1994's Toughest Computer - Husky FC486
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2020
- The Husky FC486 is designed to take anything you can throw at it, or even throw it at. This rugged field computer feels indestructible, but what's it like to use? Today I look at, and, once we figure out how to actually make it work, take it for a test drive.
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Thank you for watching! Did you own this or another rugged computer / laptop? What did you have and did it survive the punishment you threw at it? I'd love to hear your stories.
Neil - RMC
Howdy Neil! While it wasn't designed as one, I had a Thinkpad T42 for the end of my school/start of my college years. I dropped it, spilled things on it, scuffed it, bag got knocked off tables, the usual. It simply didn't care. Belligerent to the end, it continued to work despite all the punishment until someone broke the screen by knocking it off a table when it wasn't in a laptop bag. Replaced the screen really easily and it was back in the game!
I collect & restore & document Husky machines. Love them. I have a whole serise of videos on my channel covering them. I have:
1. DVW Microelectronics Husky
2. Husky Hunter
3. Husky Hunter 2
4. Husky Hawk
5. Husky Hunter 16
6. Husky hunter 16/80
7. Husky FS2
8. Husky FS3
9. Husky MP2500
I have multiple of these machines, if you need any info ROM dumps on them let me know. Used one of my Husky Hunter in uni to lean coding. Converted the C# to BASIC to help understand how to code. Was fun & noone understood my method. I also have a manul for the Husky Hunter.
I don't Know if this Counts or not but i have a Panasonic toughbook cf-28 Running Windows 98se! My go to Travel Laptop For Windows Gaming as i cannot Find a Dos Sound Driver! :-)
Great Video as Usual Neil! Very Informative! Could i Possibly have the Name to the Liquid Drum and Bass Tune you use During the Unscrewing Montage? Legend!
Thanks Nathan! In this video I am unscrewing to Oak Tree Slumber by Flat Theory
The fact that the directory listing on the PCMCIA card takes that long the first time is actually a quirk of MSDOS, in that it goes through the FAT to determine the amount of free bytes. Paired with the fact that 2GB is quite a lot of storage for a computer in this era, this takes quite a bit of time on the first invocation. DOS then remembers this, so the subsequent calls are instant.
Yep, DOS had to add up all the unused clusters to compute the free space.
Thanks, was looking for this.
I have the same problem on my 286, which has a ginormous 1GiB Compact Flash as its hard disk. First dir takes 2-3 seconds.
If you activate Smartdrive it will take care of that little issue I believe
Amiga Retro Time ...and then you will have 300k free memory left. :-D But seriously, one could probably recover a rather big lump by using EMM386 and activating UMBs. Then try and load the PCMCIA driver into upper memory, if possible. Or install QEMM386... it works wonders and can even use extended memory for DOS, freeing up most of conventional memory.
That LCD is ideal to play Ghosting and Goblins
I have a 486sx 25mhz version of this without the co-pro. On seeing your video I got it out and had a look. I do not have a psu and the handle and pen are missing, but I have box and manual. It would not boot, no prompt so I Paw-CTRL-PWR for 5 seconds, it resets the Husky and up she popped - I look forward to trying out some of your tips on this now, maybe getting something running on it - Oh as a bonus I found a 20MB PCMCIA flash card inside, can't wait to see what's on that! The internal flash drive also says DOS 1.3 on it!!!
Thanks for a great video
Just to update - The util /r and util /c commands came in very useful and I have a full DOS environ. It is actually 6.22 with 1mb total mem. The PCMCIA card had a copy of FastMap700 v1 it looks like a gps logger program - last entry was Oct 1999, so guess this is what it was used for.
Also, my screen looks the same as yours, nothing around the edge. The manual talks about removing the plexiglass front with a fingernail or knife and does not mention any type of seal. So I guess this is how it is from factory?
So - thanks to your help Neil, I got it all working - now, wheres wolfstein???
Any way you could scan the manual?
That TI 486 is really just a fancier 386. The fact the Cyrix Math CoPro is a 387 gives it away :)
It's a bit like the 486SLCs.
@@wisteela That's precisely what it is. TI did manufacturing for Cyrix back then, which also allowed them to sell some of the processors under their brand. Pretty similar as to when IBM manufactured for Cyrix, and they were allowed to sell 6x86s under the IBM brand.
Thanks! Yes when this was on early access to the Patrons a viewer mentioned this, and those benchmarks make much more sense with this knowledge!
It isn't just a fancy 386sx. It actually has clock doubling and l1 cache. They just have to be enabled trough a utility. I would like to see new benchmark results with everything enabled. Still won't come close to a 486dx50 but should be a lot better than right now.
