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Dashboard Linux
zebziggle writes "The dashPC has Global Positioning (GPS) and Navigation, DVDs, Games (Quake 3, SoF, UT), Address book database, etc. It can run any programs that will run on an Intel/AMD i686 class computer. There is a Basic Stamp micro-controller that interfaces the Linux box to the car ignition for controlled boot/shutdown." The article says Linux, but that screenshot tells a different story. The website has other stuff and a lot more pictures.
Now when I get hit on my bike again by a car, instead of the old "i was on my cell" they will "i was in the middle of recompiling my kernel..." to the officer
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, not just chemistry, reality!
In addition the the screenshots that look a whole lot like Windows to me....I noticed that on the features page it shows a car which isn't even available in the US (yet the car has Florida Plates)---the Jetta 2 Door!
Something about this site seems awfully fishy.
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
Imagine a ten car pile-up of these!
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
Do drivers really need any more distractions? They're supposed to be watching the road, rather than whomping through pedestrians. Why the hell would you want to play UT in the car? Frag a few people at the traffic lights? The real kicker is that it doesn't actually run when the engine is off. Hooray! :)
However, the rather pointless walnut styling on the keyboard really sells the thing to me
What with all the automobile modifications for running computers, the next logical step is to simply replace the windshield with a monitor.
Cameras mounted on the front of the car would provide the driver with images from the road. The rest of the 'screen' could be divided into whatever the user(s) would like.
Say the passenger wants to play Quake, he opens a window and plays it on the right side, while the screen in the middle plays The Lion King for the kids in the back.
This would also allow stronger bodies on cars, as the composite used in place of windows would be far stronger than glass.
Talisman
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I hope they come out with a driving game for this.
Article about the dangers of car PC's and cell phones use while driving.
Best Slashdot Co
If you look at the dashpc.com site, he mentions that he's running VMWare for Windows 98 access to the GPS software.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
One screenshot has Hollywood Magic Plus DVD software in it, its windows software, and they claim VMWare, but I seriously doubt DVD playing works all that well through a virtual machine. VMWare struggles to make office seem peppy on all but the newest machines.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Nope, not me, I must be someone else...
*My* passengers are to busy praying not to die, while I navigate my bmw @ 2xSpeed Limit speeds.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
can you imagine a Steppenwolf Cluster of these??? Now *that's* a magic car-pet ride!!!
The weather and traffic data are gathered when the car is still in the garage via 802.11
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
See this comment.
There is a REALLY long retractable spool of cat5 with amplifiers every so often mounted on the rear bumper. Works fine as long as you return home using the same route that you used to get to work.
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
This is great.
I've put a system in my car that does a few of these things. It's based on a regular x86 system, but uses straight DC-DC for power (eats less power). The BASIC STAMP I used (BS2-SX) is set up to power up the computer on ignition and it can start the car on a signal from the computer, as well. I'm in the process of setting my trunk button on my keyless entry to turn on the computer instead. I have a 5" LCD (no touchscreen yet!) and tiny keyboard (keypad next to the LCD, too).
So far it has integratio with my GPS: moving map, output to my stereo, 802.11b (to work on it from my home, transfer music, etc), and the beginning of an interface to my car's CPU and testing system.
I'm using a big deep-cycle battery to power it (charges from car) when the car isn't on, but I really just want to make it more low-power from the bottom up. My car is pretty light-weight anyway (RX-7), so I'd like to lose the battery eventually.
This is mostly spare parts and home-built electronics, though, so I spent less than $200 on it as it is. My entire CD collection is in it in fairly high bitrate mp3/ogg files.
Once the car CPU interface is complete, I can have all sorts of useless realtime stats to look at instead of the road!
Now I just need retractable wings and I'm set. (Maybe oil-slick and caltrops, too!)
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
did you just make that up? Nothing on the site indicates that the box has WiFi built in. It mentions a 10/100 ethernet card, but i would imagine that it's only for VERY occasional file transfers, involving removal of the box.
So you'd actually have /dev/engine, /dev/wheel[0123] . . . Some stuff under /proc to report stats and the like. You'd have things like "steerd" running in the background to handle steering. Get a remote interet connection up and you could even SSH into your car to diagnose engine problems! Think of the possibilities!
You could even use the standard Linux sound structure to deal with your car's audio system. /dev/audio and the like. Have mpg123 for mp3s, some cd player to deal with CDs. Heck, since we're doing mp3s now, you could actually serve mp3s up to OTHER cars running Linux! We could probably hack up Gnutella to do some keen P2P stuff. ("Damn, I forgot my NIN CD at home. But wait! That Honda over there is sharing them! Great!")
Of course, then you've gotta worry about people h4x0ring into your car. That'd bite. We'd have to make sure there's some pretty thorough iptables rules going on . . . And what happens if your kernel panics? Doh! Probably not the best situation to be running a "testing" kernel on. I can see the website now: "Well, the bug that was causing engine meltdowns was fixed in 2.5.13-pre5, so I suggest everyone upgrade . . ."
Gives a whole new meaning to the whole "no warranty implied" thing, eh? Would you want the preemptible kernel patches on that thing?
So what do most cars actually run on, anyway?
