KNGT offers up Windows XP-powered icom MK1 carputer
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 31st 2008 2:40PM
posted Jul 31st 2008 2:40PM
[Via Coolest-Gadgets]
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The only way I would install this is if.......never mind, I would never install this....
You can't get more of a rush than driving at 100 m.p.h. while browsing on the internet. Just pray you don't run into traffic while checking out your favorite porn site. And to think that some cities have laws against drivers using a common cellphone while behind the wheel. I say that they should make heads-up displays mandatory for vehicles.
I have a carputer in my Scion tC. Mine is custom built though. Most
people that use carputers use car specific software to cover up the
Windows UI. This software is generally refered to as a "Front End".
Here is a video of mine using Streetdeck as the front end software.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyhDfOH60nk
Oh BTW carputers use hibernation that triggers when the key is turned
off or on. The average boot time for me is around 12 sec from ignition
to music.
> ...You can't get more of a rush than driving at 100 m.p.h. while browsing
> on the internet. Just pray you don't run into traffic while checking out your
> favorite porn site...
Ain't legal in Virginia:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-1077
Um... Is that drive Solid State? Because I don't think conventional ones are good in a car.
Especially if you're putting this in a Buick Riviera. You might damage your HDD speeding away from a drive-by.
@The Dude
Yeah but just think how confused they would be if you put a gold 80GB on the front fender instead of a 22
Normal HDD's work just fine in cars, i've had a 2.5" drive in my car PC for like 3 years now with no issues and some people have done it with far less durable 3.5" desktop HDD's, and of course if you really wanted to they make extreme duty standard drives specificaly for in car use and military aplications.
Once you have a Car PC it's painfull going back to normal headunits and having to swap CD's and stuff.
Hitachi makes a laptop hard drive with 325G vibration and 1000G shock tolerances.
If you're getting more than 1000Gs out of your car, you must be driving one zippy little space ship. And no, adding a spoiler to your Integra does not make it push 1000Gs.
https://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/NN2-54-160-IHI.html
Yeah... you know, because pmps with harddrives dont work in cars either.... *headpalm* I cannot believe I just waisted the time to comment
okay.... you know harddrives can work in excess of a few G's ? I had a western digital that said "warranty void is used in excess of 5Gs" which would only be a problem for a rocket launch.
yes, IF one of the contact heads comes in touch with a platter then it will scratch the fuck out of your data, but they generally don't. Hard drive controllers usually die first.
I'll take a mac mini in my glove box....k thanks.
Most vehicles have a double din stereo already so it's not like you have to cut a gaping hole in your dash to mount this. You just remove the old one and looking at the picture it would fit perfectly. Most in dash navigation systems are this big or bigger.
you're welcome?
Have fun mounting a 15" LCD on your dash...
And not getting a ticket for it every time you are pulled over.
k, thanks.
Why on earth would you get a ticket? Cars come with factory nav screens....
Oh, and they make 7" touchscreens (8" too)
k thanks!
i've always wondered about boot times with a car pc, wouldnt you have to start it up and select all your music and whatever then drive off, seems a waste of time. and standby would drain the battery
umm hibernation...
If you have always wondered, then why have you never taken a few minutes out of your life to find the answers?
Lazy and ignorant.
People have been using these things for ~10 years so I think they have figured out to not leave the PC on while they car is not running. The current power supplies in carpcs can automatically boot and shutdown the pc with your ignition.
Also, they can be up and running faster than aftermarket navigation systems made by Pioneer and others so it really isn't a hassle waiting to get some music, gps, movies, etc ready for the drive.
I thought his question was valid...god forbid he have enough faith in the commenters here to ask a question... much better than all those know it all armchair MENSA members.
Try not to be a douche next time.
I thought his question was valid...god forbid he have enough faith in the commenters here to ask a question... much better than all those know it all armchair MENSA members.
Try not to be a douche next time.
not trying to be an armchair MENSA member.. i just dont get the rationale of "Ive always wondered" when the information could have been had with tiny effort.. why wonder about things when you can actually know?
