what's the smallest computer i can use to plug in an lcd panel?

[multiplexor]

Hey guys

quick question...

i'm thinking of adding an lcd panel to my car. I wan tto purchase it and plug my computer into my car and play mp3's, play games, anything.... etc... stuff.... things.... you know hehe

question is, instead of bringing my whole computer, or even a desktop computer and putting it into the back of my car. Is there any pc out there that's small enough and rugged enough for car usage? and boots up pretty quickly.... almost at the speed of a small Windows CE machine?

thanks guys

 

[mirlo]

Via makes an interesting motherboard called the EPIA. I don't know if it is fast enough for good game performance. To check it out, go to http://www.mini-itx.com/ .

Also look up anything to do with flex-atx and micro-atx to get slightly bigger and significantly more capable motherboards.

 

[Raas]

Hi,

well.. I'm kinda new here (first post) but I've been a member for a long time of the mp3car.com community.. That's where we also have to deal with these problems..
normally, flat displays, or tft's.. cannot be connected directly to the computer's vga-port...
Flat panels require digital inputs, and vga only outputs analog signals..
You would need at least a tft-controller where you can send the analog output of the computer to,
or, you would need a complete controller card which comes in place of the vga-card.. this card then outputs the digital signal needed by the flat panel.
or, you might want to look in the SBC's (Single Board Computers) They are very small, and have everything onboard, even the controller for the flat-panels.. you also can check out the display forum on mp3car.com... this is solely there to encounter the problem you are describing.

Hope this helps you out !
Greetz,

Raas

 

[Lligior]

a few years ago for a robotics project I bought a computer an a card from a retailer named advantech. It had a fast pentium cpu. It needed only a 12v connection had serial, parallel, keyboard, mouse, and network on board. It had two types of video out, i think one was digital and i know the other worked a standard monitor. It used notebook memory and hard drives and could use a pcflash card as a harddrive. The whole think was about the size of a VHS tape and would run windows98. I think we spent about $440 to get the thing up and running. It worked like a champ. I thought about getting one for my car but deciced the car was too much of a heap.

just looked up their current offerings, now with sound card and USB
http://www.advantech.com/products/Model_Detail.asp?model_id=1-9AZXU&bu=

or
http://www.advantech.com/products/model.asp?Category_ID=1@30148&bu=