In-car PC? (Was: mod idea.)

[Nate Stuart]

On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 00:38, Todd Young wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Huw from the QList said that you had put together a mini-ITX PC for use
> in your car, yet I see no pics on your web site.
>
> Come-on, the geek in you must shine through. Put up some pics of the PC. :-)

Yeah, Huw let the cat out of the bag, I was gonna wait till everything
was in and finalized :-P I have a mini-itx system put together that is
powered by a little DC-DC power converter, the entire computer fits in
the little stow tray at the drivers knees, and there is a slot load DVD
drive from an iMac sitting below the 5.6" LCD panel in the center
console for CD's/DVD's/VCD's/etc.

I wrote all the software for the interface and media player. The media
player uses the xine media libraries for playback, and can handles a ton
of different media encodings (not to meantion full menu navigation
capeabilities for DVD's). The computer is not controlled through a
keyboard as Huw meantioned, but instead it is all done through a little
credit card sized IR remote.

I have a temporary album setup, more as a dump space for the pictures
than anything, I haven't put together any formal web pages for it yet,
they will follow.
The link to the album is:

http://www.newtsplace.com/~newt/images/?mode=album&album=Audi%2Fmedia_pc

In rough cronological order, the pics start out as I was testing the
base hardware, the itx board, the DVD drive, LCD, etc. Then onto the
little plexi case that I built. And towards the end you can see the LCD
mounted in the dash (the slot for the DVD drive isn't there yet), and
the new location for the regular head unit. I was originally going to
eliminate the standard head unit, but It's too handy to ditch, for
things like quick little trips down the street, or a drive-in movie or
something where (like most normal people) you just don't need the whole
computer system.

I've only got a simple screenshot of the software in a windowed mode (it
runs fullscreen normally) here:

http://www.newtsplace.com/~newt/images/?dispsize=Original&mode=view&album=screenshots&pic=redhat9_togo.png

That is a little earlier version than I am working on now, and I will
probably do a total rewrite in time to clean things up, the software is
a cobbled together mess right now, but it works :)

And you may ask how I get more/different MP3's onto the hard drive in
the system? It's done through a usb 802.11b wireless network adaptor,
and for now just a quick rsync script to my server here.

If there are any specifics anyone wants fire away, like I said the whole
project is pretty early on still, but it is working (though not
installed in the car yet, been too busy on the other aspects of the 90).

-Nate
'89 90tq
http://www.newtsplace.com/90tq