Inigo Montoya

<center><img src="http://clabedan.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/mini_mac_2.jpg"></center><p>i.e. could the Mac Mini be used as a stand-alone ECU for performance tuning like current products by Autronic, etc. I realize no such software currently exists, but I wonder if it is at least possible. Seems like the computing power of the mac mini should be adequate to the task, and the unit is small enough to go in the glovebox or something.

Audiboy

but the question is, how will you interface it?

You'll need it to communicate to a bunch of D to A and A to D converters that can drive the right current and voltage. Since nothing like that would exist for a mini platform, it's practically useless IMO. PC on the other hand, there are a lot of PCI cards that can do such thing. Still impractical IMO. It's best to just use electronics made for this task.

But maybe MAC won't choke like Windows when you're hard on the throttle and it decides to cut fuel

Inigo Montoya

Well if no DC to AC converters exist for such an application then it's pretty much a wash out, but on the other hand a Mac mini is very powerful and it only costs $500. Plus is definitely can be made to run off the car battery.

How would you interface it? I assume you would interface it the same way you interface all Mac Minis -- with a keyboard and a screen. People are already installing these things into their cars as "carputers" using little mini pop up screens.

Audiboy

screen and keyboard not required unless you are reprogramming your parameters or just want it to do other things such as movies, games and internet.

You can obtain a number of USB to separate channels to drive DACs. This is why I said a PC with PCI interface is better at this.
But then the programs available are typically open loop single shot type programs - just for capturing data. You have to write your own code to loop and "live" with the engine.