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Mac mini in a Volkswagen
pyramis writes "Matt Turner has installed a Mac mini into his Volkswagen as an integrated audio/video system. He's distributed the I/O ports around the cab for convenient access and installed a remote power button right into the dashboard. Cool pics of all of this, plus a detailed article on that cool power button."
Slashdot meets Pimp My Ride...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Mini-mini: mac mini in a mini cooper?
"Looks like his webserver was RUNNING on the Mac Mini!" Hahahaha, oh MERCY. My aching sides!
mirror...
Those people who have done this with standard hard drives.. how do they stand up to being kicked around over time? I've seen a few people with carPC projects, but I've always wondered how the hard drives deal with the additional abuse over time.
You'd think a notebook HD would be alright. I assume that's what the mac mini is using?
(article slashdotted)
..don't panic
I predict the hardware might be buggy.
--ARTICLE TEXT:
GTi - MacMini
Well, it kept me from posting regularly, took about two weeks to plan and occupied nearly every night for about three weeks, but the big project I've been promising to post on is done...finally. I actually finished it last week, but wanted to make sure I had covered all the bases and that everything was working properly before putting the car back together and photographing it (thanks to Ryan for the quick shoot).
When the dimensions for the MacMini were announced, I immediately got to work figuring out what the best way to integrate one into my own car would be. If I was going to put a Mac in my car, I wanted to make sure it had all of the functionality that it would have in a home environment while still maintaining an easy-to-operate interface so that distractions could be kept to a minimum. So the researching, planning, sketching and disassembly of my cars interior (to see what would fit where) began. After taking the thought process to every extreme imaginable, I decided on the following equipment list:
- 1.42GHz MacMini with 512mb RAM, Superdrive, Bluetooth and Airport Extreme
- Xenarc 700tsv 7 USB touchscreen monitor with VGA and dual composite video inputs
- Cirque EasyCat USB trackpad
- Griffin PowerMate assignable USB control knob
- Lacie 8 in 1 USB flash card reader
- Belkin USB 7-port powered hub
- Belkin USB four-port bus-powered hub
- Belkin Firewire 6-port mini hub
- Alpine PXA-H701 Multimedia processor with RUX-C701 controller
- MonsterCable MCPI300 300watt power inverter
- Female USB, Ethernet and Firewire ports
- 40gig iPod dock
- Griffin RadioShark USB FM/AM tuner
Over the next few days, I will be putting up a post on each general aspect of the install to more closely cover how I did what where and any problems I encountered, as well as the solutions I came up with for these problems as they arose. More detailed pictures of the process will accompany these posts as well, for those interested in the more technical aspects of the install - such as removing the power button and indicator from the MacMini and relocating them to the switch panel in the dash, extending the Apple power supply's cable to locate the "brick" in the rear side panel of the car, fabricating the brushed aluminum trim bezels and rebuilding the glove box interior to accomodate the MacMini. So, enjoy and please check back over the next few days to check out these posts and two new iPod dock installs from last week...
www.mp3car.com is a great site if your looking to get into these.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Wow, these guys really do have a death wish. Not only did they post Mac stuff to Slashdot, their "site is down" page has a refresh tag to ensure that the process of DDoSing itself is completely automated.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
The question of "why would anyone do this?" simply doesn't exist. It's only a question of "how do I do this?" and, even more importantly, "how far can I take it?"
Of course, eventually this leads to things like cloning carnivorous dinosaurs and destroying small planets, but that's what science fiction writers are supposed to worry about.
Mirrordot link
Coral cache
Peace
I predict in 20 years, half the articles on slashdot will be cool cyborg mods (to the human body).
"I slipped the mini under my frontal lobe, so that latencey to the computational region of my brain is minimized, it is powered on my body heat, and the coolest thing, is that I have an IO port on my forehead so that I don't have to deal with the irritation of reaching around to the back of my head to plug in my peripherals."
Did he mount the various ports vertically? In a car that seems like a very bad idea as paper, grime, food will likely all get stuck in it.
I do security
What is needed is some decent car computer software. Stuff to manage the AC and the radio. I'll try it out when someone manages that.
-- Bryan
I'll be impressed when he can fit it into this.
What?
Proof once again that Macs are nothing more than an item for trend whores and label sluts.
No, because that would bring the Apple marketshare up to 3%, which we all know is impossible.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
500 Server Error
The web server encountered an error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. If this error persists, please contact the webmaster, and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
Matt Turner may have turned his Mac mini into a Volkswagen, but we've turned his Web site into a Yugo.
Oh, well, at least there's MirrorDot.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand.
Let me see if I can break it down for you:What's so goddamn novel about throwing an underpowered, overpriced Mac inside a dashboard?
Well for starters, its a very well done hack. Second, the poster shows that it can display maps, and quite probably can aide in navigation. Third, the mac can store a very large music library, and comes with the ease of itunes. Forth, he made a very nice dash/overall car mod to include a ipod dock, a power outlet, and many shiny buttons...
