Touch Screens For PCs?

solmssen asks: "I've decided to take the plunge and build a system into my car to play MP3s, light e-mail and browsing, and GPS mapping. I have a lot of stuff I'd like to use already, like a Netwave basestation and PCMCIA card that will allow me to access the filesystem when the car is parked at my house, a Ricochet modem for access on the road here in L.A., a GPS receiver, etc. What I lack is the central unit. I've done all these things with my Sony 505, but I'm loathe to give that up to this project. I'm thinking instead of an older 486 or Pentium touchscreen "Pad-Style" computer. These used to be advertised 3 or 4 years ago - I can't seem to find one on the refurb or used sites I know about. It would need to have PCMCIA slots, a serial port,and a 2.5" hard disk I could replace with a 8-12GB unit. Any thoughts? I used to get catalogs with stuff like this in them, but I can't find anything out there right now." Anyone have pointers as to where you can find them, online or off?

GPS Mapping

[citmanual]

What software would be recommended for such a thing? More curiously, is there any free software (either as in beer or speech) that can accomplish this??

Mayko Xmap

[Bwah]

This [mayko.com] is what you want. dv

Re:GPS, display and interface issues

[divbyzero]

I haven't used any of these myself, but they might work for you: a list of speech synthesis and analysis software [bright.net] for Linux.

But my grandest creation, as history will tell,

Hardware

[penguinboy]

You might want to try to find an IBM WorkPad

(Maybe OT) : Webpads

[pastie]

I know the question of `what has happened to all the webpads?' has been asked before, but has anyone used something like an older 3/4/586 machine with a wireless network card, maybe running as a simple dumb X-server?

I, for one, would love to have a touchscreen diskless dumb-X-terminal kind of webpad, and use it simply as a display for a remote PC running all the apps you want (Mozilla, opensource Graffiti-like handwriting recognition etc?).

Any ideas/suggestions?

Dave

check the mitflea

[fsck!]

last month, for $30 bucks a friend of mine picked up a machine that sounds like exactly what you're looking for. the guy made sounds to the extent that he had a lot more of them. talk to the guy with like 5 spaces and a white box truck in lot A by the train tracks.

the device is a large (heavy) suitcase with a docking station, printer, and a pad-like device who's markings make me think it's internals are that of a 486 thinkpad.

upside: touchscreen, portable, probably could run linux (how's PS/2 these days?).

downside: 4 pcmcia slots, two of which are for a pcmcia hard drive. it has a floppy connector but no real ide, and in classic ibm style, its unlike any other connector i've ever seen. installation will be difficult. if you already have a laptop running linux, you should be able to mount a pcmcia drive, jam in a filesystem, and hope the boot code in the pad will figure out what to do.

good luck!

by the way, for the uninitiated, the mitflea is a technology fleamarket at MIT, organized by the tech model railroad club and various HAM groups. sorry, west coast.

GPS Navigation

[bergeron76]

I use StreetAtlas 7.o (for windoze ack!) in my Jetta and I haven't had any problems with it. For about $150 it comes with GPS and LCD display. Here's the link if you want to see pictures of it in action... http://prague.hgss.com/mp3jetta.cgi [hgss.com]

re: Hardware

[rlord]

This category is most often described as a "tablet computer", not to be confused with a "tablet" (an input device). Alternatively, you'll see them described as a "pen computer". My favorite manufacturer is Fujitsu [fujitsu.com].

GPS, display and interface issues

[EMIce]

I've been planning and working on a very similar open-source system for over a year, I think lots of us are. I still haven't found a good GPS program for linux, so if you guys know of one please send the info this way.

One problem with creating a system like this is having a good user interface that one can easily add functionality to. I am hoping that Mozilla will have some sort of independant HTML rendering engine for Linux, much like IE has for windows. If anyone has word on this please let me know. Hard coding the interface in C will create hassles when it comes to making changes.

Another problem is getting output to an LCD screen. I am currently using an LCD that takes TV out from a video card. The problem is that text becomes unreadable when output via the TV out. The problem is that TV pixels are taller than computer pixels and the video card squishes the computer image to make the aspect ratio look somewhat normal on a TV and has to throw out pixels. If we could turn this feature of the card off, the graphics could be designed pre-squished and optimized so that they would look squished on the PC but normal on the TV, with the card running at 720x480. I wonder how the TiVo handles this. Also, it is important to find a TV out card for Linux which has the most support, maybe even the option to turn the pixel squishing off. Any suggestions on this? I'm using a Matrox Mystique 220 with a Rainbow Runner daughterboard right now and haven't played with the TV out in Linux yet.

I was also very happy to hear about the IBM Via-voice release for Linux, this ought to make certain aspects of the interface much easier. The only problem is I am not sure how using Via-voice will effect open-source software. Is there something decent and open sourced for recognition? Another college student and I are coding this right now and would like to release this to the community once the bulk of the code is laid down. It will be a modular system that will support plugins for new functions, interfaces and input, giving it potentially many uses, even out of the car. There seem to be many open-source license out there though. Is there a page that explains the various open source licences available in plain english? Particularly the BSD'ish license vs. GPL.

Lindsay

Re:GPS Mapping

[DaveHowe]

Check out Peter Bennett's website [vancouver-webpages.com] it contains a fair block of data, and some free/shareware programs.
Unfortunately, Garman are keeping some cards close to their chest, so you can't (for example) upload maps for handheld tracking unless you use the "official" windows-based software.
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