@@arminmertens DX50 was a unique best for the time and even later into the era.
A 90s Rugged robot boi used to explore inside caves...so literally a retroman cave computer 💻 😳
You mean a dinosaur and a caveman met eachother...
That battery is an absolute unit! The motherboard is such a neat and compact layout, very cool design.
was that a "first" edited out?
@@AlistairBrugsch Haha sadly not, pretty much the same comment but more rambling!
I would LOVE to see a Raspberry Pie kit that looks like this one!!
The price of such a kit will be corresponding, I guess ;)
You could buy separate keyboard and screen, rip the parts out and 3d print a case for cheap.
Yeesh, huge props to 'Mike' at handheldsystems.com because there was going to be _no_ way you would've figured out that boot option/recovery process otherwise. The only mention of the process I was able to find is in a manual for a later model (Husky MP2500) ...which I only found by looking for the whole 'YKSUH' thing in the first place.
That being said, the manual for that might also be really useful for the FC486: citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;?doi=10.1.1.362.9514&rep=rep1&type=pdf or Google for "HUSKY MP2500" "System Developer's Guide"
Recently got a hold of one of these myself. Unfortunately no AC adapter, and the battery is beyond dead. Any idea what the pinout/power requirements for this device is? I'm thinking I might be able to make my own adapter.
@@TheDapplez I’ve got the same issue
I remember using a few of the Husky devices for housing stock condition surveys; they got quite heavy after a full day carrying one but they were easy to use and were definitely sturdy. I'm not convinced about the battery life claim though and seem to remember having to plug it into the cigarette lighter socket between surveys.
At least the battery life isn't as short as my LG Series 900 laptop PC: the factory specs is 15 minutes on a full charge! The reason for that is that it has a 19" wide screen display and a 3.5" HDD. Not SSD, a HDD.
part of the battery life would be dependent on how active you are between charges, if you're pretty busy inputting data during that period of working between charges the inflated best case scenarios will always be significantly more then real world use.
i had one along with a NEC mobile phone and i had TEN batteries for the phone that were either in my pockets or on charge (i seriously carried four around just in case i had three phone calls of three minutes to make !!) and when i reached site i would rush to find a socket to charge my husky BUT who else did anything like it at the time and what was their battery life ?? everything was shit until Nokia .
.my Nokia 3130 is still charged from 1998 and has lost only one bar !!!
God bless Mike in support. Not all heroes wear capes. 🙏
From a support pov its probably also nice/interesting when someone asks about a 25+ year old piece of (exotic) hardware.
@@mrpetit2 yes! Like asking them to talk about an old friend. Happened when I was asked to support an eee 701 in 2009 after I left tech support...not quite the same vintage, but still left me with a warm feeling.
I don't get called a hero for saving, rescuing and repairing/resurrecting tech though.. I get called weird! Haha!
27:56 Lol, when the gun gets shot, it sounds like one of those rubber chicken toys. I can't unhear it
Built like a tank, defeated by a stylus battery door. Great video!
This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while, thanks for the vid :)
What a neat piece of kit. That 30 min flew by. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work, RetroManCave!
I used these as an Advanced train engineer for the London underGround Central line trains. They were used with Dos based software for configuring the multiple Modules placed around all the Cars " Carragies" that where the interface between the train computer and all the various sensors for brakes, ATO,ATP,Doors Lights emergemcy alarms and many other essential safety and operational functions within each Car This was in the Mid 1990's when i was working on them based out of Ruislip Depot. the network port was used via a custom cable. I rember the screens being both the black,grey as shown in this Video, as well as some orange coloured ones which where much easier to read in broad sunlight. They had a Soft case with a thick strap for carrying ( we often would end up walking miles ) around the huge Depot to various trains to diagnose systems on a train that may have had a fault. I had only ever seen these at work there and wondered about their origin so thanks for sharing this.
That was amazing. What an in depth look at that crazy cool system. Thanks big time Neil, well done.
Great video, Neil. I always like seeing these unique machines.
Also, my family had a copy of Ford Simulator many years ago - I recognized it from the intro "music" without looking! Thanks for bringing back some fond memories - cheers!
This is so cool, and amazing that it still has support. Love all this old tech that I'd never herd of! Thanks for the video.
You're welcome Jimbo, thank you for taking the time to watch it
22:35 that delay is normal. My IBM PC does the same thing with its 20MB C: drive. It has to calculate the free space and after that it just keeps track of changes.
Using a Game Boy emulator on this would be weirdly authentic.
