Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Audio Computer in a car Yes or No

I think the idea is great. One word WINAMP!!! in the car. Nothing in the car audio industry can beat that. With playlist, visual, etc. capabilities. I would think, just get a labtop with decent memory and hard drive, mount it under a seat or in the glovebox and hook up a custom mounted lcd in the dash and an ext mouse somewhere convenient. The only question I would have which I am about to look up in those MP3car.com threads, is how to get the power inverter to go on with the ignition. And would you have to manualy shut down windows and the comp everytime you turn off the ignition. Even so it would still be a simple way to just use for roadtrips and hangin around. It would be great for me because my car is out for my works (Curcuit City's) audio show every year, so it would be cool to just have on and play visuals with music, etc. Those are just my thoughts, most of you seem to know more than me. Good luck with the install bennyboy, post pics when its done. I'd like to see how it comes out.

hehe yeah I have thought about the laptop idea but I want something that I can upgrade Im also a computer junky and will prolly end up hooking that mother up with wireless interent and then gaming from the comfort of my contour cause that is a very comfortable back seat errr not that I spend alot of time back there hehe wait this could be a bad thing it might be like hun stop playing sof2 and spend time with me damnnnnnnnnn haha oh well. See laptop would make it easier, but it would just not work for the future. Oh wells catch yall laters

new plan Im going to put the comp on hold tell the summer. Though I might be getting one of them nifty Adire Brahma's or Shivas. I just dont got money to blow on stuff right now But christmas and I am going to try and sucker my nice wonderfull daddy outta a new sub hehe. But I will have that darned computer in my nice contour sometime. Oh well talk to yall later

with the space constraints, you can mount the motherboard without a case...just a thought.

true but its all on hold plus a case also functions as a support and protection for all the other bits and bobbles

Originally posted by BnyBen:

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One word WINAMP!!! in the car. And would you have to manualy shut down windows and the comp everytime you turn off the ignition.

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yeah, i've thought about this too, anyone know the fastest booting OSs? i've heard BeOS can boot up in about 12 seconds, when fully optimized - and i wonder if good ole MS-DOS has any MP3 playing software... it can boot in seconds, and you dont even need to shut that down!

Windows XP - Pretty fast from hibernate (if you have new hardware)
Windows 2000 - A little slower than XP but I like it more.
Windows 98 - Get 98lite to make it faster booting.
Windows 95 - pretty fast
For all windows OS's - make sure you disable any network cards or give them ip addresses or it will hang for a while trying to find the DHCP server

Linux - Fast booting if you know how to strip it down and configure everything (check out the CAJUN project)

BEOS - Fast booting but limited hardware support and limited software support for controling it

MS-DOS - Fast booting limited hardware support (check out MPXPLAY for a good player for dos)

Also remember that a good part of your bootup time will be in BIOS so you will want a board that spends as little time as it can there.

If you get an auto shutdown controller you will not have to worry about shutting it down because it will push the power button when the voltage cuts out on the acc. line and then give it time to shutdown and then turn off the power to it.

as you can tell I hang out at http://www.mp3car.com a lot also.

Originally posted by PoopStainz:

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unless your using firewire or usb 2.0, drives cant be mounted distances like taht

ide is only good for like 2 or 3 ft max

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Serial ATA!!! Faster than SCSI, with plenty of range.

Are those drives even available yet? It would be a good solution to your problem though.

I think this idea would be dope, but I would consider using a laptop with a docking station. Mount the docking station in the car on some sort of shock mount and then you would have all of the benefits that you mention above, plus the ability of taking the laptop with you whenever you wish.