Scroll Mod: After using the CarPC very successfully for a few months, I found (as I could have guessed) scrolling long lists of mp3s and whatnot with a touchscreen somewhat tedious. After flirting with the idea of physically mounting a USB mouse scroll wheel inside the casing of my LCD, I turned to a pile of PS/2 mice that I was not using. Upon disassembling them, I found the push/pull style scroll much more appealing than a wheel. I took the guts out of the 5-button mouse and de-soldered some of the switches. I had previously opened my LCD to check out it's internals and found it's rarely-used control buttons on a separate PCB inside. When I got the two components together, I cut the non-ground traces to the far right two buttons and to the center two buttons (marked "Volume") to disconnect them electrically from the LCD. I wired the first two buttons to the "Up" and "Down" switches of the scroll and then the second set of buttons to the "Back" and "Forward" switches on the mouse PCB. I'm currently looking for a way to make the "Back" and "Forward" buttons control the system volume. If only the manufacturer had just added a physical scroll and/or volume control to the touchscreen controller... but what's the fun in that?
While I had the LCD open, I also hardwired the "Power" button closed to switch on the LCD when power is applied, as opposed to the off by default.
During this time I also upgraded my WiFi card to a Buffalo WLI2-PCI-G54S which works very well with Netsumbler. The GPS and mapping software were also upgraded to a Delorme Earthmate and Street Atlas 2005. This upgrade fixed the FTDI serial converter conflict that arose again when using the MediaEngine software. The best feature of this GPS is the ability to use is as a purely USB or converted serial device.
Speaking of MediaEngine, I've dumped it for Winamp, XtremePCR and the Street Atlas software. MediaEngine's best features are still beta and are too troublesome. I'm probably going to develop my own all-in-one software with the Winamp and XM PCR interface modules MediaEngine used. More to come.
Scroll Mod
(0.1) Mitsumi 5-button scroll mouse connected to the LCD via 5-Pin DIN pigtail.
So, for the longest time, putting a PC in the place I spend about 2 hours every day has been a goal of mine. I finally got up the gusto to do it. My 01' Malibu presents, the Car PC... After a lot of browsing I came up with a shopping list with a he
Tracked: Apr 14, 12:39
I love NES. I played my original Nintendo more hours than I care to remember. I must have beat Super Mario 3 four times before I was 13. In a nostalgic haze one day, I discovered the JNes emulator and the RetroPad. I played my favorite NES roms on my desk
Tracked: May 16, 16:43