If you read this please understand im not the smartest at all when icomes to computers but i am very very excited for some reason about trying this...it just\'s seems pratical to me for some reason...so dont flame me ;P
I was at bestbuy the other day and notice they had a indash car cdplayer that did the mp3/vcd thing. Now this was really cool to look at but the player just sux\'d it up. Took forever to load tracks that where very skip friendly...surpisingly slow...very very very slow for some reason. Said it read cd+text but the .mp3 file naming scheme was 8 characters actually the common scheme you find on standalone dvd players 2+6 ;-P...so only 6 letters. Very sad. Now i can get a motherboard with 350cpu 256sdram for about 40bucks...i have extra pc cdrom\'s and dc2ac powerconverter\'s...so all ineed is a lcd screen, numeric keyboard, and most importantly the OS to run it. So in conclusion i am wondering if there is a OS small enough to put on a floopy...actually a bootable cdrom using diskemu.bin..but a small enough not to use too much ram.
im trying to collect the following to make a attempt at it...tell me if you have donet his or know a better/cheaper way.
needed
1. motherboard,soundcard,videocard,cpu&ram...all of which can be bought very cheaply at auctions auctioning off older pc\'s...only the ram will be costly...which woudl be like 10 bucks ;P....i figure i can just throw this thing in the smallest box i can find or even make one from scratch.
2. the powerconverter and lcd screen.
3. the OS.
4. a car to put this in.
Ok so im am taking you understand what i am trying to do..i dont want a hdd in the thing because even if the hdd is free it would still get scratch up from bumps etc...and then need to be reformated and ultimately in the end be replaced.
I just want to cut a hole in the dash board to fit a cd/dvd rom and lcd screen with a numeric keypad....dash/mid console of the car would look something like the following...
___________________
[cd/dvdrom goes here]
[lcdscreen] [keypad]
----------------------------------
i know it doesnt look all that good but you understand i think. I need to find the lcd screen and numeric keypad...which wont be easy but can be done...but the hardest thing to get would be the OS.
How i would like it to work:
Put a cd/dvd in the cd/dvd rom and have it boot diskemu or whatever and choose to store the small OS in the ram...then load the directory where the .mp3\'s are....then choose to select a file/file\'s and have them cached into the ram off the cd....then have them play skip free. Then if i want take the cd out and put a new cd in with more .mp3\'s without the need of reloading the OS.
Now im not too sure if i understand this but if i have 256ram can i stor 256mbs of data in it to run it directly out of the ram without the need of the hdd...???and under this impression i could run a OS out of the ram right and even store other files in it. All i am wondering is where can i find the OS to do this...i can wrestle up alot of the info on my own on how to do the ram part i think but im not too sure where to locate the OS that is small enough to place in the ram...is WinCE a good one and small??or PalmOS..
If you have any info on this please let me know..its something i have been wanting to do since i have been listening to .mp3\'s...i have bought a portable .mp3 player that plays cds and there not the best...or even close. My friend has done the entire pc in the car thing with using a hdd and that became a disater due to damage to the hdd. The ones they sell at Best Buy or whatever cost alot of money for the quality you get.
I figure if i can do it all in the RAM that is the ticket.