If one were interested in getting a portable media center for his car, he would have many options that involve spending less money and/or getting more bang for your buck. Why, for the $500 he spent on his fashion accessory that can't play games, he could've gotten a Dell desktop with approximately double the speed, and expandability to boot, plus he would've instantly been able to use the vast array of Windows and Linux software available.
The mac is shiny. And playing unreal at 94 mph along the freeway is not something I want to be doing...
Proof once again that Macs are nothing more than an item for trend whores and label sluts.
I had a Dell for one year before it fried. Bough another, same deal. The costomer service/documentation sucked. On the other hand, I have now had a mac Powerbook for the last two years, and its providing better functionality than any other machine I have bought. When you buy apple, you buy quality. Think of an apple as a Lexus, and a dell as a Ugo. Sure, the Ugo will get you from point A to point B, but it is made of inferrior parts, tends to fail, and lacks any style.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Now all we need is some sci-fi esque program that runs when you get in and start the car, it has to have some sort of voice to welcome you and in green-screen run through all the cars systems listing their status and then showing a 3D wireframe of the car and noting that the rear left tire has slightly lower tred than normal but is still within operating safety parameters and that it will notify the mechanic at the next check-up.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Yeah, that really drives me crazy. I mean, I don't mean to steer the conversation in any way or another, but those jokes just don't turn my crank. They signal to me, rather, that Slashdotters prefer automatic over manual posting. The way this place is coasting along in neutral mediocrity, well, it makes me sad. We should change gears around here, and make an agreement to speed up the humor and put the brakes on predictable comments.
I had a Dell for one year before it fried. Bough another, same deal. The costomer service/documentation sucked. On the other hand, I have now had a mac Powerbook for the last two years, and its providing better functionality than any other machine I have bought. When you buy apple, you buy quality. Think of an apple as a Lexus, and a dell as a Ugo. Sure, the Ugo will get you from point A to point B, but it is made of inferrior parts, tends to fail, and lacks any style.
Let's be honest here, a Dell isn't as bad as a Yugo. It's more like a Chrysler.
hey, I never claimed to have a social life. Nothing's more romantic than the light's of a server on a cold night.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
I think you need to get laid.
Now you're just being a trend whore too... just because everyone else gets laid, you want him to as well.
I'm not sure about your definition of expandable... All the Dell's I've been in, fixing for my friends, fixing for my work, etc, are NOT expandable. They come with the least bays I've EVER seen. The cases allow for one (1) extra internal device, one (1) extra stick of RAM, and one (1) extra PCI slot. Now, this might not be true for the XPS, but that is a huge waste of money. For half the price of my Dell, I bought parts off of Newegg and got a PC that out performs it considerably. for $500 I don't know ANY Dell I'd buy, and I priced them all under $1000 for work. I find it funny that you called him a label whore, while mentioning Dell here, why not just say a PC? I realize I said Newegg, but I will wholeheartedly reccommend them to anyone who's buying computer parts, because it's the best price, and best quality.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
As I was reading this I was thinking how far could one take this? I remember reading on Slashdot a week or two ago that people managed to use WiFi while driving (I forgot how fast)... Then I met inspiration, in a city like Philadelphia (commerical WiFi may be better suited but work with me), for instance, where there will be Municipal WiFi, if you had other friends with a Mac Mini in their cars or even Macs at home you could in theory have Video chat with your friends- for free in car.
Imagine having an iChat icon pop-up while driving, let's ignore the immidiate safety risks and think about the "cool factor," you accept and your friend is right there in real time staring at you. It seems like something out of a movie, huh? But it's a really possibility. Especially with iChat AV's adoption of H.264 as its codec of choice (less bandwidth and better quality).
I wouldn't think it'd be hard to figure out where to mount an iSight or to just make a custom case for it to be mounted stealthly in your car. You could even use it as a security system. If your alarm goes off it firesup and sends the stream to a police server. You could even have GPS installed to let the Police know where the crime is being committed.
I think the possibility for uses of the Mac Mini in cars is amazing and hopefully we'll see things like this in the near future.
He'll violate this law AB 301 passed in 2003-2004
- 0350/ab_301_bill_20030529_amended_sen.html
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/03-04/bill/asm/ab_0301
Of course, there's a lot of exceptions.
is being developed at iDash (http://www.idash.sourceforge.net/
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
It would also be pretty cool to have Dashboard widgets on your dashboard...!
Here you go. With photos even.
THE CNX-P1900 DUAL OUTPUT 140 WATT INTELLIGENT DC-DC POWER REGULATOR
Compatible with the Mac mini, as well as P4 system cases from Travla!
The retail price of the P1900 is $99.95. Target availability is April 2005.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
ObJoke: And driving a Volkswagen Beetle at 94 mph along the freeway is?
[
GIAC offers software and hardware to do the switching on the fly. Hook up a serial port analyzer and figure out the protocol that the win32 app is using and duplicate this on the Mac. Integrate (as someone else said) into a Dashboard widget (heh, a Dashboard dashboard...).
