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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."
I hope it has the bandwidth.... It seems to be fairly.. Crashed?
e s/ if it won't load for you..
I threw a copy of my version of the images at
http://www.sq7.org/temp/mirror/www.mujmac.cz/imag
-Colin
Colin Davis
I wonder at what point this becomes over-kill. I wonder was it worth all the work (e.g. is it that useful).
On the "bright side", however, I can purchase a Toyota Prius and get a lot of the same functionality without all the work (and with 60+ miles per gallon)... of course, then I can't brag I have a Mac in my car and can't add things to it... but you get the picture.
Unfortunately the site's already /.ed, so I can't verify if it has remote access - I always wanted to ssh into a car and fire up my favourite text editor at 60 mph :-)
Czech it out?
Few words about Tatra
:-) - Click on any photo to get hi-res in new window!
:-) 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.
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
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
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
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
[mycar:~] bob% ignition
Connecting to ignition...Connection refused: too many users. Please try again later.
Damn you, Slashdot...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
There's a taxi in Aspin Colorado called The Ultimate Taxi. He's been around for years and just keeps getting better.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Now *that* has got to be a great car to have in traffic jams. With just one click, Expose will move all the other cars out of your way...
With wi-fi, does that mean you can see a beowulf cluster of these on any sufficiently packed freeway?
/.ed...
I'd post something of content, but the site is already severely
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
...web server?
Or, perhaps in another fantasy hero's life...
From an upcoming cancelled James Bond film:
007: What do you have for me today, Q?
Q: Well, I had a bugger of a time getting all the software mail-ordered, but I have finally finished this Macintosh powered car. It goes from zero to Sad Mac in under two seconds.
007: I think I'll stick with my Aston Martin, thanks.
this kind of thing really frightens me. I play a game with my friends when we're driving down the local freeway... If a car is going slower than 100 km/h or is weaving a little bit, we bet on whether or not the driver is on a cell phone. The result? More often that not.
Do we need more distractions? Cars are for getting from A - B, and having the option to check email, the news, stock reports and hockey scores is just adding more distractions. Don't tell me that it's fine as long as the driver doesn't have access while the vehicle is in motion; the same dangers apply if a driver is distracted at a stop light. And kids watching SpongeBob in the back seat with the volume up, that's not distracting?
I just fear for my safety on the road is all. I can check my email when I get to work. Why is everyone in so much of a hurry?
I bet he really shelled out for that system. Mind you , all the software should help him thread his way through traffic driven by the usual zombies
and the GPS will help with those confusing forks() in the road which can be very awk-ward sometimes. I don't imagine his passengers will have normal regular expression when they get in the car for the first time
but I'm sure he'll mktime() to explain it all to them.
I doubt it, seeing as how he replaced his ENGINE with a POWERMAC!
You DO know that this is a rear-engine car? Unless you live in the US in the deep south, rear engined cars are commonplace. VW Beetle, VW Bus, Porsche 911, most Ferraris...
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Gives a whole new(old) meaning to the term: "It crashed on me."
Now, the first thing I thought of when I heard this was Racing Simulation. If he could find an open field and put in his favorite racing sim he could actually drive his car around and use his steering wheel as the controller. That would be sweet. Of course you'd want to have a stationary mode as well. It'd probably be better than most of the force feedback wheels.
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
oh yeah? then why do they always blow up when they nose dive off a cliff in james bond movies? ;)
It sounds like a brilliant idea. I'm almost surprised I'd never thought of that before. I'm always hearing discussion of which OS to use for "embedded" projects (in that I mean things outside the standard ordinary PC computer.)
Ever since coming out as the basis for the NeXT computer over 15 years ago, the objective-c based NeXTSTEP/OpenSTEP/Cocoa framework has been touted as one of the most amazingly powerful that a person can develop in. In the old NeXT days I remember hearing the [informal] statement that one programmer up to speed with NeXTSTEP could do the work of about 10 normal programmers. I took that with a grain of salt until I started trying to write some simple apps for the first time in OS X's cocoa.