That's really impressive that a someone from a modern-day company was willing and able to help you out with this thing.
You got your 100k subscriber plaque, in the set now, congratulations. That Rom module is surprising for the time period. Great video.
Very enjoyable. What a fantastic piece of kit!
Great video once again great work mate
Awesome system and presentation. Thanks!
I have no use for such a computer, but after I watched this video I still yearn for it. Retro lust, perhaps?
Loved this one. Fascinating stuff.
We had one of those back in the day. Used it at a convention for car dealers and workshops around the time vehicle inspection (MOT) was introduced here in Norway. Our software was nowhere near finished but we managed to show a running mockup. Dropping the machine on the concrete floor drew a lot of attention.
Instant new subscriber! This made me smile honestly I don't know why! Haha
I want an iPad case/keyboard version of this. Such an utterly practical design. No hinges to break or let dust in. Ports all well protected at one end and the rest is sealed. The handle/stand/cover for the exposed ports is ingenious.
Great video Neil, thanks a lot :-) fun obscure machine! Sorry for the motion sickness hahaha, I didn't realize ghosting could do that :-D
amazing! didn't know there where form factors like this for computers. Love it.
I like the form factor and the ruggedness of the case. I am sure their is a market out their for a case like this to be filed with whatever SBC people have in mind. A vary nice video all the way around.
That is a lovely, lovely piece of design and engineering.
Love your testing went straight to playing games, just where I would have gone :)
The screen is quite special as there is a gel pad between the glass and screen to shock absorb any impact. They used to drop them out the first floor window to demonstrate the bouncibility.
I love the LEMO connector BNC adapter. I am using similar ones to connect my instrumentation hardware. They are expensive but still a solid bit of kit.
That network connector is a LEMO connector, very nice but very expensive connectors. The small 4 pin connectors for my Trantec wireless systems are ~£20 each.
from a subscriber-fratic... thank you for yet another cracking video :)
Fantastic. I would love to get one of these. I noticed 'WIN' written on the label on that disk module, and thought that must be Windows. The Pen version was surprise, but of course makes sense, and I'd forgotten about that version. I was thinking batteries in the pen.
A Husky and an installation of ArcPAD, oh those were the days. Rugged devices really were rugged, tough and built to withstand most things. Nice bit of Retro Neil, thank you.
Wow. Ford Simulator. I played that a lot when I was 9. Thanks for the ride back in time!
omg that duracell battery
7:15 Yeaaah D'n'B disassembly montage \o/ I really love these hahaha!
Another great video! After seeing MS-DOS and Windows running on a battery-powered machine with restrained hardware I am even more happy that modern embedded devices with an operating system are nowadays dominated by open source and Linux :)
Now thats a rugged looking computer! Really liking the build quality.
Cool my first car was a 1995 maroon Ford Escort Encore with an amazing 1.3 engine with a maximum speed of 90 going down hill lol. Brilliant video as ever. Seeing this video reminded me to email you about that bug I bought from you lol.
I was involved in the development of several rail track side applications which used these and other Husky models. The model you have is a special with the network port. WPI Husky became Itronix. Itronix then General Dynamics.
The Husky sales guys trick was to drive a vehicle over the computer and show no damage.
18:50 *BANG BANG BANG* "I did open it carefully"
Yeah, can't imagine how that happened...
That’s an interresting bit of computing hardware. It looks like it also has a VGA connector on the back besides the serial and parallel ports. The Mark 3 and Mark 4 Ford Escort is kind of nostalgic to me, I just love 80’s Ford cars. My uncle had quite a few Escorts in the 80’s which where company cars from his employer at the time.
That screen looks great.
Like a DMG GameBoy without the blurry afterimage which makes it perfect for working in outside or industrials environments.
What an awesome little piece of hardware! The incredible part is, that that thing would *STILL* be useful for surveying, etc, to this very day.
I love this video! Sent a message to a mate in UK because I would dearly love one! I am in Australia and do want!
Wow! We had a very similar version of Ford Simulator growing up! Vivid memories of that one!
That was the first thought as i saw the device: CAN IT PLAY WOLFENSTEIN? nice find, love these rugged relics if the old days!
I remember setting loads of these up in the late 90's for a construction company I worked for - totally forgot they even existed!
That thing is actually pretty slick for its time, I could see it being a really useful robust mobile terminal with that serial port.
Lovely rugged 486 system. Must be nice for strategy and board games.
Awesome video.
I absolutely love it!
Love the Sega box "graph paper" shirt Neil:)
Really Cool Piece of Kit Neil! Nice Informative Video as Usual! Could i Possibly have the Name of the Liquid Drum and Bass tune you Used in the Unscrewing Montage please? Legend!
