KITT - It had to happen sometime!

prefim · 12-19-2004, 10:46 AM

Hi All,

Been a lurker in here for a while. Just fitted my Carputer and thought i would share a few things i've gleamed along the way.

First off, here is a quick skin i knocked out today, its based on the dash of KITT from knight rider. considering how long mediacar has been around, im amazed there wasnt one already! its basic (GPS, MUSIC & Skin). It was more done for a gag for my mate who is heavily into Knight Rider.

You can download it HERE

My Carputer is more an experiment on 'can it be done' I drive a (dont laff now) Fiat Uno! its small and crap but its a great toy for playing with stuff like this! anyway, I brought one of these little espresso PCs

Shown Here

Whats great about the espresso, is its very small, comes boxed and ready to go and you can remove all the CD and floppy devices thus saving even more power. I would HIGHLY recommend them for anyone looking for a carputer. I got mine from CPC components in the UK for £175, and thats for the full kit (PC, cdrom fdd dock, leather case, PSU etc.)

Its a tiny little box thats a pokey PC inside, I upgraded the ram, and HDD and piled XP Pro onto it. Hooked it up to a Lilliput 7" and a USB GPS running Prymenav and bobs your uncle.

The GPS integrates seamlessly with mediacar and when you exit the gps panel it remains running and talking in the background.

One problem (which seems to be with many GPS programs) if i leave the GPS running when i do a hibernate it wont reboot, fine if i quit the gps before hand.

Oh, tried the inverter thing. waste of money and time. had no end of problems included (after correctly grounding it to battery and bodywork, more noise than sound coming from the PC which I could also get a ****er off it if i touched the PC and the carpet!

Went with running pure 12v into everything. It all draws next to no power and is stable with the engine off or on. noise practically gone (only remaining is what the PC is producing). I plan to get around that by using a USB sound card.

Anyhoo, thats my news and how you like the skin, it made my mate chuckle (especially if you cue up the knight rider theme in the background!)

Regards,

Mat

carpcnoobie · 12-19-2004, 05:57 PM

Can you put up more screen shots?? Shame the 'voice' lights can't light up with the music. People would think the car's talking to you. Oh wow.. you could take this far.

Cris · 12-19-2004, 06:10 PM

This looks absolutly amazing. Nice ideea. And yeah, more pics...

prefim · 12-20-2004, 12:31 PM

I'll try and get some pics when its light. Its hard to take a decent pic in a car at night. Heres the music player window as seen when running.

Please note you must have the DEFAULT skin still installed on your carputer as this will call those missing bits where required.

The carputer is still not how i want it but I doubt it will be in this car. I will fit it tidy in whatever i get next. I have managed to get the PC, the FM modulator, the cabling etc. all behind the centre console where the radio fits. There are a couple of switches here and there to switch on the modulator and one for the power switch of the espresso. That was a ***** to wire as its a surface mount DPDT switch so i needed to solder really fine wires onto that, and then solder chunky wires onto those.

Scouse Monkey · 12-20-2004, 12:38 PM

Where are you from prefim?

prefim · 12-20-2004, 12:49 PM

Near birmingham. Dont worry, i just threw the nearest directory into mediacar to get the screen shot. Im not a huge GLC fan!

sabre · 12-20-2004, 02:57 PM

never heard of GLC but nice skin

chewiee · 12-20-2004, 08:48 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by prefim

Near birmingham. Dont worry, i just threw the nearest directory into mediacar to get the screen shot. Im not a huge GLC fan!

"Safe Braar... you knows it!"

I saw them in London a few months back... well funny. I don't think it will translate too well in the US!

Your Mother's Got a Penis... what beautiful penmanship

Chewiee

ildena · 12-21-2004, 05:41 AM

I like it... (see my avatar)
But don't stop it now...
For example you can try to add a 3d aspect to the buttons and a different .jpg file when you press one of them...

ccsnet · 12-21-2004, 09:22 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by prefim

Hi All,

Been a lurker in here for a while. Just fitted my Carputer and thought i would share a few things i've gleamed along the way.

First off, here is a quick skin i knocked out today, its based on the dash of KITT from knight rider. considering how long mediacar has been around, im amazed there wasnt one already! its basic (GPS, MUSIC & Skin). It was more done for a gag for my mate who is heavily into Knight Rider.

Welcome Matt... nice to see another UKer.

Nice skin and it looks very true to the real thing. I'd love to see the buttons a bit more 3d as that would give some real life look to them. You could also make the LED's light up when pressed as well.

As another fan ( and even been to see the real car... well one of them ) I will be watching Sky One later this week ( thurs 2000 ) I think when there is a special famous car programe including from what I have seen of the trailer serval KITTS inc the later super pusuit versions and Ateam van... again... seen that one.....

Some of them that I have seen live here... http://www.carsofthestars.com/ and just looking they now have the convertable one since I was last up there ( http://www.codeoneauto.com/frames/kittconvert.html ) cool.

Terran

prefim · 12-21-2004, 04:12 PM

Hi all,

Yeah, i can't wait for that show. A mate just sold his trans am on ebay. same year and model as KITT.

I will take another look at the skin soon. The thing that puzzled me with all this skinning is that when im prodding away at the screen in the car, i can hardly tell when a button lights up or not (my finger is in the way!). hence the cut down re-use of the same jpg for up down and empty.

Anyway, I will take another look soon (maybe over the holidays) and post my results here.

frodobaggins · 12-21-2004, 11:36 PM

Now that is just sweet.

Rafster · 12-22-2004, 12:04 AM

That's pretty tight, but the only people who should use this are people with Trans-Ams or FIrebirds.

LOL

Peace,

Rafster

MoFo · 12-22-2004, 03:30 AM

i tried to make a vb program that looked like the KITT main screen (with the 3 red columns). I wanted to columns to illuminate with the music....but I just couldnt figure it out. Anyone think they could do it?

0l33l · 12-22-2004, 03:36 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by MoFo

i tried to make a vb program that looked like the KITT main screen (with the 3 red columns). I wanted to columns to illuminate with the music....but I just couldnt figure it out. Anyone think they could do it?

www.planetsourcecode.com probably has lots of code that will suit your needs... if not there's www.experts-exchange.com