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Touchscreen BoomboxPC

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-thats-a-cool-hack dept.

leerpm writes "Someone has managed to put together a Touchscreen BoomboxPC. It can function as both a boombox and PC. They mention plans to make it run Linux too, by making it dual-boot to Debian."

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. I actually got to the site before it died by HolyCoitus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And I have to ask... What is the point of the camera mentioned in the article? I can understand USB to some degree, but 4 USB ports seems overkill. If only I could reload the page, eh?

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    That's scary.
  2. Superb anti-theft device by CdBee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I love these project computers we see, but my reaction is often to think that the owner could never go out with the PC as it would be an instant theft item

    Here's a PC modder who knows what its at - fitting something high-tech and cool into a radio which very much is not.
    I wonder if I could make a boom-box skin for my iPod.....

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    I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
  3. What about a car unit? by raistphrk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I think this is a novel idea, for most people, carrying around a boom box went out in the eighties, along with Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. If they want any type of embedded device, it's going to be a stereo.

    There are a few projects that do this already, but I think it would be cool to have the UI from the boom box project.

    I must say though, it would make a lot more sense to use Linux or FreeBSD for a project like that. If you ever wanted to mass produce and sell them, you couldn't if you embedded Windows. You get extra geek points for hacking Linux or BSD properly to work in a car. And, if you care, you won't be violating license agreements. But on the flipside, if you do choose to upload mp3s that you downloaded off the net, you probably don't care about EULAs to begin with.

    To be fair though, I know that the first thing I do when I buy a CD is rip it onto my hard drive so that I always have a copy in case my disc breaks. Uploading all of my discs to a stereo PC would be a good way to archive, and would also mean I wouldn't have to lug around my massive CD case anymore.

  4. This shouldn't have been posted to Slashdot yet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Note on the last picture that the pretty UI is actually just a background. When I first saw it, I was excited because I thought the guy had written some sweet code.

    I also would of really liked to see a mini-itx motherboard as opposed to a tablet PC.

    No offense to the guy, I am glad that he found a cool project, but I guess I expect a lot work to be done before finding it on the frontpage of Slashdot.

  5. I'm not impressed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The image on the touchscreen is a non-functional background image? The user accesses the player through the Windows' Start Menu? Now, if those VU meters actually moved (maybe as a WinAMP or XMMS plugin) and the buttons actually selected functionality and the "tape" spun indicating approximate time remaining on the playlist, then I might be middling impressed. Such functionality would have jumped the described project into the realm of a homebrew embedded system with some innovation. As it is: this "device" is only a case mod and not a particularly impressive one as such mods go.