+1 E5500 Dell, no serial port adaptor needed. Ebay $125

I have been using MacBooks and MacBook pro's for the last 7 or 8 years. At first was using bootcamp and windows for TS, then switched fully to OSX. MS3 has usb built in and I have had zero driver problems with it on my Macs.

A bought an older acer aspire One with 8 gigs of ram off ebay for $175. It was pretty damn slow but it worked, then I tossed a cheap ssd in it and now it's actually pretty decent for todays standards. I really like it because it is a 10" and fits in the glovebox.

Lenovo X201. Picked it up used for $200 with the extended battery. Replaced Win7 with an SSD and Linux Mint. Fast, durable, great battery life, and the perfect size.

Once I got everything set up and running decent with a laptop I just use my Android Phone and MSDroid app exclusively. It datalogs and I can make small changes if I really need to. Once I'm done datalogging I take the phone in, hook it to a computer, run the log through MegalogViewer, make any changes as needed and safe the new tune to my phone. It's really nice not to have to lug around a laptop and always be worried about the battery dying.

except the MS3 PNP-Pro which goes full retard and uses the serial port again
and it sucks
never had a single connection problem with the usb-to-usb ports on any of the other ms3's

My company laptop is a few years old now, Dell Latitude somethingorother. When I first got it I talked the IT guy into supplying a docking station with it that had a serial port for tuning. It also included two more USB ports as a bonus. Win.

Anypony who is having difficulty with their USB-to-RS232 cable isn't using a GUC232A cable.

Period.


Trivia: All Megasquirts, including all MS3s, use RS232 as their interface to the CPU. The MS3s simply have a built-in USB-to-RS232 converter on the board. But whether the conversion is internal to the box or external in the form of a cable, you're still using a USB-to-RS232 converter.

I think my issues with USB have been mechanical from worn out ports. Serial is a nice interface since it is mechanically locked, regardless of what controller is on either end of the connection.