It is so easy and refreshing in ways I couldn't express with worlds! Writing anything in C++ anymore makes me want to pull my hair out. Sadly, it [objective-c & Cocoa] is still rather obscure. But it would be such a wonderful world if we got to see a renaissance? FINALLY the GNUStep project is beginning to approach a level of usability. If embedded applications started to become a reality...
Oh, that's about as silly a pipe dream as hoping Howard Dean becomes President!
Murray Todd Williams
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
For example, some guy named Wally Rodriguez built a similar Mac-based system.
I don't care about all this stuff.. I just want a real audio deck that you can plug your ipod into. (Sorta like inserting a cartridge, just slam the ipod into the device and have it 'dock' with the stereo)..
Now THAT is the ultimate car audio solution. Ahh
WTF?!?!? If I'm understanding this correctly, you people seem to think that one can only have a BLUE (Aqua) colored desktop on a MacOS X computer? That is f&%*ing ridiculous! Of course you can change the color of a Mac's desktop. Mine is currently grey, but lately it has been red, orange and green. Also, MacOS X has a pretty neat desktop slideshow feature that is a minor obsession of mine. You can rotate through all of the photos in a folder (well, they fade in and out) on your desktop over a specified time period. For me, it's every 5 seconds, and it's random. I find myself spending an alarmming amount of time on Google Image Search finding pics to add to my slideshow folder. (Can this be done in XP?)
He just drove into a tunnel.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
Any computer installed in a car that doesn't access the cars onboard diagnostic computer seems like a waste. Realtime data from the car should be available to the operator.
insightful???? get tae fuck!
funny, YES
]damn the dude even "winks" of course this aint insightful
bah!*@%!
Speaking of hacking automobile computers, my lowly 2003 GMC SLE pickup has an "entertainment center" that has some Driver Information Center functions that I can't display, because I didn't pay extra for the deluxe SLT package (which has the control buttons). I think it would be cool if someone fixed up a "hardware hack" that would let me add a keypad so I could call up all the additional data on the dashboard display...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Did anyone else notice that it takes 1 minute 20 seconds to boot his car? Granted there are cities where you can get booted in under a minute for illegal parking, but I digress...
Total time for me to plug in my iPod and hit play: 10 secs. In-dash GPS? Turns on with the car.
I know that this is a minor nitpick, and it's truly an admirable geek project. He may have even saved a couple bucks from buying off the shelf. Does this really work any better than the store bought equivalents?
Gotta love the slideshow functionality. A good one for PC is ACDSee. You can have multiple instances so you can view $x slideshows at once, it's great for... um... yeah, you know. :D
never heard of those cars before either - the things that one can learn from slashdot!
spend money here
...and don't get me started on the potential problems of 'threading' through traffic and the ever-present danger of 'race conditions'...
*bows*
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
This guy's setup is pretty nicely done. It's the first decent Macintosh one I've seen -- it's all in the software, and this fellow has done a quality job.
There are some really impressive installations out there. You can see a lot of them on the mp3car.com finished project board. In case anyone is curious, this is my installation.
~GoRK
Because where the guy lives he probably can't afford a car like that even if he saves for the next 10 years ?
I don't think so pal. Tatras were competition for Mercedes, Jaguar, Bentley, and Rolls Royce.
This car cost more than your house.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
gah...i got nuttin..
Money not found! A)bort, R)etry, D)eclare Bankruptcy
Am I the only person left in the world who:
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
Airspace; it's all plastic.
Well, that and a couple pounds of graphite and a few scraps of balsawood, but then the same is true of every F1 car these days.
American cars make great boat anchors, if even the sea will take them.
Well, we haven't done so well lately. I've actually owned two Fords, but then they were both German. I'd take a Cord L-29 in a heartbeat though if someone would be so kind as to bestow one upon me.
As for leaking oil I've always found that the British are the masters of getting cars to do that. As well as leaking tops.
