Steve C2

George (your mail bounced)

You were interested in PC104 and lcd vs plasma displays on car storage devices ...

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PC104 is basically an ISA bus PC architecture on a small board. Many of them are mil spec and beyond and they tend to be very useful for prototyping. The features of PC104 are

- it is very close to a PC of a few years ago - this means you can plug in many devices made for PCs

- since it is a PC you can run a real OS like Linux or BSD Unix

- you can get them with a variety of processors

- there must be a dozen mfgs -- you can get many variations on the theme

- some are mil-spec (really useful in a car - lots of things quit working with conventional PCs when it gets hot/cold/humid)

- the form factor is small

- the companies that build them are very good at speaking tech

(PC104 is sort of the standard for embedded systems design, robot work and wearable computing ... there are many resources available on the web that support these various groups)

Lots of companies make PC104 stuff. There are other approaches you might use, but this is likely be the cheapest/best traveled route for anything that will actually work in a car. I've had good luck with Ampro boards for what its worth. (a board with a 233MHz processor, 32MB RAM, usb, serial, 100baseT, etc will set you back about $400)

I tried several LCD displays and found all of them lacking as the ambient light in a TT cockpit varies by huge amounts during regular travel. The plasma displays work better, but tend to be expensive. Either type is really expensive if you want units that work below freezing and above 100 degrees F. (this is an issue as I regularly record cockpit temps in my TT around 120F in 80 degree weather here in NJ).

Software is a big issue. I'm currently using Linux, but will probably move to BSD Unix as I just like it better. I don't consider Windows stable enough to live in a car.

You will want to hack the interface and build some kind of database. The big interface problem is what do you do with so many tracks. I have been dinking around with GUI issues and the problem is non-trivial. Even if voice recognition worked well enough (in a noisy environment like a car it doesn't), we tend to remember a very limited number of objects. There are a variety of approaches to use but all of them need a simple interface that won't distract you from driving. This will be my "fun" for the next year or so:-)

If you want to get compressed music in your car the options are

- build your own. I only recommend this as a hobby as you'll spend thousands of bucks if you value your time at anything more than minimum wage. It is a terrific amount of fun though and is my choice as it is a hobby with me.

If you don't want to design your own, check out Circuit Cellar magazine. I understand they will be doing a car mp3 player article in the near future. There are a few designs I've seen on the web, but most of them are very low quality student projects that aren't work
duplicating.

- buy an in-dash CD player that can read mp3 files on a CD-R. These are available now and cost about $300. You rip/encode music on your PC and burn a CD-R for car use. By the Fall all of the major mfgs will be offering them.

- By a mp3/hard disk device. At this time the only one that seems to be engineered well is the empeg unit from England. I have seen a recent unit and it is built well with parts that will actually work in a car (I can't say the same of numerous other units). I think they are about $1500, which is small change considering the work they have done. Note that their interface is very weak.

- Wait for competing mp3/hard disk units. There are going to be a few available from several aftermarket mfgs in the Fall.

- Shock-mount a laptop and wire it into your head unit. Again the interface will suck and the unit will not work very well under vibration and at temperature extremes.

Have fun and let me know how you do!

Steve