I was at the store the other day and saw the smallest motherboard I've ever seen. It was a mini-itx board with a 933mhz processor.
I am planning on making my own case for this board to fit where my radio currently is and putting the slimline dvd-rom and floppy drives where the face is. I will then use a 5.6" tft display and a cordless keyboard/mouse to use the computer and an external amp to power my speakers. I have seen several websites detailing the install of a mini-itx system into a car, so it shouldn't be terribly hard. Has anybody else here had any thoughts on this install?

I've been waiting for this. The one BIG thing it still needs to work is a touchscreen interface for the display instead of a mouse/keyboard. They are too cumbersome and dangerous to be putting in a vehicle as the driver's primary interface.

Dave

------------------

- Electron Blue '88 GT 5-speed (1 of 1): Before After ZZ430 Ram-Port FI--Wanna Race? Follow it here on the Forum!
Pics, Vids, Specs & more at the ZZ430 Fiero webpage
- Silver '88 GT 5-speed (1 of 139) w/cammed 3.4
- '98 6-speed Corvette Coupe

This is great! I am getting a new computer so I'm doing the exact same thing. I want it mostly for the mp3player with unlimited songs pritty much and also to access cool stuff....

------------------

you could get an ipod to have a tonne of music in yee car. but This would make interesting for video and other possiblilties.. WIRELESS ETHERNET! mmmm! video games! dvds! Internet over your cellphone!

ATI makes a remote control unit
(http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/remotewonder/)
It might work for this application..

or maybe the keyspan unit
(http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/remote/)

The ATI unit is RF based, it will even go thru your car if you want to change songs outside of your vehicle

Lets keep this thread afloat, ANY ideas will be entertained I want to see where this takes us!

Edit: Floppy drive!? this is the new milenium fella, you can boot off cds now! If you need storage for files and stuff like that, get a usb dongleramkeychaindiskthingy. they are cheap, uncrashable and work very well.

JZ

------------------

- 2.8v6, 5spd
- no cat, msd ignition/coil, K&N

[This message has been edited by SplineZ (edited 04-21-2003).]

The ITX board you re speaking of works very nicely in an automotive environment. Just make sure the cse is cushion mounted as vibration is pretty severe in autos. I used a special built 12VDC ATX power supply for mine that a guy up here in Portland was building. I will have to dig around for his e-mail.

As far as touchscreens, just a 3M touchscreen and a Dynapro USB interface. Cost for the screen and interface runs about $65 and they come in bout every size you can think of. I had a ITX motherboard running XP with a 10.4" LCD/touchscreen and a 5.6" LCD/touchscreen. Both screens running simultaneous so input on either touchscreen was possible. This stuff is really pretty easy, just surf around for the pieces and you will find them.

I also went so far as to develop a complete system to control external amps, cooling, active processors as well as all temperature monitoring. Of course this was pretty difficult and be kind of overkill for a Fiero.

Good luck guys.

some time ago I had a Fujitsu Stylist Notebook computer. Very small, about the dimensions of a bible. Very high speed. I wanted to mount it above the radio pod, and interface to my pioneer head unit. Would play movies, mp3's, you name it. It had usb ports, so numerous inerfaces could be used. It also had a touch screen. was a work computer, and I had to turn it in. want to find another one. Mi9ght check e-bay. was a very neat piece. looked like it was made for the fiero. with all the new gadgets coming out, i'm sure some company will offer some type of automotive use computer. Pda's are great but low powered. laptops, fast but bulky. notebooks.....the wave of the future......just my two cents.......Erockrocket

quote Originally posted by 87fastback: The ITX board you re speaking of works very nicely in an automotive environment. Just make sure the cse is cushion mounted as vibration is pretty severe in autos. I used a special built 12VDC ATX power supply for mine that a guy up here in Portland was building. I will have to dig around for his e-mail. As far as touchscreens, just a 3M touchscreen and a Dynapro USB interface. Cost for the screen and interface runs about $65 and they come in bout every size you can think of. I had a ITX motherboard running XP with a 10.4" LCD/touchscreen and a 5.6" LCD/touchscreen. Both screens running simultaneous so input on either touchscreen was possible. This stuff is really pretty easy, just surf around for the pieces and you will find them. I also went so far as to develop a complete system to control external amps, cooling, active processors as well as all temperature monitoring. Of course this was pretty difficult and be kind of overkill for a Fiero. Good luck guys.