For a long time I couldn't understand why my cars from sunny Italy all had tops that never leaked a drop that you could operate with one hand at a stoplight and had heaters that could give you heatstroke in the middle of a Canadian winter; but all my British cars had tops that took three men an hour to erect that then leaked like sieves and heat that only worked in July.
And then I had a revelation. The Italians are used to being warm and dry and take that state seriously, whereas being warm and dry is simply a concept that has never even occured to the British.
KFG
only -1 for the position of the reset buttons (upper left towards the open space in the trunk). They need to be on the dash, or enclosed in the trunk.
-brady
I'd have suggested mounting the Remote Wonder instead of those other buttons. It's RF based with amazing range and the Mac Software is excellent and customizable down to the app. Plus, if he had made a small mount for it on the dashboard, it could be passed around to the people in the backseats to control the audio as well.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
but to move closer to the topic, thats pretty impressive stuff in that car. it never ceases to amaze me how geeks like i hope to be can interface with engines and computers like that. anybody know where i can learn more about it?
Easy: Buy a 1994 and up VW, Audi, Seat or Skoda. They all have a computer interface port where you can interface with all the electronic gadgets in the car. Everything from the airbags to the stereo, the transmission (if it's auto), tons of engine parameters... basically everything that runs on electricity is wired into the central system.
And VW (who owns Audi Seat Skoda and also Lamborghini, Rolls Royce and Bentley) has always openly published the communication protocols and specs to their interfaces - very Open Source like.
Read more Here. These guys make an interface cable and software to communicate with your car. It plugs into your PC or laptop using standard RS-232 serial port or USB. I have a Turbo diesel Jetta and I can put a laptop in the passenger seat and monitor turbo boost pressure, anti-lock brake status, and even radio station information from the laptop!! I've always wondered why more hackers haven't been interested in these car brands since they have such open communication specs.... MAybe someone here can start a project on sourceforge to create a Linux client program to talk to my car?? (It's Windows only right now)
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
This Czech has done something similar, but approximately 10x more elegant and well-thought-out.
Ha! Compare the distractions of kids in the back watching SpongeBob to kids in the back who are *NOT* watching SpongeBob.
You should get a tinge of fear every time you get close to a mini-van and realize how much the driver may be distracted in a car people can stand up and walk around in. I never used to until I owned one. I'm back to a station wagon now where people stay where you put them.
I refuse to take seriously any car computer system that doesn't drive the car.
But to the vast, vast majority of Americans, it IS irrelevant. They aren't interested and they don't regret missing out on those things. Then when one of us does say, "WTF is a tatra?" (complete with implied arrogance/apathy toward the rest of the world) people act like you have to be a really dumb American to not know. No, you have to be a really interested American to know.
I happened to discover that my favorite food in the entire world is Shanghai dumplings, and my first experience with that style was in Shanghai. I'm always an advocate of exploring the world, but the fact remains that for most Americans, the rest of the world couldn't have a smaller direct impact on their lives.
Chris Bergeron did very much the same thing in his VW Jetta. He lives in Georgia, US. He's shown it at several southeast-area cons.
http://www.dashpc.com/
oh yeah? then why do they always blow up when they nose dive off a cliff in james bond movies? ;)
I know that was a joke, but rear engine == front fuel tank in most cars.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
All of the components are just way too big. If you use similar hardware, you'll waste all your cargo space.
Instead, use the following PC components:
1. mini pc, based on VIA's epia mini-itx motherboard. The best one to use is from http://www.mini-box.com - m-100 comes with a text LCD display and buttons that can be programmed. It runs on 12V DC and can be mounted in-dash or in the trunk where your cd changer would normally go.
2. Xenarc or Lilliput touch-screen 7" lcd monitor with SVGA and composite inputs. This is more important than big HD or faster pc. If you can't see text and maps clearly while you drive, what's the point of building one of these car pcs? Get all-in-one package from Alpine instead.
