SCATT for a Mac person

[Ricardo]

Hi all.

I have a SCATT USB that I've been running on a bottom-rung Lenovo laptop and it's so painfully slow that it took all the joy out of training. I upped the memory to 8 MB thinking that might help (because I know nothing), and it's still awful. I haven't used it in over a year.

I get the impression that the software now runs on Windows 10 (11 too?), so I'm thinking of getting myself a new laptop for pretty much this use only. Can anyone recommend the lightest and/or cheapest PC laptop that would be better than the absolute minimum required? In other words, a little machine that will run the software reliably and without taking 10 minutes to boot up? Thanks!

[1845greyhounds]

Pretty much any modern laptop or PC is capable of operating the Scatt software. I've setup 2 systems using sub-$200 laptops. Just make sure the selected computer exceeds these minimum requirements

Here's a link to the Scatt software and driver download links. Based on the Scatt USB manual, the Scatt Professional software should work.
https://www.scatt.com/downloads/

Replacing the existing laptop may not be necessary. The Scatt operating requirements are pretty minimal. It's more likely that there's a bunch of malware or other unknown/unwanted programs operating in the background. You might be better off updating the PC's security suite (anti-virus, malware protection, firewall) or taking it to someone who can.

[Ricardo]

Thanks for that information! It could be malware, but the thing was slow right out of the box. I think my problem might be bloatware, so I'll try to get rid of that.

[-TT-]

Since you mention Windows 10, I'm going to guess this heap is running Windows 7. Don't waste your time. Literally anything on the shelf at Walmart will outperform it.

[porkchop]

1848 greyhound, I didn't know Explorer computers could be used for anything. Are you saying I can still use my old computer with XP still, I thought they were obsolete and didn't work anymore? I'm not that computer savvy.
Stan

[1845greyhounds]

@porkchop, I'm no IT expert, but I do know that an obsolete operating system (i.e. Windows XP, or 7) alone isn't a reason for a computer not to work. That said, obsolete operating systems are no longer supported with security updates/patches. That means they are (extra) susceptible to viruses and malware if they are connected to the internet.

[Ricardo]

Doesn't SIUS software still need some ancient OS?

BTW, eliminating bloatware did a lot to improve my Lenovo. It still sucks compared to my Mac, but it works!

[Hemmers]

I've run a SCATT MX-02 on an 8" LINX tablet running W10 that cost <£100 (garbage-grade Atom processor IIRC). It does not need a powerful computer by any means, though you can't run an older USB-SCATT on the tablet because it seems to be fussy about "native" USB ports (in the same way the old serial SCATT was fussy about Serial-USB converters as I understand it). Most tablets only have the one port and USB-SCATT can be fussy about being asked to go through a splitter/hub.

If your system is slow beyond belief, it's most likely using a spinning hard drive? The processor is almost never the limiting factor. Swapping the HDD for an SSD will be like light and day. A bargain-basement 128GB or 256GB SSD can be had cheap these days, which will be sufficient for a dedicated SCATT-rig and a lot less than a new machine (plus less e-waste going to landfill).

I recently updated my parent's 2012-era Macbook (which was crawling) from HDD to SSD and any suggestion that they might buy a new computer went out the window.