Sounds Awesome, is yours in a Fiero? Pictures Pictures Pictures!

I'd add in a GPS unit if I went that far :-)

[This message has been edited by Scott-Wa (edited 04-21-2003).]

Not in a Fiero, it was actually designed and built for a competition audio car based on a BMW. Never made it to competition so I jerked the system out and kept it. I had a guy from the East coast looking to buy the system and the rights, but nothing ever transpired. Oh well, better luck next time.

Why install this in the place of you radio. Get a radio with inputs and use the stereo as your amp. install the computer in your center compartment or under the seat. A removable hard drive would be nice to bring in to load MP3s from your main computer. I'm sure we can come up with lots of places to install a slide-out or beter yeat replace you dash and have the computer display. Set your gauges up anyway you like, change them often. You can also get a mini keyboard. You can also get the soft to hook this up to your ECM and do your own checks if needed. the problem I think would be the bumps. I haven't seen an air ride Fiero but I'm sure one exists out there some place. I think I would have a back-up hard drive just in case. Sory it's late and I'm acting goofy. Actualy I have thought of this myself for the MP3s they make a lcd that would make it simple. All you realy need is a removable hard drive that you could load off your main computer. Can you phantom how many songs you can put on 20 meg in MP3.

Yeah the Via cool chips are great they don't even need a processor fan, and the mini-itx boards are so tiny. I've wanted to put one in my Fiero for so long, I think I'm gonna get around to doing it in about 6 months tho. Here's what I wanna do tho...

Mount a LCD screen where the glovebox would be if the Fiero had one (that little pouch thing). Then have the computer hooked up through the stereo, and you can set up xp to hibernate when it looses power w/ the help of a UPS, so that it will resume from where you left off after getting back in the car. I want to have a big playlist of downloaded music videos that just repeat and play on the LCD. Put a wireless card in it and then be able to transfer the files to my car through my wireless network at my house. That would be so cool!

------------------

glen@dewittstudios.com AIM:MAILEDxFIST

First off I am a die hard floppy guy. I have to get into DOS and look like a geek now and then when the thing has problems. Also, the slimline DVD won't take up much space in the radio opening.

I didn't even think of touchscreen, that would be the best.

I don't like radio that much, and I want to shave my antenna for looks, so out goes the radio, in goes the computer. completely integrated like a starship i guess.

If you are looking for processing power I don't think a VIA chip will get you there. As for a compact and portable PC, how about the Shuttle XPC? If you've read the "Burnouts 4 U" thread started by Archie you've seen a picture of my XPC. I had never thought of it, but these would be perfect for a mobile audio center. 5.1 channel out (I don't know how that would work in a car, but nice nonetheless) S-Video out, Optical in, USB/Firewire, etc. They're 7" tall, 8" wide, and 11" deep. Pop a wireless NIC in there and every time you drive into your garage, your car will show up on your home network, waiting for songs, videos, and games to be transferred. How cool would that be?

Here are a few pictures of my computer. It would easily fit in the trunk, or maybe in the dash somewhere?

Edit: forgot to explain a few things. First of all, you wouldn't need much processing power unless you wanted to run cool visualizations in Winamp or something - which is what I'd want to do. I'd also want to be able to play games from my car, like Quake III.. if I was going to put a computer in my car, I'd go all out. Plus, the Shuttle SN41G2 XPC (the one I have) is only $345, and that includes the aluminum case (my computer weighs about 12 lbs loaded), 200W 1U power supply, motherboard, and heatpipe heatsink (really neat how that works). Add an XP1700+ for $50 and some DDR RAM for $100 and you have yourself a nice computer. It comes with a GeForce 4 MX440 dualhead onboard!