3. 20 or 40 HD 2.5" laptop hard drive. (#1 doesn't come with anything, not even a cf card)
4. 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter - #1 above won't let you connect a laptop hard drive to it w/o an adapter. compusa.com has them for $7.
5. Bluetooth usb adapter. I bought Belkin.
6. Bluetooth GPS receiver - no messy wires and you can take it with you (and use it with your PDA if it supports bt) I bought Belkin GPS receiver, you can get something else.
7. Blitzsafe adapter to connect #1 to your OEM HU (head unit/stereo) You didn't really think you could just plug your line out to your car's extra AUX IN port, did you? Mounts in the trunk right into where the changer plug went or behind your HU
Elfig.com is one of the resellers, esp for VW.
8. Wires to connect it all - RatShack
9. Windows XP, Winamp 5, one of front-end GUI for easy navigation. Look at carpc.com forums.
10. Linux (Gentoo, or another fine distro) put it on a separate partition. It's fast for playing movies, music, etc. However, it lacks bluetooth support and GPS navigation packages for it suck.
11. USB hub for other gadgets, like portable HDs, scanners, webcams, etc.
12. RAM - pc doesn't come with any.
How much does it cost???
#1 minibox m-100 - $400.
#2 Xenarc $500
#3 HD $100 to $300
#4 adapter $7
#5 bluetooth adapter $30 to $60
#6 gps receiver $300 to $400
#7 audio adapter $65
#8 varies
#9 $0 to $250
#10 FREE FREE FREE (+ many hours of linux guru's help)
#11 gadgets $20 to sky is the limit
#12 RAM $50 to $100
If you really hate M$ and don't want Windows on your car pc, look at dashpc.com
If you are going to get off your lazy ass and actually build and install this in a VW Passat, let me know.
You may smell as you wish, but it's simple history.
http://www.lightauto.com/ledwinka.html
http://www.corvetteconti.com/C5-Backbone.htm
And of course VW, FIAT and even myself have designed and built backbone chassis well before the modern Corvette adopted it.
If you wish to do more in depth research on this you'll have to rely on these things called "books." Not everything is on the web. I can highly recommend "The Bosch Book of the Motor Car: Its Evolution" to the casual reader.
L.J.K. Setright's book "The Designers" also has a lovely little chapter on Ledwinka and his contributions although this title is now a bit scarce.
By the way, the four valve, double overhead cam engine was invented by Ernest Henry for Peugot in 1912. The "unibody" was pioneered by Lancia in the early 1920s, whose chief designer spent an evening drawing up plans for virually every independant suspension system known to man.
In fact the only really serious technical innovation in automotive technology since WWII has been the microprocessor. The rest of it has basically boiled down to the simple availability of better materials. Lancia didn't have the carbon fiber the modern F1 car is made out of, but the construction of the modern F1 is basically the same Lancia's 1922 Lambda.
KFG
Proud owner of 5 money suckers + 1 wife.
Wouldn't that be 6 money suckers?
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
The rear doors are full sized and not wrapped around the rear wheels, add to that the shape of the trunk and you have a car that is extrodinarily long with seemingly no trunk.
--JLockard - "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Phillips
So does this qualify as a modded car, or as a masterful case mod? As a car, it's a great hack, Detroit should steal it. But if this is a case mod it shows l33t m4d skilz. Drive this baby to the next LAN party, watch the gurls got nuts; "Hey baby, let's do some lagers in the back of my computer."
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
What really got me was my Triumph GT6, a hard top, and yes, the top leaked.
And yes, when I turned on the windshield wipers the headlights liked to turn off.
Despite all of that I shall light a candle and hold vigil if Ford ever carries through with their threat to put Jaguar badges on a Taurus and make them in Dearborn.
KFG
Didn't anyone else notice he said the car had an air-cooled V8 over the rear wheels?
I couldn't believe I was reading that correctly, and had to re-read it 4 times. That is far more strange than his custom computer.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
lots of much more impressive installs at mp3car.com