I really loved this video. Thanks, retro man cave. It was really nice- and I’m jealous of that husky486 machine! I want one!!!!! I’d love editing ANSI files on the go; too bad it’s not in color. THEDRAW or ACiDDRAW would work great.
WOW , the firm i worked for through the mid eighties to late nineties was a cutting edge building controls firm and they issued me one of these !!! haven't seen one for ever !!! it was brilliant and every lap top or pad i have been issued since is trash in comparison simply because this was so out there and nothing like it to sling on the bar in the pub along with my transportable phone made me "mr hitech it "
Great Video! Windows For Pen Computing was indeed based on Windows 3.1. It was identical to regular WindowS, but with all the drivers and additional software to make it work with a stylus. I had a Dauphin DTR-1, which was a 386 based tablet with external keyboard. The pen it used is virtually the same as the one for the Husky. Makes me wonder if the two are compatible. Oh, and I had the same problem you had the first time I used mine. I did not know it required batteries and neglected to unpack and install them! Serves me right for not reading the manual!
Hahahahaha I totally guessed the "battery in the pen" thing! :-D
I have not heard of that computer before and that one you have seem to be very well built and better than the ones I was buying during that era. I still have a few computers from that era and only one English computer though which is the Timex/Sinclair computer which was older than the one you are using here.
Oh I could have done with this when I was working with the Department of the Environment in the wilds of Scotland trying to get data from various sensors in river catchments. Tough? Waterproof? Just two things that the Amstrad PPC512 I had to lug up and down mountains most definitely was not. What an utterly wretched machine to try and get working in near zero temperatures and driving rain and hail...
If Neil is feeling especially masochistic, perhaps he can try firing up one of those horrible machines,
I'd love a recreation of that for a Raspberry Pi
Good idea, though a modern version would need to be heavy duty plastic instead of cast Magnesium for the case. Firstly, the an injection mold of that complexity would cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars, but, more importantly, it's VERY hard to find anyone who does Magnesium castings outside of China these days. Explosion hazard.
That said, because of the size of a Pi compared to the 486 board, you could basically make the case nearly one solid chunk of plastic for even more rigidity.
@@elHosed Actually the metal case doubled as a heat sink. Husky was bought by Itronix, which, in turn was bought by General dynamics. It should be bootable from a pcmcia bf card. adaptor , As I recall, it's limited to a cf card of less than 4M
Husky was bought by Itronix, A US manufacturer of ultra-rugged laptops. Itronix was, in turn bought by General Dynamics (Makers of the HMV - Hummer - military SUV.). I owned an Itronix XC-6250 "Cross Country" laptop - a 386 compatible with similar construction features plus a additional features like Ardis WAN, glow in the dark keyboard, and in original condition was waterproof to twenty feet deep submersion. The XC-6250 was also know, as the Indestructible Laptop after one was run over in a parking-lot mishap that damaged the parking lot pavement but left
the computer fully functional with only a few scuff marks on the case
On the back of the unit, there are 4 contacts these were used with a vehicle docking station. the contacts use capacative isolation.
@@coolelectronics1759 The closest thing to a craftsman computer is the 5100sc scan tool
Today’s sponsorship should be Mike. He made this possible. I’m sure you would’ve figured it out on your own but I’m happy it worked out!
Very Interesting !
this is amazing!
Had Huskey Hunters at British Steel when started in 1987. Been around since early 80s I think. Were used by operators to take coke oven temperatures then downloaded by serial link to a PDP!
I've owned some seriously tough Dell Latitude XFR laptops, this thing really reminds me of them. What I like about them is the fact you can cram a lot of high end hardware in one and it will be practically invincible given the only true drawbacks being a tank and screen quality isn't XPS like for sure. It's price you pay for a tough road warrior. Plus most engineers don't care about how nice a screen looks when it comes to just getting the work done..
YES! The whistling music is back for the 1ClickPrint ad!
It looks awkward on the table, but it's designed to be gripped firmly with both hands as you smash someone's skull in
"Decompilation or disassembly prohibited"
Nice try.
The Texas Instruments 486 is actually a relabeled Cyrix 486SLC. Which is kind of a 486 at its core, but externally a 386SX. That means it has a 16bit data bus and a 24bit address bus. Limiting throughput compared to the 32bit of the 386DX and true 486 CPUs. Also RAM is limited to 16MiB, similar to the 286 and 386SX.
