G4 Cube in a Toyota Matrix

srdashiki · May 8, 2004

I wont spend all day going over all the details. But a g4 cube would fit nicely in the center console of my car. Now does anyone know of any LCD touch screens that are Mac compatible and would fit in the double-din space where my CD player is now? What have people done about batteries? Gotta put the computer to sleep yourself everytime you get out of the car (or set the control panel at times of rest or something maybe. but my main thing is, i dont want to shutdown the computer everytime, duh thats silly. So is a drycell battery hooked to the cars battery, to keep it charged, that runs the DC inverter for the computer a good idea? I only ask cuz im sick of just having CDs (yeah mp3 cds are ok but cmon yer car, yer rules, why be stuck with one thing, why not have a computer that can actually change with the times and technology. And i already have 600W of speakers in my car, so Id need the second battery, just cuz.

any thoughts anyone?

BrianKonarsMac · May 8, 2004

if you do this, take pictures and post on the process as well as final results etc. I'd love to hear about this! *dreams of stashing quicksilver in jeep's trunk*

Abstract · May 8, 2004

Honestly, you'd be da man if you can pull this off.

Sorry I can't help you, though. I've never heard or thought of such a setup.

*wishes he had a cube*

jeff.macaddict · May 9, 2004

or.....

what i would do is get something to immitate what the police have, a stand for laptops above the center console, just buy a 12inch ibook, get a cassette adapter for your sound system, and away you go.

I know its not as professional looking, but you could take this out of your car if you needed a spare mac in a squeeze, where the cube built in you couldnt.

I dont know much about adding on to auto electrical systems, but would a computer, other than a laptop, be too much of a load on the electrical system? just a thought, i have no idea tho.

jptrott · May 9, 2004

you should be able to get it to work there are a few resources you can use
http://home.comcast.net/~cowicide/carcomputerwebsite/cowjump.html
http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html
http://24.7.157.64/Home.html

for an ipod
http://homepage.mac.com/reelmagik1/PhotoAlbum3.html

also there are some that have put peecee's into cars for some reason that i dont understand and if you search around you can find there setups too that may helpt to figure out some of the wiring and other issues you may run into

BrianKonarsMac · May 9, 2004

jeff.macaddict said:
what i would do is get something to immitate what the police have, a stand for laptops above the center console, just buy a 12inch ibook, get a cassette adapter for your sound system, and away you go.

I know its not as professional looking, but you could take this out of your car if you needed a spare mac in a squeeze, where the cube built in you couldnt.

I dont know much about adding on to auto electrical systems, but would a computer, other than a laptop, be too much of a load on the electrical system? just a thought, i have no idea tho.

a laptop stand for a cube? wtf are you smoking? obviously anyone can just go BUY a laptop, but the point is he has a Cube he wants to stick in the center console and run it off a touch screen LCD. I remember seeing a mod of a G4 that had a 3.5 inch LCD that ran a mini itunes visualizer...now that would kick ass in your car!! if you could setup someway to collect data off a cellular network, you could even display temperature and weather conditions, stock tickers, news reports, etc. right on your cars LCD!! talk about thinking different, this would be amazing!

Mord · May 9, 2004

dose anyone remember a tread where a guy put a sawtooth in there car with a small industrial lcd on the dashboard

Dreadnought · May 9, 2004

yeah, i remember that thread. It was somewhere last year. He was running os 9 on it. for some reason he couldn't get it to work under os x. Don't remember a lot of it do, but it was cool!

Doraemon · May 9, 2004

Hector said:
dose anyone remember a tread where a guy put a sawtooth in there car with a small industrial lcd on the dashboard

jptrott posted that link:
http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html

Dreadnought · May 9, 2004

Doraemon said:
jptrott posted that link:
http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html

That is cool! I want one too!!! Well, good thing I still have my G3 B&W after getting a G5....

saabmp3 · May 9, 2004

Check out MP3car.com, they guy who did the sawtooth project is over there and they do exactly what you want. They'll have better answers for power, cabling and screens than any of us will here.

BEN

D0ct0rteeth · May 9, 2004

I always wanted to do this too. Just wanted a car that is worth putting it into, my old cavalier didnt deserve the honors

Plus I want it to appear "factory made" not ghetto.

