>I've been puzzled for years why there haven't been many, many programs
>offered to turn a laptop (or now a Palm Pilot, etc.) into a scan tool.
Money. A laptop costs a lot of money, and is *fragile*. If you drop
it off a fender, or even a door sill then you're done. If you drop a
scan tool, then you might have plug cables back in. New high end
scan tools are really general purpose computers (some even run
windoze) in ruggedized cases, and usually minus input options like a
qwerty keyboard. Software cartridges have survived because they make
the software -- worth lots -- much harder to steal.
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