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carputer
I have decided to make an attempt at installing a computer in my car, acting as a cd-quality jukebox input to the stereo.The computer of choice is the same model that I use as my jukebox at home, running gruke. It is a Viewpoint Boundless TC200. The company that I work for used to sell them, but moved onto 'better, faster, harder' hardware and decided to junk hundreds of them. I rescued a pile of them and so I have some to spare should I accidently destroy a few prototypes.
I found a datasheet for the Boundless on the internet a while back, and luckily kept it lying around. Unfortunately, it was originally imprisoned within a proprietory Microsoft format. This means that it has been very hard for me to read. The best that I have managed is to convert it into a pdf, which is only marginally less distasteful. Ugh. I offer my most deep, sincere apologies in offering it to you here.
Things to do for this project;
Work out how to get underneath the dashboard of my car.- Buy a new car stereo with an auxiliary input.
- Install the new stereo.
- Buy a power supply capable of supplying the right kind of input to the Boundless motherboard/disk.
- Buy an LCD.
- Convert Linux and the gruke program to write to the LCD.
- Convert Linux the gruke program to take input from either LCD buttons, or some other simplified input device.
- Get the Boundless to boot from the flash chip and mount the disk read-only.
- Wire the power supply to the Boundless - the power pins on the mother board are very non-compatible with modern power supplies.
- Re-wire the car to include the Boundless unit.