Ruggedisation: I remember working for the State Veterinary Service here in the UK in the early 2000's. The vets kept dropping their government phones in poo and puddles so we were sent the government solution of phone protectors... They just sent us extra large condoms to put the Nokias inside. Funny; but not a joke :/
We had some Panasonic tough books at work and your closing comment of driving a car over it made me smile. One of our field users did do exactly that, whilst leaving the house and i presume they were putting it in the boot they were distracted and had to go back in the house. The toughbook which to be fair was in a canvas carry bag was run over when reversing out the driveway. The tough case not sure on the material but i thought was plastic???was damaged but the toughbook continued to work until it was decommissioned many many years later. I think it was a CF-30.
Oh and
Tough Books are really good. I had a customer who forgot one on the thread of a big logging machine and it got run over. The only thing not working after was the cd drive.
oh and?
Oh those were the days - a Husky with an installation of ArcPAD. Rugged devices really were rugged - still have a few sitting in a drawer somewhere.
Very unique and so tough!!
I remember that our local land registry office had some Husky computers for their measuring teams. I was an intern for 3 weeks and there were all sorts of problems with that Husky. One day, the geometrician threw his hat at the ground and repeatedly jumped on it out of anger. He was a man of little height and from a distance, he looked like a frustrated dwarf steaming off and cursing that damn Husky.
That is a really awesome little computer! I wonder if you could hook up a serial mouse to it and use that instead of the pen?
You can just see one of these being used to log maintainance issues on a Challenger tank - just before it gets thrown at the guys who broke it!
For fixing the pen I would try a trick I've seen on Jan Beta's channel mixing superglue and baking soda to create a substance you can build up on a surface that becomes somthing like plastic.
Cool, a new video from RMC, I'll crack a beer and have put my chair in a comfortable position :)
The world needs more Mikes
great computer!! a little spray of powerbooster from asg or other (airsoft silicone spray) or lithium grease on the rubber seal to improve its longevity. many many thanks for your videos around the years. take care
That design is gorgeous
what a thing of beauty! you should check freedos drivers to see there's a smaller reopacement for the pcmcia driver. and memory managers like dosmax that lets you load more stuff in the higher chunks of memory
The story of the British electronics industry. Where Philips designed and made the first CD player and Teletext chips is now a Builders Merchant. the building shown here was demolished to build it www.dailyecho.co.uk/business/864455.philips-sell-off-spells-uncertainty-for-350-workers/
I have an Itronix X-C6000 which is very similar to the Husky in terms of use. It looks more like a laptop, but it's a ruggedized field computer, made of metal of rubber and weighs a ton. It has a grayscale touchscreen like yours too. Though I don't recall having to use a pen with it, I think it was just pressure sensitive. It came with Dos and Windows for Pen Computers as well. I bought it randomly off Ebay a while back because I basically just had to pay shipping. It was a power company laptop (Pacific Gas and Electric) and it had some cool map software with a listing of all the powerstations on the west coast of the US. I'm pretty sure it even has the same processor, a 486 SX 50mhz. Unfortunately mine stopped working the last time I used it. Probably a power issue.
Worth it for that battery alone. Really nice machine. Always wanted to see how army laptops are constructed be like the Huskys big brother
I worked tech support for a company in the late 90's called micro-solutions and we manufactured parallel port peripherals such as floppy disk drives, tape drives, cdroms, hard drives, and such under the product line "Backpack". They were externally powered and had dos and windows drivers. So potentially you could have used one of those products with this machine to expand its capabilities. :^)
Fantastic. I would love to have one of these. I noticed win written inside. I'd forgotten about the Pen version. I was thinking batteries in the pen. Seems you have one from 1996 going by BIOS date.
I used something like that in the late 90s. Same looking pen and screen. The issue we ran into was sunlight. You brought it out in the sun (where I used to work a lot in) the screen would go black and would take a good couple minutes to come back to be readable again.
I think I'd be tempted to get a load of Sugu or something, and make a new seal for around the screen, if OEM replacements aren't available any more.
This seems kind of ahead of its time.
My brother had one of those! He was a surveyor at the time, and used one on building sites. When he left the company, they allowed him to keep it! He offered it to me when I was a student as a techy curiosity, and I said no, thinking it was some specialist device and not a computer per se......I wish I'd said yes now! He had the 16mb upgrade, apparently it really was a bit chuggy without it.
The site in coventry that they moved to, which was the courtaulds factory has recently been demolished and there is now a massive housing estate in its place. (source, I live in coventry and go past that area regularly)
That connector for the ethernet is a Lemo connector. We used them for crash test systems for TRL and MIRA. That plug and socket woukd have been £100 alone!