Carputers

[mikey_something]

actually an interface much like Frontrow for Mac OS X would be quite nice in a car. Of course with GPS and other such features included but i think it would look the part.

[phildough]

Originally Posted by marcs_sp20

eh, still wanna browse the net

OK, so how much will one of these carputers cost? Including wiring, and XP OS... and talking total cost, and i'll be purchasing the keyboard/mouse

If you would like me to assemble the parts I have into a working car PC I can.
The mobo, case and PSU cost me over $500 and by the time you add ram and HDD and XP you can have it for $300.
I can help install it as well.

[Ice88]

Marc id prolly go for linux and then use some form of media centre to do the rest. Linux would in theory pending the way the PSU works make for less draw on the battery.

Specially if you used something like a scaled down ubuntu distro or debian or something and then only loaded the programs needed. If interested let me know marc as i do linux at uni

Im no uber linux geek but i had to do unix administration stuff at uni

[phildough]

I had the Linux ICE running on my laptop the other night and it seems to be pretty good.
I cant find my USB GPS, its here somewhere and then I will test that side of it out.

[70NYD]

linux ice was awesome

[phildough]

No ones interested in my Carputers
Might have to build a case out of Lego and have a Lego PC instead then.

[marcs_sp20]

I'll be down to see ya soon - when bills are paided

[brappinseven]

Carputers are awesome

but expensive

i've been looking at 1 which comes from the UK

its a Mini ITX, 1.6ghz Dual Core Atom cpu, 2gb ddr2 ram, 320gb 2.5" Sata laptop hard drive. Comes with built in wireless, PSU
all i need is a screen and power convertor

mainly want it for streaming music, playing DVD's etc while on the move
this system is good enough to run Win7 too

its around the $600 Aud mark tho

[phildough]

If anyones interested in my carputers I sill have them and its now make an reasonable offer.
Swapping / trading / barter also accepted.

[marcs_sp20]

Bumpo for an oldish thread..

Last week I upgraded my phone, and as a bonus was given a free Optus MyTab prepaid tablet:



Basic specs are that its a 7" Android 2.1 Tablet, has 3G, wifi, GPS, and being Android, has a lot of apps that make it useful as a carpc...

Now, with the assistance of Darryl, I have nutted out that I could possibly run it in sync with the cars DVD player, just in A/V mode. So I have purchased some AV>Usb & USB>Micro USB adapters and am currently waiting for them to arrive (only purchased tonight on Ebay )

One question that has me intrigued, is if I were to play a movie, would it show on both screens simultaneously??

Anyways, food for thought

[Clean_Cookie]

Interesting concept. Can u give me a link to those parts? I've got a windows 6.5 phone running 6.5.5 ass well as android

[mynameisdaniel]

It'll probably show on both screens, unless there's an option to only display on the projector (DVD Player). Your problem's going to be that you can't use the DVD player's touch screen to control anything.

[phildough]

First thing I would do would be upgrade it to remove the sloptus software and debrand it to the standard oem software or possibly upgrade it to Android 2.2 if it hasn't allready got it.
From memory I think it wont be able to support dual screens simultaneously.
I didn't know it even had AV out, are you sure it has as I haven't seen a mention of it, so those adapters probably wont work, but I may be wrong.

[marcs_sp20]

See im not sure if it'll work myself, but will find out in 2 or so weeks... Could always mount it so it just has audio and have the she screen down/off...

[Ice88]

youll most likely run into problems with movie play back. Bitrates of even simple xvid movies might overwhelm it.

And while x264 requires much lower bitrates for similiar quality, the libraries that are used for x264 playback require a little power.

[Orion]

How small can a USB 800x600 touchscreen be?

Or, alternatively, how well do 800x600 graphics run on a 640x480 screen?