[This message has been edited by Wipe0ut (edited 04-23-2003).]

quote Originally posted by 87fastback: The ITX board you re speaking of works very nicely in an automotive environment. Just make sure the cse is cushion mounted as vibration is pretty severe in autos. I used a special built 12VDC ATX power supply for mine that a guy up here in Portland was building. I will have to dig around for his e-mail. As far as touchscreens, just a 3M touchscreen and a Dynapro USB interface. Cost for the screen and interface runs about $65 and they come in bout every size you can think of. I had a ITX motherboard running XP with a 10.4" LCD/touchscreen and a 5.6" LCD/touchscreen. Both screens running simultaneous so input on either touchscreen was possible. This stuff is really pretty easy, just surf around for the pieces and you will find them. I also went so far as to develop a complete system to control external amps, cooling, active processors as well as all temperature monitoring. Of course this was pretty difficult and be kind of overkill for a Fiero. Good luck guys.

Wait wait wait....a touch screen for 65$??? Where?

A 10.4" touch screen for $65? WHERE?

What a coincidence. I just logged on Pennocks to post a message asking a question regarding LCD's and what do I see.... My favorite thread subject!

Okay, so far my biggest hurdle is the screen. touchscreen would be nice, but not necessary. I'm trying to keep the price of the LCD below $400CDN since I can admit defeat and go out and buy a 14" desktop LCD for $400CDN, then remove the base and I'm all set. So I figured I'd be smart and get a surplus laptop screen off Ebay for $50... Wait, now to 'simply' hook it up to my computer, I'm well over the $600 mark! I tried emailing a company that sells LCD controllers. Their response was that their supplier doesn't support any customers that don't buy $50,000!! a month. WOW. Anyone interested in a group buy?!?

Anyway, I'm sure other people here have found an easy(cheap) way to hook up an LCD? the 10-12" size from a laptop would be perfect. The typical mobile LCD's are too small (largest is 7"), besides, they're 4X the price of anything else. Desktop 14" screens are really a bit too big, but if I can't find anything cheaper, I might make do.

I've got almost every other aspect of this figured out as far as what parts I'm going to use. The final problem will be placement, but I'll get to that when I've got the display sorted out.

BTW: 87fastback, this BMW wasn't in a Car Stereo Mag, was it? I've been drooling all over that article since it came out several years ago...

Regards,

------------------
Kris Duck

Little, Yellow, Different

I have a 10 Gig hard drive in a couple of my cars and they are sweet. About 2000 song capability. I am working on a touch screen controller for a system right now. It is a 5.6" screen from Via.

Bump...we can't let this thread die, guys...This just seems so simple and relatively cheap, it's unbelievable! How hard would it be to put one of these in a Fiero? How would you mount it? How much would the whole setup cost? SO MANY QUESTIONS! Screw taking apart APEX DVD players, I'm puttin a comp in my Fiero!

------------------

I'll be putting mine in in a couple weeks, I've had my 5.6" LCD for about a year, and got my M1000 mhz mini-ITX about 2 months ago, I've been using it to watch DVDs on my DIY projector, I've just got a few thing to do,

1)Make a simple delay circit so when power goes of the computer has time to go into hibrinate(no need for a converter or UPS)

2)Make a Skin for my mp3 player so I can see it on the LCD better

3)write a quick program/interface to control my USB radio

I've wanted to do this a long time ago, but I'm glad I waited till the mini-itx was here.

Will also have wireless network card, so I can hit a button and have it Sync with my home computer (update new songs, Weather forcast, Movie times whatever... and have it "speech synth"(talk) back)
And don't forget about GPS

and here's a few sites that gave me some ideas:
http://www.arbytech.com/index.php
http://www.staf.org.uk/car-puter/
http://ashleypowers.com/

[This message has been edited by ds21 (edited 04-25-2003).]

[This message has been edited by ds21 (edited 04-25-2003).]

ACK! You're doing my idea before I can do it myself!

While you're at it, why not make an adaptor cable to plug into the ALDL connector and run WinALDL on the computer?

Also, if you buy a TV tuner card with AM/FM tuner for the computer, you won't lose the radio functionality.

