Beyond a Car PC: Ultra-Portable PC

**tom61** · 06-03-2005, 05:44 PM

Not quite a Car PC, but there's nothing stopping it from being mounted in a car.

I figured I'd post about this here, since alot of ideas came from the MP3Car forums.

Project synopsis:
Socket 370 EBX motherboard (smaller than Mini-ITX) that uses mostly laptop parts
PSOne screen
20GB harddrive for storage
Possibly CF card for boot-up
5400mAh Li-Ion battery
Integrated joystick and pointing device
Debian Linux
All in a 48CD holder

Parts I started out with:

Top row(left to right):
20GB laptop HD
PCM-9574 embedded socket 370 board w/ Via C3 800MHz
PSOne Screen

Second row:
PS2 (as in the game console) mini USB keyboard
Power Ramp Mite gamepad (simulates a keyboard)[Since dropped from the project]

Size comparision of motherboard, screen, and a Sega Game Gear:

What everything will fit in:

Pic of screen and battery:

Cardboard prototype, to see how everything will work together, layout wise(click for larger):

The green buttons are mouse buttons, left and right are the top buttons, middle is the bottom button (for invoking the scroll circle/auto-scroll in Firefox for web browsing).

The penciled-in circle is where the track point will go.

The gray thing is the D-Pad.

You can see the outline of the PSOne screen, but the final version will just have a hole cut for the screen and controls.

The buttons on the lower right are the buttons for the D-Pad, and then have shoulder or side buttons.

Curent status:
Wiring things together, and trying to figure out if an analog gamepad will work for a mouse substitue.

I likely won't cut everything into the case all at once, instead modding it closer to the prototype in stages. Doing it in stages will let me modify things easier. First stage will just be fitting everything in the case, without cutting holes and just opening it to use it, kind of like a mini-laptop. Probably will have that up soon. Second stage will probably just be the PSOne screen cutout.

I'm still not decided on what to use for gamepad and buttons, so that's definately not going to be carved into the case until the last. I'm re-thinking the CPU heatsink. I was playing with watching videos on the prototype (DVD player providing video), and had a tendency to set the unit down on my lap. That wouldn't work well with a fan or warm heatsink on the bottom. I may go with a 'tunnel' from the bottom, when holding the unit up, to the top with a fan running directly off the 9V from the battery either pushing or pulling the air to the top. The CPU placement would work OK for gaming, which is what the prototype was really set to test the layout of, and why I didn't notice the problem until now. [prototype has the heatsink just sitting outside, with the the motherboard facing down.]

If you're curious how it got to this stage, I've been maintaining two worklogs on the Ben Heck forums (dedicated to making consoles handheld) and one on the [H]ard Forum (dedicated to PC modding).

**Stealth97** · 06-06-2005, 12:37 AM

wow, thats really cool.

**team canada** · 06-06-2005, 12:53 AM

COMPLETELY off topic, haha, but I had to know... how are you playing master system games on that game gear?

**scott_fx** · 06-06-2005, 04:00 AM

i agree... really cool!

**RS3RS** · 06-06-2005, 06:02 AM

I've seen this over on the [H] (which is down at the moment, bloody thing). Looks like a fun project.

**tom61** · 06-06-2005, 04:12 PM

Thanks for the compliments!

Originally Posted by team canada

COMPLETELY off topic, haha, but I had to know... how are you playing master system games on that game gear?

The Master Gear Converter. The only thing different between the hardware in a Master System and Game Gear is that the Game Gear has a larger video palette, so all you need is to convert the pinouts to the Game Gear's pinout to run Master System games. Sega sold the adapter.

**tom61** · 06-23-2005, 04:25 PM

An update, in case anyone here is following.

I still need to:
Order the parts to get the power converter working (MAX787 based).
Get the trackpoint ordered.
Install Linux, and maybe Windows to the HD.
Start cutting holes in the case for different things.

Once that's done, I'll be finished.

If the PDA I have on eBay goes for enough money, I'll get a touchscreen kit for the LCD.

**tom61** · 11-17-2005, 10:37 PM

I just realised I haven't updated this in a long time. Definately check my other two worklogs for updates if you haven't been:

http://benheck.com/v-web/bulletin/bb...er=asc&start=0
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=892708

Hopefully I'll be finishing up the last bit of hardware assembling (though I still need a couple of things) and get Linux working with the PSOne screen sometime Thanksgiving break.

**eugenen** · 11-20-2005, 01:01 AM

Building a wearable?

**tom61** · 11-21-2005, 04:42 PM

Not exactly a wearable. Think of it as a really small tablet PC or a large PDA, minus the touch screen (for now). Sorta like the OQO without a touch screen.

Though, all it'd really take to make this a classic wearable is a head-moutned display, and switching back to the thumbkeyboard.