Mclaren works with laptops from 20 years ago (impressive)

You will be surprised to know what was discovered recently thanks to a recent visit by Jalopnik to the McLaren company.

What is the secret behind the McLaren company?

It is no secret to anyone that McLaren has built the fastest cars in the world, designed with naturally aspirated engines, of which only 106 F1 were built.

What Jalopnik discovered during his visit to this company is that even today and with the modern technology that we enjoy and enjoy today, the company continues to work with 20-year-old laptops such as the Compaq, which they date from the early nineties.

See also our guide to the best gamer notebooks.

These laptops work with a CA card (conditional access card), which is used as an interface between the car and the laptop software (based on DOS). To understand a little better the difference between these computers and modern PCs, it is that the latter make use of smart cards or USB keys that contain the access codes to be able to access sensitive systems, while the conditional access card was used as custom hardware as part of an integrated security system and also copy protection.

For this fundamental reason, the McLaren company has supplied itself with Compaq LTE 5280 laptops, in order to maintain the service of Formula 1 cars.

We must recognize the important work that these ancient computers have done in allowing the development of the production of the world's fastest cars.

However, do not think that they will work forever with this old technology, currently the company is working on an interface fully compatible with modern laptops and with this will remove the enormous burden of always keeping in search of these old machines. The most logical thing would be with a USB stick with encryption.