You could use 802.11b to download songs from your home PC to the car while it sits in the driveway. No need for lugging CDs back and forth.

With some console emulator software and a couple gamepads, you could run PSX / DC / N64 / etc games on it.

With the right speaker / amp config, you could have Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

The possibilities are endless

i would love to see a list of components from one already in a car and working. Hope this isn't top secret. I have a basement full of computers and parts. I had thought that I would use components some day to do this.

------------------
85 GT 4spd 2.8 1 yr blk
86 SE 4spd 2.8 2 yr blk
86 GT Auto 2.8 new to me.
87 SE 5spd Future 4.9 6yr

Wipeout, where did you get your puter from? I like it.

Ive found some cool stuff..

most of these things are from www.directron.com

Anybody seen this?! I think it'd fit nicer than ANY mini-itx computer.. It does not have multi channel sound tho if your looking for 5.1.

------------------

- 2.8v6, 5spd
- no cat, msd ignition/coil, K&N

Ok guys, here's the deal. The touchscreens are made by Dynapro, which is now 3M. They run anywhere from $38 for a 5.6" all the way to $59 for a 10.4". This price does NOT include the controller. A Dynapro USB controller will run in the neighborhood of $74. I have used the Shuttle board in an automotive environment with great success. I use a custom 12 volt DC ATX controller that has a built in sleep circuit as well as a built in voltage spike circuit to eliminate the computer shut down when the car is started. The power supply runs flawlessly, but is expensive. I paid $200 for it from a fellow up here in Oregon. I cannot find the e-mail, but if you dig around on the Car MP3 sights you will find it. As far as what can you with having the computer in the car, anything you set your mind to. Whatever you can find that runs on a home PC will run in your car. Webcams, wireless mice, keyboards, remote control multimedia. I am not going to try to walk everyone through this as I simply have zero time, but I will answer e-mails to those who are serious about building something like this nd just want information. I will reply when convenient so don't get mad if I don't write back right away. The info is out there, just scrounge around a bit.

Good luck,
Brent
ebay4now@yahoo.com

I appologize if this seems totally unorganized. I kinda.. condensed all my notes into this in my head.. Ive been thinking about this for 2 years..

Soooo many ideas to toy with, so little space (in this car) hehe.

the box. You could mount the entire thing under your passenger side dash, if you dont have the performance sound stuff. There should be enough space there.

If you can find a multi channel sound card thats REALLY REALLY slim. you wont have to pick up a PCI layover card, but you will have to alter the spoon to fit in such a low profile case.. If you can settle with 2 channel sound, you can use a low pro wireless nic and modify the spoon to fit. USB wireless nic is only used when your pci slot is in use by your sound card.

You can find 12v DC power supplies, but they are VERY VERY expensive.. 24v Dc power supplies are cheaper, but probly wont work for our situation. Most of these PSU's are used for rackmount servers in a telecom room. Probly be easier to use a 120v and an inverter. Im sure there is a way to wire it like a UPS, where if the power is turned off it will shut down or go to "sleep".

The machine should have the least ammount of ram possible. When you put a machien to "Hibernate" it needs to write the contents of the ram to your hard drive.. more ram = longer poweroff time.

Laptop hard drives should be used exclusivly. They are made to withstand shocks better than desktop units. They come in tonnes of sizes too.

hrm.. Wireless should work great thru our car, because its plastic! Just think, dont have to worry about driving away with the cord plugged in! You could listen to your music at your nieghbors house.. stream music from the web for a few hundred feet! you could sit in front of home depot or walmart and sniff credit card numbers!

The screen is totally uhm.. not my deal. I'd be lost trying to figure out a nice place to put it.. I was thinkin of using an LCD crystal display and some specialised software to play mp3s and stuff.. display the names on a dotmatrix lcd screen on your dash. Ive seen them all over the place.. it runs off your serial port.

remote control vs mouse.. ATI makes a neat remote control. its RF based vs IR like most of them.. It will operate thru lots of things., and its programmable. I wonder if you can set winamp to scan a folder on startup to add to your playlist. Im sure the keyspan remote can do the same thing.

5 channel sound kinda seems like a pain in the butt. I dont have enough space for 2 10" subs and amps to power everything, let alone another amp or 2 for more channels and a computer Makes me kinda want to get an apple iPod (20-30gig) or Creative ZEN, hook it up to the AUX input and call it a day.

This just turned into quite a ramble. Hopefully I didnt leave anything out.. or bore anybody to death. This will happen one way or another, Its just a matter of time. I cant wait to see atleast one of these finished!

JZ

------------------

- 2.8v6, 5spd
- no cat, msd ignition/coil, K&N

[This message has been edited by SplineZ (edited 04-26-2003).]

Bump. I have no 1337 skillz, but I must try this...once i get my Fiero, that is...

As for the power supply, why not just get a 12VDC to 120VAC power inverter and use a standard power supply? The rest could definately be accomplished at about the same cost as a standard home PC.

As for the 5.1 sound option that was mentioned earlier I think the Fiero would be an ideal set up and would only need the addition of a center speaker which could be installed at the expense of losing the window defroster. Of course it would probably only work on 86-88 models that don't have the headrest speakers and would require the use of a sub installed somewhere which those who already have that are already one step closer.

Blacktree,

Yeah I've already got 802.11, and got it setup to load/update songs (sync) with my home computer, also doing Divx,
have to look into the WinALDL thing though.

Also for people who don't have a mini-itx board/chip yet,

They have 5.1 built in.

The power supply thing is no problem with mini-itx, as you can get one (it only about 1x3 inches big) that will run directly of 12 volts.

Also has built in TV-out.

Right now mine is the fastest one available in the US, but the new one's, with the faster core technology, should be out very soon!

[This message has been edited by ds21 (edited 04-26-2003).]

[This message has been edited by ds21 (edited 04-26-2003).]

A great place for the ball mouse would be between the power window switches... there might just be enough room, if you don't have PM. If you were REALLY good, you could put the keyboard where the center console glovebox is... just make a swingdown tray that goes all the way down. Is your car an auto or a stick? Really this could probably all be done with a lot of ingenuity and $. (mostly $)

Some reading for ya:

http://www.monarchcomputer.com
They have M10000's with the new nehemiah core in stock. That's the place to buy if you want the fastest one.

http://www.mini-itx.com
They have and sell everything mini-ITX.

http://store.yahoo.com/ituner/posoformi.html
This seems like a neat possibility, but not much power at only 60W. Seems like it would run just fine with slimline DVD-Rom or CD-RW/DVD combo. It runs on 12V which just happens to be what the car already has.

I guess I'm the only person who wants to replace the radio with the computer, and this power supply seems to be the best way to do that.

ive only seen mini-itx mobos with 2 chan sound.. can you point out one that has 5.1?

jz

here is one with tv-out and dolby 5.1
http://www.directron.com/viaepiam1000.html

Features & Specifications:
CPU: Includes embedded VIA C3 1GHz processor
Chipset: VIA CLE266/VT8235
Form Factor: Mini-ITX
IDE: 2xATA 133/100/66
Ram: 1x DDR266 DIMM, Max 1GB
Ports: 1xSVideo (TV-OUT), 1xRCA, 2xPS/2, 1xRJ45, 1xCom, 1xPrinter, 2xUSB2.0, 1xVGA, Audio ports
Slots: 1xPCI
Onboard 1394: VIA VT6307S IEEE 1394 Firewire
Onboard LAN: VIA VT6103 10/100 Base-T Ethernet PHY
Onboard Audio: VIA VT1616 6 channel AC'97
Onboard Video: Integrated VIA CastleRock AGP graphics with MPEG-2 decoder
Onboard I/O Connectors: 1 USB connectors for 2 additional USB 2.0 ports. 2 1394 connectors for 2 1394 ports. Front-panel audio connectors (Mic and Line Out). CD Audio-in connector. SIR connector. CIR connector. Wake-on-LAN, Wake-on-Ring. CPU/Sys FAN/Fan 3. System intrusion connector. 1 I2C connector. 1 LVDS connector (Optional). Serial port connector for second com port.
Back Panel I/O: 1 PS2 mouse port. 1 PS2 keyboard port. 1 Parallel. 1 RJ-45 LAN port. 1 Serial port. 2 USB 2.0 ports. 1 VGA port. 1 RCA port (SPDIF or TV out). 1 S-Video port. 3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in; can be switched to 6 channel output.
Application: VIA FliteDeck Luxurious Utility. MissionControl-H/W Monitoring, Remote SNMP management. FlashPort-Live BIOS Flash. SysProbe-Live DMI Browser.

