A New road to Adventure Simac Electronics bv has been the sponsor of Zodiac Webpress during the Paris-Dakar 2000 race. Our goal was to realise the communication between the rally and the rest of world with special industrial notebooks designed for harsh environments. The connection on the internet was established with Simac ruggedized notebooks and an ISDN-satelite connection to the Zodiac-server. Simac ruggedized notebooks withstand rain, dust, water, high/low temperatures, drop and vibration. And also proved to be really Willem-proof.

Members of the team :

Getac A-Series High reliability and availability Temperature from -20 to 50 deg. Celsius Humidity 5-95% and IP52/54 Vibration 10-55 Hz 0.075 mm / 55-500 Hz 1G Shock 15G , 11 ms half sine wave 3 feet height free drop on concrete Militairy compliance MIL-STD-810E CE marked and EMI FCC, UL.

CapSat Mesanger M4 Light and portable high-speed up to 64 kbps. Multiple interfaces. Foldable, high-gain antenna and easy satellite tracking. Easy set-up and customisation of the terminal. Multi-language support.

KODAK DC290 1901 x 1212=2.3 millions of pixels 24-bit, millions of colors ATA compatible CompactFlash card Wide/TelePhoto: 1.0 ft (0.3 m) to infinity 38.4 to 115.2 mm

Zodiac Webpress As one of the three members of the presscar 714, with the role as navigator, Willem de Zeeuw drove all the way from Dakar to Caïro. Following the same roadbooks as the rallyteams did, we were able to be on all the nice places of the rally. On location a webpage was made enriched with pictures and uploaded to the Internet. The connection on the internet was established with a ruggedized notebook and an ISDN-satelite connection to the Zodiac-server.