The air conditioning shouldn't be *too* hard if the controls are analog. It could probably be done with some sort of microcontroller that interfaces with the Mac via a USBSerial adapter.
I'd like to understand where your vehemence is coming from.
Was your mother an Apple Lisa, and didn't give you enough love as a child?
Did a Powerbook kill your father?
Did you have an untimely breakup with an iMac?
Did Steve Jobs come to your house, kick you down the stairs, pee in the corner, and then burn all your childhood toys?
I mean, really. Apple is just a company and the Mac is just another computer. It works well for a lot of people, myself included. Why go insane over it?
I AM SAYING, LADY - STEP INSIDE MY VOLKSWAGON!
[Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.]
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
and your VW's AC is broken and the power windows no longer work. At least you'll be entertained, and the dim video will be preferable to the flickering dash lights.
--- What?
Let's be honest here, a Dell isn't as bad as a Yugo. It's more like a Chrysler.
Goddamn, I'd take a Yugo over a Chrystler any day!
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Only problem is that these PSUs don't deal with 'sleep' too well - and will keep a constant drain on the battery - unless you want to completely close down your PC each time you stop the car.
Hibernate works ok on Windows, however the mini mac's sleep mode does not power the system down. If you can maintain ~800mA max drain on your battery forever, then this might not be an issue - but if you can't, you'll get stuck really quickly.
I currently run a Celeron 2.4Ghz with 512Mb dial channel DDR ram, Radeon 9200 and a 7" touchscreen in the car - and yes, I use a full size desktop hard drive. These babies are tougher than people think. I've had a car written off with the PC in the back still operating. Only thing that happened was that the CPU fan popped off it's clips.
I say again, don't stress too much about normal 3.5" HDDs in a car...
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
I would like to see legislators try to ban this though. After all how could they ban devices that are ok for the military while flying at up to Mach-2? but I am sure some politician will try to make a name for himself.
Actually, HUD displays in general for vehicles make a lot of sense. Projecting your speed onto the windscreen would solve a lot of problems where you are more intent in keeping your speed down to avoid speed cameras than watching the road ahead. Just my 0.02zloty worth.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
That would make more sense if it were not a lot of people buying them who are not, in fact, baby boomers - might as well call the Scion a Baby Boomer piece of shit while you're at it.
:-)
With the beetle there's definitely a "old-time hippie" appeal built in for all those that used to own beetles. But how many people in the US ever owned an original Mini Cooper? Not many. So it would be more like the british ex-pat baby boomer market, which seems like it would be much smaller than the demand they've actually had.
At least MINI's are not everywhere like the new beetles or PT Cruisers.
Or, perhaps you've gone and bought a Counterfeit MINI and now you're wondering what the big deal is.
Let me assure the the real thing is much more fun.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oddly enough I once saw an old style Beetle burst into flames. Apparently the springs in the back seat are just a bit too close to the battery.
If somebody too heavy sits in the back...
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Ah yes. Let's read this post again.
"I spent 150$ on parts for my 1.0ghz flex PC. It is not quite as small, and it is not quite as fast. Nor is it as -ahem- hip. But it was a fraction ov the cost."
So, let's see. You have a PC that's not quite as small or as a fast as a Mac mini. But you didn't pay that much for it?
I could get an old G3 iMac motherboard for $75.00. It wouldn't be as small and it wouldn't be as fast. It wouldn't have as much memory or anything like that. But it would be cheaper.
So I'm a little lost. Are you saying that you can get less machine for less money? I think the proper response, in that case, is "Duh."
"It is a fanless mobo design and boots a flash drive - cant get much quieter then silent."
True. But the cheapest Mac mini comes with a 40GB drive. Are you implying that your $150 PC has a 40GB flash drive? I doubt it. So your machine doesn't have as much storage, I don't know what it has for memory, it's not quite as small, it's not quite as fast, but it was cheaper.
"Yes, it runs linux."
So does the Mac mini.
Did you manage to fit KDE or GNOME or X-Windows or something that gives you a graphical interface on your flash card to go along with linux? Does it even have a graphics card? Or do you have a computer which doesn't have the same graphics capability, doesn't have as much storage, is not quite as small, is not quite as fast, but is cheaper than the Mac mini?
Heck, I have an old HP41C calculator that I picked up at a swap meet for $5. I guess that beats out the $150 flex PC, except for the running linux part.
Except if you consider the fact that it's designed almost entirely using laptop parts which are expensive to upgrade, and just aren't designed for the 24/7 duty cycle of a web server.
The whole point of the Mac MINI as a server is that you do not need to upgrade - you can use it for many light web server tasks easily. If you want another for backup it's super cheap - in fact they offer a $15/month plan to provide a hot-swap as needed.
And you get your own computer, with nothing else on it - so you have ultimate control over load on the computer.
As for "laptop parts" not being designed for 24/7 use, I would dispute that by pointing out they are actually designed more ruggedly for harsher environments, so the coddling a server room provides might well help them to last a long time. Though again, it hardly matters when they are so cheap to replace.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley