Interesting MR2 (car PC content) : Off-topic discussion forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

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Oct. 2, 2008 4:39 a.m. Luke Dork

My link to the original thread, translated from German, isn't working, but you can see all the pictures here: http://racergeeks.com/showthread.php?t=975

Prerequisites for buying this car:

Knowledge in electronics

Knowledge of PC technology

Skills in programming (especially Visual Basic)

Knowledge of micro controller

I did a unit on Visual Basic last semester. I think, that with my sketchy understanding of programming, I could reduce this thing from a fully operational sports car, to a static lump of metal in no time at all

Now cue Windows error message jokes.
Oct. 2, 2008 7:27 a.m. GameboyRMH Dork

Wow that's like what I've always wanted to do! Except the Windows/VB part.
Oct. 2, 2008 9:58 a.m. DirtyBird222 HalfDork

http://www.mp3car.com/ This website and their forum will help you build any kind of car pc you want. It's amazing at some of the things people do.

On the topic, I am currently looking for the thread, but some redneck on LS1tech fabbed up a car PC, but stuck a huge tower desktop in the spare trunk well of a 4th gen f-body. Put a 7 inch monitor in the radio spot and had a trackball mouse in the center console to operate. Redneck or grassroots, either way it was funny but it worked.
Oct. 2, 2008 10:34 a.m. aircooled Dork

The idea of putting a hard drive in a car is a bit scary, but with the rapid decrease in price of thumb drives makes a "no moving parts" computers a bit easier. Using SD cards is also an option, there are adapters to make the computer think they are and IDE drive.
Oct. 2, 2008 11:45 a.m. fiat22turbo SuperDork

SSDD in whatever form is great. That or use a laptop that has a shock sensor built in to protect the disk drive.
Oct. 2, 2008 2:45 p.m. RXBeetle New Reader

There are 32Gb compact flash drives available for ~$100 and you can get adapters to plug them right into an IDE cable.
Oct. 2, 2008 3:21 p.m. fiat22turbo SuperDork

Yes, I know. Those are essentially the same as a Solid State Disk Drive. Their lifespan is limited as they degrade overtime as data is written and rewritten. Much like a CD-RW can only be used a few times, flash drives don't last forever. SSDD drives have built-in intelligence to pay attention to what areas have been written on and to spread the load around to minimize the first few banks going bad.
Oct. 2, 2008 11:51 p.m. DirtyBird222 HalfDork

or you can just do what i did, buy a head unit with dvd playback, 3.5inch screen, navigation, and a 40 gig hard drive built in with shock absorbing sensing nonsense. I might build a car pc for my next car depending if it is brand new or not.