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
The biggest problem here is refresh rate. Otherwise your idea is pretty cool. Probably want to use it to run doom instead, because mouselook in your car might be tough.
In-Dash PC emmulating windows: US$1,000
802.11b Wireless LAN card: US$120
Airsnort: Free
Sending a WinPopUp that says "YOU ARE AN IDIOT" to the moron who just cut you off: Priceless
For some things there are hand signals, for everything else, there's Linux.
Anyone care to write a parallel parking script for this?
/dev/wheel
/dev/accelerator
/dev/accelerator
/dev/wheel
/dev/gear
cat "right 30" >
cat "25" >
sleep 2
cat "0" >
cat "left 30" >
cat "reverse" >
Why run Linux when your GPS software and other apps are native Windows apps? Just so you can say "Look at me! I'm one of the l33T linux dudez!"?
If you want to run Quake, UT, Winamp (or equivalent), and commercial GPS mapping software, you need Windows, not Linux. Of course, there's always someone with a really big hammer, a square peg, and a round hole...
So you can play Carmegeddon while driving? There's just something inherently screwy about that. Or playing a racing game while stuck in a traffic jam. Yesh the irony.
-cpd
My car was stolen a few months ago, and I got it back after about five weeks. From now on, when my car starts up, I want it to note where it is, take a picture of whoever's starting it up, and upload that information to a hidden FTP directory at my ISP.
The next time some asshole takes my car, I want to be able to e-mail their picture and location to the SFPD.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
yes, I own the card. the software used with the card is what they are running, and I seriously doubt that you can play dvd's in hardware or software over vmware.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
GPSDrive HOMEPAGE
I wish you would read at least some of the article. he clearly states that the system is for passengers while he is driving, not to fuck with when he is driving. any person that has a brain knows that would be very dangerous. if i were a passenger, i would love to play wolfenstein while on a roadtrip.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Yeah. :P
He looks ouside the window.. instant weather updates
No wonder everyone is confused - the original link points to an article that only mentions Christopher's project. Full site can be found at http://www.dashpc.com where he explains everything! (from where to get that flat screen to why he uses windows running on top of linux)
Please mod up so other people can actually find useful info.
P.S. Is anyone else pissed at VW for not bringing their in-dash navigation system that is available for Passat in Europe?
Maybe they used the STAMP because it was readily available, and easy to make changes to while in development?
Jesus Christ, why not just paint over the windows with black spray paint, and go driving around in the mall. You won't be using the windows to see, between a computer, a dvd player, and a cell phone, why bother with such lame things as WATCHING WHERE YOU'RE DRIVING.
badger
did you just make that up? Nothing on the site indicates that the box has WiFi built in.
It's on his News page. The 10/25/01 entry had the following:
The screen resolution on the display is limited to 640x480 so I've decided to drop the window manager. I'm going to use perl/Tk to roll my own UI. I put a few pictures at the bottom of the pictures page. I'm currently downloading the images (via 802.11) for weather and traffic before I leave the parking garage. By the time I get out of the parking garage, the system has booted, the network connection is live, and the system pulls the images off the web. In addition, the car uploads the latest GPS coordinates, so if the car ever disappears, the authorities can recover it. Since ricochet went down, I'll have to figure out another way to do the wireless connectivity. I'm thinking about cellular at this point, but I'm not sure just yet. The user interface is coming along nicely. I also added a radio card to the system. It was killing me not having talk radio on my way in to work. The Hauppauge cards have a coax connector which is why I chose it.
Sometimes, when I'm stopped at a red light, I can get an ethernet connection. I must be jumping on to someones 802.11 base unit. All your 802.11 base are belong to us.
#!/usr/bin/perl
open(INFILE,"while () {
if ($_ eq "[SHUTDOWN]\r\n") {
exec("/sbin/shutdown -h now");
}
}
Let's see!
H:\>perl
'PERL' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
There you have it.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The LCD he uses for the dash will last exactly 1 week in any US location above mid-ohio.
LCD's die when they freeze and most every LCD from his listed source are rated only down to 20 degrees F michigan get's to -1 -2 on a regular basis every winter (except this winter, it was 65 yesterday) and in minnesota it gets to -15 at least twice.
the best choice for an LCD is something designed for vehicle use which has a wide temperature range. Nothing from his supplier is useable in a vehicle in the upper 40% of the northern hemisphere.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He's got Win98 running under VMWare.
(Did you even look at the links?)
Cool setup, actually. Too bad he had to have M$ just for the GPS support (DeLorme).
Interestingly enough, everyone has mentioned BSODs, etc, but has missed the big reason for not replacing a windshield with a monitor, probably because most of you take it for granted. You won't get depth perception with a monitor screen. It's amazing how much more difficult someone who uses depth perception day in and day out finds it when it's removed. For example, try this test. Hold your fingers pointing towards themselves at about 3/4 your total arm length at different distances away from you. Now touch them together. Now try the same trick, starting with your hands beside you, but before you hold them up, close one eye.
Kids: Don't try driving your parents' car with one eye closed.
I've never had depth perception, and I'm here to tell you I leave a lot more space when I'm driving then most people because of it.
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
This would give an all new meaning to system crash.
I know, I know. I'm just lucky there isn't a "Punny (-1)" moderation category.
-"Zow"