECU.

Well it would seem McLaren needs a similar device to program their F1 Supercar and that device only runs on the certain Compaq laptops that were built in the 90's, around the same time the F1 Supercar was built.  The programming software runs in DOS which only adds to the level of effort.

"The reason we need those specific Compaq laptops is that they run a bespoke CA card which is installed into them," explains a McLaren spokesperson to Jalopnik. "The CA card is an interface between the laptop software (which is DOS-based) and the car." If you've never heard of a CA card, then Jalopnik commenter Mike Herbst helpfully explains it's a Conditional Access card. Modern PCs use smart cards or USB keys with special access codes to access sensitive systems, and the CA card was used as custom hardware as part of an integrated system for security and copy protection.

What makes this story really interesting is that only 106 F1 cars were ever built there are only 100 left for McLaren to service and while the car can cost around $10 Million dollars it only works because of a computer that most people would have recycled by now.

Related Web URL: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-...