Ultimate Automotive Computer Installation

ErnstKompressor writes "I came across a story detailing an awesome car mod out of the Czech Republic. The author undertook what must be the most impressive exercise in computer integration I have ever seen, installing an extensive Mac system with custom Cocoa software controlling nearly every aspect of a 1993 Tatra 613. On-board systems monitoring, navigation, entertainment, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus much more, are all rolled into a tight, extensible, package. Check it out."

Comments

A Czech site?

[E1ven]

I hope it has the bandwidth.... It seems to be fairly.. Crashed?

I threw a copy of my version of the images at
http://www.sq7.org/temp/mirror/www.mujmac.cz/image s/ if it won't load for you..

-Colin

COPY OF TEXT : Before Slashdotting

[MountainMan101]

Few words about Tatra

Although not as known as many other car manufacturers, Tatra is actually the second oldest automobile company in the world (with only Daimler being older). It was established in 19th century and throughout the years came with many innovations, that helped to change many things in the industry. Just one example, probably quite surprising: the famous VW Beetle was "inspired" by certain streamline Tatra cars (V570, T97) so much, that Volkswagen had to pay few millions of D-Marks to Tatra as a compensation for patent violations. During 1930 and 1940, Tatra created several amazing cars, like T77, T87, T97 and trucks like T111. After the communist revolution in 1948, Tatra specialized mostly in truck production and the passenger cars were only manufactured in very limited numbers to be used by ruling elite. T603 was produced between 1958 and 1975 and the T613 (designed by Vignale) was produced between 1974 and 1996.

A picture for those who still think Jaguar is a big car :-) - Click on any photo to get hi-res in new window!

I must admit, I have loved Tatra's since I was a little boy. My father used to work as chaffeur for one of local bosses and I spent a lot of time on the rear seat of a T603 when I was three or four years old. Later, as a student I owned one of T603s myself. For few years I move to more practical cars for few years (Honda Civic and Volvo 480 to be exact), but what my Dutch friends call a Tatra-virus was still deep inside me. So when I stared to work in Holland and needed a comfortable car for almost-monthly trips to Czech republic, Tatra was very high on my list of choices. After two or three months I found one in good condition and I did not hesitate a minute.

Exterior picture of T613-4 Mi Long

My car is one of later T613s, produced in summer 1993 for Frankfurt auto show (and not actually used much after that). It is a T613-4Mi Long version (M=power steering, i=multi-point injection, long = wheelbase 3150mm instead of standard 3000mm). A sedan, larger than Mercedes Benz S-Klasse, with 3.5 litre V8 air cooled engine (200HP, 300 NM), mounted above the rear axle. It was originally an "Elektronik" version, which means all the controls were fully digital with several computers (including one for voice output) and parts communicating with each other using CAN-bus. (Hi, Volvo guys, your S80 was by far not the first one, would you correct your advertising materials please?) This equipment was later removed (by factory) and replaced by more traditional standard wiring, but at the moment I have decided to buy it, I was already sure that a computer must come back. And so it did - I started to work on my installation in summer 2002 and by Christmas, I had a working installation.

Why?

The basic two reasons that led me to the installation of the computer were the replacement of CD changer by an MP3 player and a navigation solution, based on Route 66 application. I am pretty sure anyone who needs to make 1000 km trips every month or has ever been lost in Copenhagen can understand these two reasons :-) During the installation, I also added some more functions (communication with engine controller, on-board micrcontroller for basic telemetric data). Of course I could simply buy a head unit that supports MP3 playback and a dedicated navigation hardware. However I was not very excited about the prospect of spending several thousands euro for a dedicated hardware and then wait for the manufacturer to release the maps I needed (Czech republic in particular). Use of standard computer gives me much more freedom in the configuration of the system and potential upgrades - both software and hardware.

First time in the Tatra - still in the original case (although without all the plastic)

The first idea was to use an LCD iMac, and built it into the original dashboard. The base unit was supposed to be placed within the dashboard and the display with its holder outside. This idea had two basic flaws: iMac's 1

Re:Fastest Mac on four wheels?

[kfg]

You do know that T613 has engine in the back, right?

If he's American it seems likely he's never even heard of Tatra before, let alone know where the engine is.

Having heard of Ledwinka is right out, even though he's without question one of the most brilliant automotive designers in history.

The article mentions the influence of Tatra on the VW, but rip all the plastic off the latest Corvette and what do you find?

Yep, that's right. Ledwinka's backbone chassis.

KFG

Re:I wonder

[segmond]

You can purchase a Toyota Prius, good for you, I can't, he probably can't too. How much do you think he earns in his country? He didn't do this for bragging about a Mac in his car. This guy has a very neat hack, read the article, look at the pictures. He gave very smart reasons for why he did the things he did.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=93970& ci d=8066041

"First I wanted to completely seal the motherboard case, but later I found this was not really a good idea, particularly due to the changes in temperature and the air volume inside the case. To fix this, I have installed two Gore-Tex valves on the case. These valves are used in automotive industry to allow air circulation in the headlight units while keeping the water on the outside."

"All the custom software is written in Cocoa. The main application was designed and written by Ondra Eada, I have used this opportunity to learn Objective C from him and later written most of the plug-ins."

As you can seen, not another guy trying to get on slashdot, from the hacks, he is quite smarter than the average slashdot reader.