hans

Hey wipe out, where did you get you;re computer..?? Online..??

------------------
Justa stocker...

DustoneGT,

As I said I just need to do a few thing before I replace CD and Radio in my Fiero.
Here's the Radio I have: http://www.dlink.com/products/usb/dsbr100/

Plus I'll be playing Divx.
I've been planing on doing this for over a year, some where there's an old thread where I bring up the ITX boards.

i would call them and make sure that it's the new core, Mine was supposed to have it but than it got delayed. (but mine does everything but play games which is fine for now, I'll upgrade later when they reach the 2Mhz mark)

Yeah that's the power supply I have, I'm running a fullsize DRD-rom and fullsize harddrive no problem! When I tried to use my tv-tuner(pci) card it would crash (not enough power)but when I get it in my car I plan on getting the slimline.

I thought about the touch screen but worry about reliability (hot and cold) so decided on track ball, with my system I don't see the need to have a permanent keyboard.

Also have been thinking lately about a custom dash using LCD for instument distplay. And don't forget about replacing the rearview mirror, you could iven do a night vision thing.

86 gt fastback,
Yeah that's the one I have, The one thing they don't tell you is, if you use the TV-out you lose the use of the digital out, which is no problem for in car, but in the home using it as a HTPC (home theater PC) it's not convenient, but it also has the S-video out too!

I'm going out to get some stuff to make a custom case right now!

P.S you can save some money and get the 933 and overclock it to 1Mhz, they talk about it at www.mini-itx.com

[This message has been edited by ds21 (edited 04-27-2003).]

[This message has been edited by ds21 (edited 04-27-2003).]

The newer Via Epia M boards have the 6-channel sound. So there is no need for an add-on sound card. There's really no need for any add-on cards, unless you want wireless ethernet, or a TV/AM/FM tuner. And even then you could use a USB wireless adaptor.

quote The machine should have the least ammount of ram possible. When you put a machien to "Hibernate" it needs to write the contents of the ram to your hard drive.. more ram = longer poweroff time.

Use STR (suspend to RAM) instead of STD (suspend to disc). The computer will recover from STR mode faster and will use less power in STR mode. The more RAM the computer has, the smaller the swapfile (assuming a Windows OS) will be. Smaller swapfiles mean less hard drive usage.

[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 04-27-2003).]

I was worried about the 60W supply, but it sounds to be enough as long as I don't plug too much into it.

What about a touchpad mouse, like on the laptops, rather than trackball? I don't have power mirrors, so that would be a good place to put that interface.

ds21, it's a good thing you're already started on this, i probably wont be able to get to it until june or july.

Wireless ethernet would work for me, I park about 60 feet from my computer. I want to run power to it that is always on so I can wake on LAN and send it some mp3s from in the house.

The TV out will be fine for wathcing DVDs or DIVX but you are going to be real disappointed if you intend to use a standard TV as your computer monitor. A standard TV can barely display 640 x 480, and it will be extremely difficult to read on a small monitor. Most software won't properly display at that low a resolution and even if it does, you will be needing to scroll left to right just to see the whole screen. I have a setup like this in the house and it's barely adequate on a 13in TV.

Having said all that I like the idea of an onboard computer and since I already have a 5.6 inch screen in my car I may add one someday.

------------------
If you find my advice useful, then please give me a positive rating, thanks...

Ive been working on something like that myself, but I was going to also have the computer run real time engine diagnostics and am in the process of writing code to manipulate power door locks and windows via a graphical user interface.