Just bought an M3.. and I imagine I could buy a DVD Nav system and use that LCD and wire it to a cpu in the trunk. Ideally it would be airport equipped so I could sync data (mp3s and so on) with my powerbook and have a DVD drive that could play DVD movies and the DVD nav discs.

Only problem is.. 2000 cpu.. 3000 nav system and 3000 for the help of someone who knows what they are doing and then I would be seriously broke

Have to wait for prices to come down

- Doc

ingenious · May 10, 2004

BrianKonarsMac said:
a laptop stand for a cube? wtf are you smoking? obviously anyone can just go BUY a laptop, but the point is he has a Cube he wants to stick in the center console and run it off a touch screen LCD. I remember seeing a mod of a G4 that had a 3.5 inch LCD that ran a mini itunes visualizer...now that would kick ass in your car!! if you could setup someway to collect data off a cellular network, you could even display temperature and weather conditions, stock tickers, news reports, etc. right on your cars LCD!! talk about thinking different, this would be amazing!

ya that was awesome. he put a LAN in the back seats so ppl who brought their laptops with them could use the internet off of either the bluetooth module he had in the G4 or the airport card (depending on where he was at. he also put in an extra LCD in the back so that they could watch DVDs, but i dont remember where he put the drive at. he also had some IR keyboard/mouse/remote thingy but i dont remember exactly... do a search for it... he did it very professionally.

edit: this link (from above) is what i was talking about. very cool:

http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html

davecuse · May 10, 2004

Luckily, there is a forum devoted to this http://carmac.acmelab.org/

BrianKonarsMac · May 10, 2004

Calebj14 said:
ya that was awesome. he put a LAN in the back seats so ppl who brought their laptops with them could use the internet off of either the bluetooth module he had in the G4 or the airport card (depending on where he was at. he also put in an extra LCD in the back so that they could watch DVDs, but i dont remember where he put the drive at. he also had some IR keyboard/mouse/remote thingy but i dont remember exactly... do a search for it... he did it very professionally.

edit: this link (from above) is what i was talking about. very cool:

http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html

there was no dvd drive, he used DivX videos and a video player module he wrote himself. he also had a wireless Digitial Media Remote a keyboard with trackball (wireless) as well as several other custom built modules that ran the date, temperature, etc. This is the most amazing project I've seen involving a mac in a car, and the sheer breadth of knowledge required to complete this project is astounding. What's his day job?

he even has it hooked into the computer controls of the car to tell gas consumption, mpg, etc, all in brushed metal goodness on the dashboard! this guy needs to quit his day job and do this full time in the states, he'd be a millionaire customizing cars in the states.

IJ Reilly · May 10, 2004

Don't forget, you'll also need a place for the power brick unless you can figure out how to step 12v to 28v. And since you asked for "any thoughts" my thoughts are you're going to fry this puppy in short order. The Cube doesn't like high ambient temperatures, and a car has to be about the hottest place you could try to run one this side of Death Valley.

Spock · May 10, 2004

IJ Reilly said:
Don't forget, you'll also need a place for the power brick unless you can figure out how to step 12v to 28v. And since you asked for "any thoughts" my thoughts are you're going to fry this puppy in short order. The Cube doesn't like high ambient temperatures, and a car has to be about the hottest place you could try to run one this side of Death Valley.

I am going to have to agree. The Cube is fanless You will bake the thing. I have left my iPod in the car and could hardly touch they metal back it was so hot.

superbovine · May 10, 2004

jptrott said:
you should be able to get it to work there are a few resources you can use
http://home.comcast.net/~cowicide/carcomputerwebsite/cowjump.html
http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html
http://24.7.157.64/Home.html

for an ipod
http://homepage.mac.com/reelmagik1/PhotoAlbum3.html

also there are some that have put peecee's into cars for some reason that i dont understand and if you search around you can find there setups too that may helpt to figure out some of the wiring and other issues you may run into

great links thanx

alric · May 12, 2004

Maybe you want to do something like this?

Do a search on ebay for lilliput touchscreen. The power supply detects the status of the ignition and puts the PC to sleep or wakes it up.

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