And if he would have just asked, I probably would have answered.. I'm just annoyed by stupid lazy people that say things they have no idea about.
Him not knowing about it would be the point of him asking a question. So you only approve of questions by people who know the answer? Nice.
Anyway, I think the idea of a car computer is just a total waste. It also seems to be a bad idea if you live in the city. Why give another reason to break into your car for something that you probably wouldn't use that much.
I have to go with ds on this. You guys are defending this guy as if he actually asked a question. Read his comment. He didn't really ask a question unless you count "wouldnt you have to start it up and select all your music and whatever then drive off". I think if he would've actually asked the boot time he would've got a general answer. His statement was completely rhetorical. Read it again if you disagree. He stated "and standby would drain the battery" which is completely stupid and caused the snarky comments.
Hmm, idk ds, wouldn't asking a question on Engadget qualify as a "tiny effort?"
Yeah idk.. I guess I was a bit rude, but honestly I read and re-read that comment a few times, and it does not seem like a question to me at all.
Here is my analogy -
"i've always wondered about the surface temperature of mars, wouldnt it be neat if we could live there, seems like it. and its red so that means its really hot"
Is that a valid question? To me it is not.. I guess the distinction is if a person read that and had no knowledge of mars, then they may think it was a valid question about the surface temp of mars. Any person reading it with a passing knowledge of the subject would be pretty annoyed at the stupidity which would prompt smart ass replies like this guy got.
Def. want this.
I wonder if I could get it to run OS x86?
what benefit would you gain.
OS x86? Windows XP is a x86 OS. which one do you want? Windows 9x, windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista?
@icepop4who
he wants the obvious one, the one which you are ignoring because you are an ignorant BEEP and you are prejudice against mac users.
Sorry I couldn't understand that sentence because for some reason you were censored
/me scratches his head
How does being an ignorant feep and prejudiced against the McUsers (along with about 80% of Scotland, btw) explain leaving out Linux?
I hope that was XP Media Center edition otherwise you wouldn't we able to listen to the radio if the TV tuner included supported FM tuning. That is only really an issue if you were actually planning on using the device as a radio in addition to a carputer. I actually listen to the morning radio then switch over to my own music on my zune, so the ability to be able to actually use the device as a radio would be of some value to me.
I see what you did there....carputer.
am surprised he didn't say carbook.
iCarBook. :)
My Carputer has a usb TV/FM Tuner and my frontend software interfaces with it to give me my presets.
Huh, the read link appears to be chinese....and random ascii...so much for more details.
That would be Korean - TYVM.
You're welcome very much.
I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English KNGTs
Fechez La Vache!
Allons-y!
What?
Let's go!
..OK.
i'd use it, gps, pandora (yes, please), mabye it can even hook into OBDII
you guys are totally off your game.
carPC is the future. This things looks like it even uses Wings -- assuming this isn't 100% fully fake...
But you would be hard pressed to drain your batery. Interaction via ODBII is great, bluetooth, nav...
You obviously are jealous.
@ kal326 ... there are USB radio units that could be attached to do this. No biggie
PC at work, PC at home, even PC in my phone. PC in my car? Nah, I'll leave that one alone.
Mac at work, Mac at home, Mac on my phone. Mac in my car? Yes please, but much more unlikely.
@d
I had this idea of using iPhone/iPod Touch for the 'HU' though. I've been looking through many carputer forums and people have used UMPCs and tablets as HU. My thing is that I don't want something that'll suck up a lot of energy and iPhones are pretty much a miniature Mac. I think it also helps that it's all touchscreen so you don't have keyboard showing. It's phone (bluetooth mic?), GPS and media steamer (external hard drive). I think it'll be neat to be able to get stuff from my home puter via wifi and save it into the external drive (if OS would permit such thing?). Clearly I need to plan a lot more before I do it haha.
This is a project for next March. Hopefully I can get it integrated in well.
You can guarantee the display used in this image is not running at 800x480.
Holy CRAP! A simulated image on an LCD in a product photo!
Anyone know any more details? Mainly, how much? This is exactly what I'm looking for. The only other similar device on the market is about $2k, which is a little steep for me, especially since it has a good chance of being stolen.
There is one that I have by Xenarc its the MDT-X7000 , honestly its just a single DIN 7" touch screen and DVD but its nice since its a single DIN, and you can make your own Carputer to run behind it (you can hide all the main components anywhere, Trunk, glove box, under the seat) and you can find it for like $600, I built my computer part of it for around $500 and it does a LOT more than just play music.
As for some concerns on power usage, it boots from a compact flash card, has a startup/shut down controler to protect it from spikes and also send it to hibernate when the car is off.... boot time to start listening to tunes is about 3 seconds,
My carputer has Nav, internet, about 60 GB of JUST tunes, some apps, and I am in the middle of rigging up a thumb-print reader to act as my key (car wont start without my thumb print)
@ Mike
That's cool and all, but unfortunately it makes your thumb valuable to carjackers. Ever see Demolition Man? Cautionary tale that.
Touchscreens (that fold in and out) can be had on ebay for around $150ish. A VIA with 12V adapter would run you under $300. CF cards are under $50. RAM is under $50. What more do you need?
@PoisonEye
Have you ever seen a movie? Yeah, it's a movie.
@Mike
That looks pretty decent, I'd rather have a double din if possible though since I have the space. I don't know why, but I'm just not a huge fan of the flip out monitors. Your set-up sounds great though - do you have any pics? What software do you run?
Hmm... Like the guys at OSX86 to see what they can do with this!! How 'bout "Front Row" right on your dash.....
Frank
conor wants!
say, is that firefox3
no that is definitely internet explorer...congrats you fail.
@kal326
Wait a sec.. are you really under the impression the only way a computer can tune FM stations is through Windows XP Media Center? I promise this CarPC tunes FM stations and does not have Windows XP Media Center.
What, no crashing jokes yet?
In Soviet Russia your carpc crashes you. Pretty bad huh.
Manufacturers have put mechanical hard drives in cars for years. Aftermarket companies have sold mechanical hard drives for cars for years. Yes, solid-state is preferred but definitely not required.
Yeah but I bet its audio output sounds like C-R-A-P through any decent amp->speakers + amp->sub setup.
I would probably want to run the audio out through a real head unit, that might improve the audio quality to acceptable levels, or at least give you better leveling control...
THE MUPPET MOVIE!!! LOL
Wait WTF, this (reply) was supposed to go on an entirely different thread...
Eng comment system FTL!
Actually, you can get better sound. They make USB DAC's, various audio processors, and the like to work with carpc's. You are even able to tune your system using your computer, no more need for eq's, crosseovers, external processors etc, it's all done on the PC, and THEN sent out via RCA's.
Have you any idea what it's like to be a manbot in a carbot's carputer's world?
cool. what a great KITT for my KARR
Ah, this reminds me of the Empeg I had in my car back in '99... I miss that thing.
My first thought on seeing this was, "hey, I could probably fit that into the front of an HTPC case". Then I thought about it some more.
That looks like an old Magitronic lunchbox computer to me!
i foresee cooling issues
Yeah ! At last, I can watch p0rN in traffic jams now. Thx KNGT!! (btw, the "glove box" deserves its name now...)
The first son of a b1tch they catch using one of these things while driving needs to have their internet and driving priviliges revoked for life.
I wonder the price on this, as the Azentek Atlas CPC-1000 is a much better spec'd deal, running Vista on a 1.83 GHz Intel Core2Duo and 120 gig drive w/ DVD drive, proprietary OS overlay (for media functions) and PCMCIA slot in back. However it's some $2800 at Crutchfield. But I like the way things are going, if the decline in computer prices for desktops/laptops prevails, we'll get good things in a few years for nada...