This video is from Russia Today, the gentlemen with the, quite honestly quite awesome, "tank" are Syrian rebels. Them guys don't give up easy, do they! I would bet that, somewhere at Syrian state television, some guy is kicking himself (or, more likely, is getting kicked) for running a MacGuyver Marathon the other week. Old American TV show about a pacifist, what could be the harm? This!
Now, with the vertical sides and what looks like a mere single-layer of steel instead of nicely sloped spaced-armor, anything bigger then most handguns or submachine guns will probably not do nice things here. Like a full size machine gun or .30ish caliber rifle, not to mention a HEAT shell. But in the battles these guys go in, they may not even face anything bigger then the lighter side of firearms, maybe the odd handgrenade. This may well save a few lives and help the noble rebel cause. And you just gotta appreciate the sheer Mad-Max-meets-MacGuyveresqueness of the thing!
EDIT: The "share" button wasn't there on the youtubes, so I don't know whether they will countenance embedding. Looks fine for me, but then again, I just loaded the proper youtube page, so they already knew my IP, could be like hotlinking images from sites that frown on such exploits, looks fine at first.
If the video isn't there, click here!
), the manufacturers design these things to be reasonably simple to develop software for, and they are truly commodity hardware to boot, not very expensive. So apart from a sturdy metal case, what does a high-end industrial microconrtoller or embedded computer system have that a console doesn't? You could probably market that sturdy case to hardcore-gamers who'd pay extra for hardcore stuff like that, making even that cheaper by mass-production. Not fault tolerant enough? Maybe, but cheap...install three side by side and have them work triple modular redundancy. I don't think modded consoles will actually replace the industrial computers and controllers, but may just end up grabbing a market share. Heck, a PS3 would have more than enough power to control a nuclear power-station or three...