hotch Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Alright, so I have my beautiful black 850R, but the stock stereo just won't do... so here's the plan...I am going to...Remove the stock stereo, and put an 8 inch touchscreen in its place. This screen will be connected to a mac powerbook G4 I have lying around, running mac os x, with a DVD player, wireless internet (with a high powered omni antenna in the rear window), cellular internet, cell phone integration, GPS Nav, itunes playback, voice control, and who knows what else!Has anyone tried a system like this? How did it turn out? any tricks?EDIT: Project is done, pics on page 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeachRat Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Actually I don't think Volvos are Macintosh compatible, you might need to go to Radio Shack and buy an adapter. Sounds like that might be a good show room setup, I wouldn't recommend trying to run that stuff while driving. I have a hard enough time with my laptop touchpad when it sits here on my desk! Good luck though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legbend Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 they make in-dash computer systems. some people have seen them on "MTV's Ghetto-fy My Ride". unless you get a touch-screen LCD, and the correct interface software for it, it seems like it'd be hard to operate. plus wiring would be a pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serge Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 A carputer with a Mac.. I dunno... check mp3car.com, they have a Mac section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slarti Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 That sounds like a plan, as long as you can get the touchscreen to work with the mac. I think that would be great, iTunes in my R would rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jross Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Do it! I've been looking into a carputer for a while, and I recently (after switching to an OS X laptop) have given thought to a Mac-based carputer. I was originally going to do a Linux or BSD distro, but the Mac has served me well. The big drawback for me is that I love to tweak things, and it's harder to muck with the hardware on a Mac. [Case in point: I'm known for having off-the-wall computers. I current run computers with every major OS flavor: 2 windows boxes (main PC and media PC), Linux (Gentoo network gateway/DHCP server), OS/2 Warp (work), BSD (FreeBSD, spare comp for testing purposes), Mac (OS X laptop, System 7 IIC @ work), Unix (Silicon Graphics workstations & servers, research). Of these, the only computers I didn't either build from scratch or heavily modify were the Macs and SG units. I'm actually thinking of throwing a SG O2 workstation in the car if I can dig up a spare...] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
550 Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 gentoo is for woosies. GO KERNEL! hehe just kidding.John when you say SG do you mean SGI?. PLEASE put that in your car... haha you could do mad potoediting from within your VEHICLE! Talk about pee eye emm pee.I also want to do a carputer. My only dilemma is the compatbility of the touch screen and the OS that I use... I do believe someone has a module for *nix based machines to use a touchscreen, but I can't say for sure. Since I know not what the connections at the screen to computer are I have no clue how that would work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnthonyR Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 40gb ipod + Alpine HU + ipod link = awesomeness on a new level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
550 Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 see whats nice about the link is you can control the ipod from the deck right?I wish pioneer had their ipod link out now, but it may be a few before they get it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serge Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 gentoo is for woosies. GO KERNEL! hehe just kidding.John when you say SG do you mean SGI?. PLEASE put that in your car... haha you could do mad potoediting from within your VEHICLE! Talk about pee eye emm pee.I also want to do a carputer. My only dilemma is the compatbility of the touch screen and the OS that I use... I do believe someone has a module for *nix based machines to use a touchscreen, but I can't say for sure. Since I know not what the connections at the screen to computer are I have no clue how that would work...←Touchscreens work as regular pointing devices, atleast on the Lilliput LCDs. I believe their output is either serial or USB (which is the same thing). So it works as a mouse.But to answer the question of the topic starter. First and foremost, a 8" will not fit in the stock deck space, a 7" will just fine. There is A LOT of work involved in a carputer... power issues, user interface, etc. I am doing one this summer with a PC (soooo much more customization available, it's not even funny). Lots of neato features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jross Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 I am doing one this summer with a PC (soooo much more customization available, it's not even funny). Lots of neato features.←Yea... customization the name of the game on these. Anyone know if there's any problems using a normal harddrive? I'm slightly worried about the vibrations, and I don't think I can isolate the drive sufficiently that it won't get jolted around a bit by my driving. I was thinking of trying solid-state memory setups (anyone try and run a computer off a USB flash card before? ) so as to avoid the vibration issue altogether.Also, to whoever asked if there's *nix distros that will work with touchscreens, the answer is very much a yes. In fact, I don't know where I saw it, but there is a Linux distro that's pretty much focused on carputers exclusively... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serge Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Yea... customization the name of the game on these. Anyone know if there's any problems using a normal harddrive? I'm slightly worried about the vibrations, and I don't think I can isolate the drive sufficiently that it won't get jolted around a bit by my driving. I was thinking of trying solid-state memory setups (anyone try and run a computer off a USB flash card before? ) so as to avoid the vibration issue altogether.Also, to whoever asked if there's *nix distros that will work with touchscreens, the answer is very much a yes. In fact, I don't know where I saw it, but there is a Linux distro that's pretty much focused on carputers exclusively...←Well, there are a few things to consider. Laptop hdd's use far less power (slower RPMs), run cooler and are more immune to vibrations. From what I know, laptop hard drives "lock up" the head when they detect vibrations, this prevents damage to the plater. But at the same time for a 30 gigger you are going to shell out $70. With a regular 3.5" hd, let's say a 7200RPM, you are going to drain a bit more power (something to take into consideration due to the price of DC-DC PSUs), be less immune to bumps but at the same time you get like a 200 gigger for $100. That will probably be my solution. The power and heat issue I am not worried about (heat-regulated fan sounds like a good solution). The vibration issue can be solved with some small shock absorbers (ie, springs w/ a rubber mount). Similar to how CD changers are setup.CF is way too slow when compared to hard drives. Unless it's RAM, solid state won't be any faster than mechanical drives.You are correct. But the touch screens on most LCDs will work with ANY OS. It's just like a USB or PS/2 interface, doesn't need drivers.As for running Linux as an OS, I was really really considering it. But the lack of any GPS/navi software scrapped that idea. It would be ideal though, because you can talor it to the button. It would be a very elegant solution though. You can use LinuxBIOS on many mobos (VIA EPIAs for instance) and boot directly into Linux. Super quick boot time.I will be using XP for my carputer setup, just because of the software support issue. The beauty of using this is that I can just put the machine into suspend mode using STR. It'll only power the RAM, so that won't drain any battery power. It takes literally a second to shut down, and somewhere around 10 seconds to boot up back to where it was. Seems like the most elegant solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
550 Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Yea... customization the name of the game on these. Anyone know if there's any problems using a normal harddrive? I'm slightly worried about the vibrations, and I don't think I can isolate the drive sufficiently that it won't get jolted around a bit by my driving. I was thinking of trying solid-state memory setups (anyone try and run a computer off a USB flash card before? ) so as to avoid the vibration issue altogether.Also, to whoever asked if there's *nix distros that will work with touchscreens, the answer is very much a yes. In fact, I don't know where I saw it, but there is a Linux distro that's pretty much focused on carputers exclusively...←bout the distors, yeah I know. I do know there is LCDproc but that is for the small black letter lcd's IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serge Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 bout the distors, yeah I know. I do know there is LCDproc but that is for the small black letter lcd's IIRC.←The Lilliput LCDs and the like are just regular VGA LCDs, nothing special about their input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotch Posted February 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 40gb ipod + Alpine HU + ipod link = awesomeness on a new level.←bah, that's what i've got now. i'm looking for more awesomeness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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