The KombPuter - Introduction

For a while now I have been thinking about adding a DVD player to my 1961 VW Kombi. A couple of times when we've been on holiday it would have been nice to watch a DVD and chill out in the back! Sometime back in 2004 I was lucky enough to win an in-car DVD player and some of the accessories, but as I was rebuilding the interior of the bus, it never really seemed liket he right time to fit the unit, but now I am nearing the end of the interior I have fitted the player:

This has worked very well and is in a good position for the anyone in the back... ...but perhaps this isn't all I can do with a little screen... It had been a while since I was looking into it last time, but perhaps now it was time to have another think about it. One of the guys at work had bought a Lilliput 7" wide aspect screen which was really impressive, especially with the touchscreen built in...

...and I had seen a few other peoples installations: http://www.thisstrife.com/carproject/ http://www.letscommunicate.co.uk/carpc/ http://www.carputer.no/ http://www.cdrpro.co.uk/carputer/index.htm http://www.rayheffer.com/carputer.shtml ...and a few bits of software that are built for the job: http://users.skynet.be/media-car/software.html http://dashboardmonkey.com/ http://www.mp3car.com/software.php Anyway I had an old PC lying around at home with enough bits to get going on it. I made a list of the things that I'd like to get in and toyed with the various ideas a bit before coming up with the following: - GPS -- Location (perhaps maps) -- Speed -- Bearing (Display a compass?) -- Date and time - Internet (when a wireless connection is available) - DVD Playback - CD Playback - MP3 Storage and playback - Trip computer -- Distance travelled (needs to be integrated with the GPS) -- A couple of simple timers - Photo viewer (Upload photos from the camera to be stored and viewed) As you can see it's a farily large list of requirements and it's steering itself towards me writing a custom application to do it all. Ah, there's a problem there. I'm not a software developer. I have done a few web sites, but nothing like this!!! Anyway I had Google by my side and I can normally find some samples of code there, if not I have a few friends at work who might be able to help (during lunch and outside working hours, of course!). So I set off looking at the hardware I needed to run the system on... Hardware next >>