Has anyone mounted a laptop, or PC to their car yet ? I am considering doing this...

 

i was toying w/ this idea a bit earlier, but never got around to buying a laptop to throw in there. I can't remember where i saw it, but I've seen a few different portable laptop stands... they're made out of metal and retract/unfold to set your laptop on. I figured you could take one of these things, do a few modifications to them (add a few hinges here, a few cuts there, etc), and mount the arm where ever you want to. I was planning on installing it so you could fit the laptop and arm between the passenger seat and console (I dont have stock seats, so there is a bit more room), then unfold the arm so the laptop sits above/around the passenger seat.

Great idea for realtime diagnostics, or just to watch DVD's.

 

Thats sorta what I had in mind. My main focus was mp3's though. Not only that, as far fetched as it may sound, I wanted to be able to surf the web. Havent found a company that provides a stable service ( cellular company). My job requires that I be within a few miles of a computer at almost all times.

 

yeah my other main reason was for mp3s (i just bought an mp3 capable headunit)...just make sure you have a headunit that can support audio input.

Just found this website that has quite a few different types of mounts... you should check it out
http://www.laptraveler.com/

Good luck w/ everything and let me know how it goes.

 

not an f-body but its pretty sweet.
http://home.attbi.com/~mp3car/blazerhtml.htm

 

I mounted a MP3 pC in my car... but it was MP3 only. DOS based MP3 player, it was really sweet, 16 hours of music, no repeats! When you are on the road for 2 months driving you don't know what a life saver that is! But anyway, yeah!

 

How about an MP3 CD-changer? seems like it would do the trick...I've got an MP3 CD player in my car and I don't see how having a PC would be much better....also I've seen a 1.5DIN MP3 deck that actually uses a standard 2.5" hard drive from a laptop(now if only I could remember what it was called)....you can set different playlists and all kinds of nifty little features that would usually require a PC....

if your bent on doing a PC in your car, I would look into those toshiba librettos, the laptops that are about the size of a VHS tape....should be pretty easy to rig up small mounting bracket above the radio pod (in camaros....I don't know about the firebirds but I assume they are close to the same)...

the wires would be pretty simple, just get an Auto/Air Adaptor for the machine and run it through the dash and hook it up to the cigarette lighter...and just have a small speaker cord go to the head unit (I think many of the head units that support CD-Changers can have the CD-Changer function used as an AUX in) or you could just get one that has a headphone jack aux-in plug on the front.....

 

The Libretto's were the only true " notebooks " but they were expensive as hell. I have an Aiwa CDCmp3 player already, ( uninstalled) but with as much as my regular CD's scratch, i'm not wanting to deal with collections of scratched CD's. Diamond ( sonic blue now) made this thing called the " Rio Car". It looked smooth but was discontinued. I think I just need one of those mp3 kegs... I dunno..

 

There are several distint advantges, and disadvantages, of a actual PC MP3 player.

Advantages:
No changing CDs ever wondering where the heck that song you really wanted to listen to went. 30+ gigs in a single place.
Easier searching, I have a fully function key pad. The CD/MP3 decks are a pain to search, I've watched people try.
No scratched CDs
Can be used for other things. Mine will be able to play music vidoes using the LCD screen, DVDs if I ever really feel the need, and video games, all changable and no extra hardware to do it (aka PS, PS2, or other console)

Disadvantages:
It takes time to start up... mine was down to ~12 seconds or less. I had music by the time I made it on the road.
It is big. Mine took up the entire lower half of my trunk, but it was fine.
The HDs can go bad from all the bumps, but if you mount it sideways and on rubber mounts it can prolong the life of the HDD a lot.


They are about equal in price, mine costed a couple hundred, and I probably could of made it cost less.

 

What system do you have and where did you get it ?

 

100% home built system, a software called MPXF as a front end and MPXPLAY. Worked really nicely, and got me very used to DOS again

 

sony makes a cd player with a hard drive in it the only bad thing is its a sony

 

everyone knows I have my LCD screen and PS2. I was going to get an old PC laptop and run it to my ALDL port and also run it to the radio for mp3's

well it isnt turining out that way. I am getting a brand new mac ibook (sweet computer) from school. What I will do is run RCA's from my pioneer aux. input. Get a RCA-1/8" adapter and put a female 1/8" plug in my console somewhere, so that when the laptop is in the car I can just plug it in and play MP3's through my system, and when the laptop isnt there,,,,,,nothing else extra is there.

 

I've actually had a custom built pc in my T/A for a couple of months now.... AMD Duron 700mhZ, 320 mb of Ram, 16 gig hdd, 6.4" TFT LCD screen, keyboard, touchpad, 48X cd-rom. It's all in a custom plexiglass case and powered with a 12v dc input power supply from PC Power and Cooling. My main method of control is thru a remote.. works great for Winamp. I'm now in the process of upgrading my LCD to a touchscreen.. hoping that will make it much more user friendly. Wouldn't trade the setup for anything.. I absolutely love it!

 

damn, you guys must be freakin rich. you could even hook it up so up your NOS system can be monitored, lol. seriously i bet you could figure out a way to do it.