Customised interface has tied McLaren’s F1 supercar to a decade old laptop. Thankfully, it’s working on an upgraded version.

Although many organisations tend to cling on to old technologies to keep their business going, perhaps following the saying that if something does not breakdown, don’t touch it.

As per a Jalopnik tour, McLaren, is heavily dependent on a nearly 20 year old laptop, a variant of Compaq’s LTE 5280, to keep its class F1 supercar going. Unfortunately, for McLaren, the day it decided to create a customised card which will interface with its supercar for diagnostic purposes, is the day when it chained itself to this specific technology.

This is a crucial lesson for buyers who may have spent a couple of millions to acquire their vehicle of pride which is only reduced to a giant paperweight after a couple of years.

On the bright side, McLaren will not have to scavenge through garage sales and auction sites for parts of this decade old technology. It’s currently working on an updated version of the interface that can connect to computers that are released on the better half of this century.

Here’s hoping McLaren’s newer rides are a little more future-proof.