Is this the new carPC!!!! - Page 3

rushnrockt · 01-11-2005, 05:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Alric

Before the MAc mini there was no compelling reason for a Mac front-end. Now, I think thngs might change.

BTW, the lilliput already works with Macs so for most of us it would be plug and play.

Since Mac OS is based on UNIX, some of the linux based stuff out there might not be as hard to port. And seeing how people apparently come up with stuff for anything that's made, like you said, we can expect more stuff to come out since there is a choice to put a Mac in.
I haven't used Mac since 8th grade, but it seems to me that Mac would be a nice choice for pre-built systems if those ever come out. I can just see a flower-power VW Beetle with one

Bugbyte · 01-11-2005, 05:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by alti

will USB soundcards work with this (I am assumeing that some will, but i am not that knowlegdible about MAC's) becuase there is only a headphone out and no audio in

I use this to get sound in and out. Griffin iMic

god_of_cpu · 01-11-2005, 05:11 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by drhamad

What do you have that would not work with the Mac? GPS might be an issue... I haven't looked into it so don't know. Other than that, I don't know what USB devices wouldn't work?

Even Micro-ITX boards are bigger than this thing, so a pc ripoff would be pretty hard. Were you trying to say "internal" or "external" because "enternal" is not a word

So not sure how to respond to that.

It comes with a Radeon 9200 series graphics card. Firewire 400, USB2, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive

As options: Airport, Bluetooth, DVD-RW

I'm not saying you can't get mac specific hardware to do most things, but in my experience its normally double or triple the price if you want something that not only says it works with macs on the box, but actually works with a mac when you plug it in. I know my remote control, rear view camera, steering wheel controls, OBD II, XM PCR, and GPS only came with drivers / software for the PC. I'm sure some of it could be easily hacked to work on Mac, but its going to be alot harder to get everything exactly the way you want it. When it comes down to it, its really back at the macs only suck cause theres no where near as much software support for them.

I'd be fine if they made an ITX size PC like this if it had a 3D card and similar dimensions even if it was a little bigger and could be built for $500. Really the closest thing out there is a shuttle XPC, but thats like 4 times the size cause they squeeze in the PS and 2 5.25 drive bays. Hopefully this will get shuttle to actually stop wasting so much space.

sagekoala · 01-11-2005, 05:16 PM

after the first rumours of the mac mini came out i sort of started thinking about the logistics of one of these as a carpc ... the front end could be a X11 port of headunit or thread is here . as for gps on osx there is route 66 but I have heard it was pretty freakin crap with very limited gps functionality. never the less i pretty sure in the next few months I'm going to have to buy one, but i have to see one personally first. if all else fails maybe I"ll try to get headunit to compile on yellow dog or something.

i was an admin of a bunch of macs at my high school right about the time osx came out and even 10.0.3 it ran just fine on a 450 G4 with 512 sdram so I'm not really to worried about the speed. mac fanboys with dual 2.5 G5s might/will ***** about it but oh well. i don't remember what crappy gpu they had back then but I'm sure that it wasn't any better than the atis in these.

kandyman676 · 01-11-2005, 05:39 PM

I dug up some reviews of the Virtual PC 7 software:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,65241,00.html

Basically it the software is usuable on an eMac for short periods of time running at G4 at 1Ghz with 640MB of ram. that may nock out the whole virtual PC thing

noodles · 01-11-2005, 05:59 PM

Do you have any idea of what you're talking about?

JoezDog4 · 01-11-2005, 05:59 PM

That is a very nice MAC... definitely a must for my car...

pastypyro · 01-11-2005, 06:01 PM

I have used Virtual PC and as much as I love OS X Virtual PC was useless except for maybe some SNES emulators because it has to emulate everything and it ran about the equivalent of a Pentium 2.

Edit: This was a version before Microsoft had a significant part in the development. Things may have improved.

b_nom · 01-11-2005, 06:12 PM

Damn that's a sexy computer!!!

SWC · 01-11-2005, 07:15 PM

While it's great it's a mac (I love them myself) this isn't that revolutionary to the car pc community other than its a small mac to use. I have case for my carputer thats 7.1" x 7.1" by 3.2" not a whole lot bigger than the mac mini and it holds a pci card. The other downside to this is that the powerswitch is on the back of the unit so in dash mounting is out unless you can find a way to mod a power switch (if memory serves apple doesnt use your typical connector like on a pc)

rushnrockt · 01-11-2005, 07:18 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by SWC

While it's great it's a mac (I love them myself) this isn't that revolutionary to the car pc community other than its a small mac to use. I have case for my carputer thats 7.1" x 7.1" by 3.2" not a whole lot bigger than the mac mini and it holds a pci card. The other downside to this is that the powerswitch is on the back of the unit so in dash mounting is out unless you can find a way to mod a power switch (if memory serves apple doesnt use your typical connector like on a pc)

Modding a power switch would seem like a rather minor detail, considering the level of modification many people on here actually go for.

Scouse Monkey · 01-11-2005, 07:39 PM

Yeah fitting a power switch would be the least of my worries - now getting a power switch to do it justice would be another matter! Would need to find a nice glowing apple logo switch that pulses when the mac is off.

drhamad · 01-11-2005, 08:08 PM

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...hlight=mac+gps
That talks about macintosh GPS, among other interesting mac programs/solutions. I haven't read the whole thread yet.

The one problem I really see that may not be easily solveable is, as someone else said, automated boot and shut down.

viguera · 01-11-2005, 11:13 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by SWC

While it's great it's a mac (I love them myself) this isn't that revolutionary to the car pc community other than its a small mac to use. I have case for my carputer thats 7.1" x 7.1" by 3.2" not a whole lot bigger than the mac mini and it holds a pci card. The other downside to this is that the powerswitch is on the back of the unit so in dash mounting is out unless you can find a way to mod a power switch (if memory serves apple doesnt use your typical connector like on a pc)

Well like it was said before... to each his own. I personally don't see what the big deal is, and nowadays it looks like people are on this "trend crazy" ****. Whenever Company X releases a new product, all of the sudden is the GREATEST FAD IN HISTORY! People are flocking to the f'ing stores to get the new shuffle ipod things, even though it's nothing but a crappy, limited space, flash-based mp3 player. No screen, no playlist support, etc.

OH, BUT IT'S NEW!!! WE MUST BUY IT!!!

WTF is going on? I applaud the Apple people for coming out with the new mini design, but it's FAR from being worth the price IMO, or worth the buzz. Put the mobo side by side with mini (or nano) ITX and you start wondering where the buzz is coming from... and when you look at the default configuration, the drawbacks are obvious.

Go to the Apple store and configure a decent one of these things... go ahead. Add another 256MB of RAM to the base ($499) unit... up the HD to 80GB an add bluetooth and a wireless NIC and you're in the $900 range already.

It's revolutionary for Apple, and hopefully it will get all the Linux/Mac people out there involved with the Car PC scene hardcore, but as far as being worth the buzz that it's getting? I doubt it.

Now talk to me about nano-itx or gumstix, and that's something worth turning your head for.

theluckyducky · 01-11-2005, 11:23 PM

Preach it viguera