NNS Mach-I Testing: COMPLETE

Ashlawn Kemling · 08-19-2001, 07:45 PM

Well, for those of you who remember, a couple of months ago, I posted about an in dash player I was working on that only took up a single din. I completed the testing and here are the results.

Good: Starts up within 30 seconds. Holds 5000+ songs. GPS works great. Uses the standard after market connector for connecting with your car's speakers.

Sound Output: Great quality sound output, BUT it only puts out about 10 watts at the most. Would require the use of an external amplifier for the main speakers if more wattage was needed! Not very good for people who like their music loud.

Face Plate: Its an all metal face plate painted black. (Or a color of the buyers choice.) Its not fancy. Of course it has the DVD-ROM drive there, but it is not slot loading! It has 14 buttons with 7 being reserved for main functions. The other 7 have preassigned defaults but can be changed via the included software. It has a 1 line x 16 character LCD with LED Backlighting and 2 USB ports for hooking up USB keyboards/mouses. It also houses a connection port that can have our special com/parralel/mointor connectors hook into it. (Note: It is not recommend to use USB hubs due to the fact that draw too much power from the motherboard and the car battery which might cause failure and/or fire.)

Bad: All computers need some sort of cooling! I tested this deck in Dark Blue Jeep Cherokee. This thing becomes an oven when sitting around in the sun. (It repeatedly melts the glue off the rear view mirror causing it to fall off.) Since this deck is in a rather enclosed area in the dash and not many places to breath, I added in air slots in the one corner of the face of the player with a mini fan to help cool it. It doesn't need much cooling since its only a 233mhz processor. I had it lock up a few times due to heat but I am coming up with a better cooling system. We should have the heat issue pounded out within a week.

With all this said and done, I hope to have the units ready in VERY limited quanity by Christmas or late January. When the final prototype is finished and I make a display model I will take pre-orders. Pictures will be posted asap after the display model is finished. I will also sell plans to make this player for those of you who don't wish to wait around with pre-orders.

--Ashlawn Kemling(Alex Smith)
NoName Studios

RaZor · 08-20-2001, 01:51 PM

good job...
we wanna see pics!

Fosgate · 08-21-2001, 01:06 AM

Just few questions...

Is it PC based? I guess it is if you running a GPS and DVD of it.
What sort of DVD drive did you use? 5.25" are londer then Din itself...
Also for it to fit in the Din size opening you must be using one of those SMB which cost a fortune!!
Based on this assumptions you will be seeling this unit for well over $1000. Which i dont think anyone here will be intrested.
Also what sort of LCD does it have? You are planning on using an LCD dont you... As you said you have GPS and DVD on it.

Ashlawn Kemling · 08-21-2001, 01:07 PM

It has a 1 line x 16 character LCD with LED Backlight.

It uses a laptop type DVD drive.

AND the price will NOT be well over $1000!

--Ashlawn Kemling

Rob Withey · 08-21-2001, 03:51 PM

Just noticed on your website that one of your bad points on DOS is no drivers for ESS sound cards. On my page is the source for my player, which includes an ESS driver for DOS for 16bit 44kHz stereo playback (written in C).

Rob

Cyberphox · 08-21-2001, 08:01 PM

If you visit the website there is nothing special there..half the links aren't working and why the hell are you using a 350Mhz AMD K6-2 with 97Mbs of RAM to run DOS????

jjohnson · 08-22-2001, 01:22 PM

How do you plan on supporting DVD playback under DOS?

What kind of expansion is available? PCMCIA? USB? Firewire?

What kind of display options will you have available?

gerard · 08-22-2001, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jjohnson:
How do you plan on supporting DVD playback under DOS?

What kind of expansion is available? PCMCIA? USB? Firewire?

What kind of display options will you have available?

or dvd on a 1x16 lcd?

Ashlawn Kemling · 08-23-2001, 01:59 AM

Just to make sure, the "Author's Homepage" link goes to my personal webpage! That is where I keep info on my personal carputer I built. Not the in-dash thingy I'm talking about here.

And BTW, its not running DOS anymore, its running Windows 98 with a DOS box open! MWUHAHAHAHA!

--Ashlawn Kemling

cenwesi · 08-23-2001, 06:51 AM

lol...this is just too funny

Quote:

why the hell are you using a 350Mhz AMD K6-2 with 97Mbs of RAM to run DOS????

I wont say any thing but LOL

Cyberphox · 08-23-2001, 09:09 AM

It also states he is 16...explains the mwuhaha mentality. No one else seems to be laughing at all..

Check out my cobra III intro http://192.75.64.44/gmills/cobra/realcobra.html

Quote:

Originally posted by Ashlawn Kemling:
Just to make sure, the "Author's Homepage" link goes to my personal webpage! That is where I keep info on my personal carputer I built. Not the in-dash thingy I'm talking about here.

And BTW, its not running DOS anymore, its running Windows 98 with a DOS box open! MWUHAHAHAHA!

--Ashlawn Kemling

Meatballman · 08-23-2001, 10:41 AM

very nice Cyberphox...you may want to extend the timing on the watch tv and play games part. It's a little fast and you can't see what is going on with the screen. Other than that, it's great.

Ashlawn Kemling · 08-23-2001, 11:05 AM

Just because I'm under 18, I'm 17 now, doesn't mean I can't express myself.

I should answer this, the In-Dash player will be using Windows 98. The ability to play DVD MOVIEs will require an external screen. So if people already have a screen then they can use it in with the player. I will also make available ready to use screens on my in-progress website. The other reason behind the DVD drive is because since DVD-R and DVD-RAM drives are being more available, people can burn their mp3 onto a 9.3gb DVD-R and update the player's hard drive that way. I hope that made sense.

--Ashlawn Kemling

radioman193 · 08-24-2001, 12:16 AM

sounds like a joke to me just words sofar.
need pix too it kinda looks like a wast of pc parts AMD prosser and memory let "dos" GO away windows can run faster and has better performance and your hardware can run in Accelerated mode or "speed" over DOS. and you sed it was just a dos window in windows98 some hardware will "slowdown" in a dos window no not some 98% will.
a small example not the best is to format hd in dos then format it in windows.
and video is alot slower in a dos window too!
run a test you will see!

btw I am not puting your player down its just DVD's and MP3's in dos is a wast of time and pc parts.to me.
But if it works for you so be it more power to ya!

Ashlawn Kemling · 08-24-2001, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by radioman193:
sounds like a joke to me just words sofar.
need pix too it kinda looks like a wast of pc parts AMD prosser and memory let "dos" GO away windows can run faster and has better performance and your hardware can run in Accelerated mode or "speed" over DOS. and you sed it was just a dos window in windows98 some hardware will "slowdown" in a dos window no not some 98% will.
a small example not the best is to format hd in dos then format it in windows.
and video is alot slower in a dos window too!
run a test you will see!

btw I am not puting your player down its just DVD's and MP3's in dos is a wast of time and pc parts.to me.
But if it works for you so be it more power to ya!

I'm not playing DVD in DOS! This is no joke, the "Author's Homepage" is for my personal player! Not the In-Dash player we are talking about in here! And no, my personal doesn't play DVDs.

Also, when I finish building the display model of the player, I will post pictures ONLY then.

--Ashlawn Kemling