1) How much will it all cost?
I know i could get a screen with touchpad for about 380
Check prices for the XBox, rumor is that it will drop below $100 around fall
2) How hard is it to do the install bymyself (no previous install experience)
The installation of the XBox itself into your car should be pretty easy. Time consuming,but not diffcult. The difficult part is the configuration and setup of the XBox (Loading Evox, Upgarding Harddrive -- which is optional, and Linux). It's not for everyone.
3) What about the enclosure? where to put the box and how to prevent it from skipping (does it?) on bumpy roads and all..
I am putting mine in my Glovebox. The DVD would skip around, I imagine. A way to get around that is to back up all your games and songs to the hardrive of the XBox.
4) Also let me know what your plan is for starting up the box? like will it start with the car? or do you have to press buttons or what?
Starting the XBox will be done through a shutdown and start up controller that I have not planned out in it's entirety yet. If you are an EE or have electronics experience and want to help out with this, let me know. I have two leads on this. One is a prebuilt controller from Dashwerks and a homemade one through this tutorial.
5) How do I find out which version my XBox is?
Here is a tutorial.
6) Can I have an internet connection while on the road?
Yeah, I have Kismet install, but it has not yet been tested. Just need a USB 802.11 Network "card" (USB) and a big ass Wireless Antenna thatn can be hidden in the car. I have some tutorials on creating an antenna, just ask for them.
7) I checked out the pics in your sig...that all looks awesome. Does the DashPc actually do what that pictures says by rolling up windows and such...cool!!!
Yes but you have to buy a hardware adapter, check out the message board at www.dashwerks,com. Not worth it IMO.
8) What are you using as a GPS reciever?
Deluo USB....works great and only $89
9) I would love to play around on my Xbox with your software designs. Will the Xbox still play the games okay?
Yeah, the XBox will still play games normally, right through the MS Dashboard.
10) Does GPS Drive come with maps?
No, but you can download them for free. Check out the FAQ for GPSDrive, it answers some of your questions...http://www.gpsdrive.cc/faq.shtml
11) Also, how are you using the GPS on the xbox? Did you hook the satelite up to it somehow?
As far as the Satelite (SP) question does....the GPS Device (Deluo) reads where the satelites are and feeds that information to GPS Drive.
12) How would you rate GPS Drive compare to other navigation systems?
I may or may not use GPSDrive. GPSDrive does not provide street navigation, like turn left here. I am also thinking about using the software that came with my GPS Receiver under WINE (http://www.winehq.com/).
13) Can you move the DVD from the XBOX to another location, or do you just have to deal with it?
You can move the XBox DVD outside of the XBox.....you would then have a hole on the front of the XBox.
Let me tell you my approach. I plan on keeping the DVD Drive for the XBox in the XBox. I will unhook it and not use it at all. I plan on Putting a Sony DVD Read/Write Drive in one of the "Mailbox" comparments, above the Glovebox. I will run an IDE cable/Power from the XBox to the Sony DVD.
One more thing to know is that the Xbox motherboard has room for only 2 IDE drives.
14) How much knowledge do you have to have to install EVOX on the XBOX and load other apps that you have in your XBOX software list?
You need to read up on EVox and Ed's Debian (Linux). Those 2 are pretty easy to understand and there are guides posted on the internet.
If you have a basic/moderate understanding of Linux, you should be ok. If you don't know Linux.....seriously...you are going to have problems maintaining it and upgrading it when new releases come out.
15) They don't have a windows OS that works on the XBOX quickly do they?
There is a Windows CE for the XBox, but it is a POS and no longer supported.
16) I've herad it will run under a virtual emulator, but will be slow as hell! Or maybe they have come out with a mod now that does work with windows, if so please email me a link.
It will run under an emulator inside of Linux. Yes it will be very slow.
I have used VMWare, it's nice. It costs money though...I am not into apps that are not open source / free. You still have to configure Linux to get VMWare running though.
http://www.vmware.com/
I think you will find that once its up and running with the GUI (XWindows), its not any harder to use than Windows. The hard part is getting the GUI (XWindows) set up correctly.........
17) I'm not familiar with Linix, but am willing to learn. Do you have to do any coding to get this to work on the XBOX?
No coding is required.
18) Will I need a larger HDD for your image. I'm not planning on saving entire games to the PC, may play a couple of games from time to time, I'm more interested in playing DVD's through it.
I would get a larger harddrive so that you can rip the movies and games to your harddrive. Games are ~2.5 gigs each, so if you got a 200 - 500 gig harddrive.
19) What screen are you using with the XBOX Car Setup, how is the clarity, and if you mount it where the stock nav is, did the door shut okay?
I have a Xenarc Composite Video 7". I am not happy with it and I will switch it out with a comperable VGA setup soon.
20) How do you plan on pushing sound from the DVD's, games, MP3's, and CD's that are in the XBOX through your Car stereo? AV Jacks?
I do not plan on having the XBox come through my Bose.
I plan on --> XBox --> Active Crossover --> Amp --> Speakers.
I am keeping my speakers stock and upgrading them later on....like a Stage 2.
I think you could run through stock HU, just not sure how you would do it....maybe through an FM Modulator.
21) Very awesome, so how does one load your cd onto their xbox, FTP? and then copy your CD over to my XBOX in C:\ dir?
Yes, I just need to get a working boot cd rom working.
22) Why do you have it flash the bios each time it boots up?
Because when you flash the XBox Bios, it does not perminately write to the XBox Bios...the XBox Bios is read only...and you are just changing the Bios in memmory. Side Note: With a mod chip you can write to the mod chips bios perminately..mod chips have a write mode....thats the difference.
With every boot, it takes about 3 seconds for the flash, and the flash happens automatically everytime the XBox boots.
23) Also As far as playing DVD's I would just play them from CD instead of the HDD, or would it be better to play them from the HDD?
Why load a CD in and out of you XBox? There are plenty of tools for Linux that will rip CDs to your hardrive. The best option is to RIP them down as waves and then MP3 encode them.
24) The DVD player that you use is OGLE, I saw some screen shots of it, does it play full screen and widescreen both, and with it playing do you see any of the desktop behind it?
Yes it has a fullscreen mode, you press f on the keyboard....I also think there is a button that you can press on the Ogle GUI. You can also make a shortcut on your desktop to the "f" key on your keyboard. With Linux there are lots of options, thats what makes it so hard to learn.....you can do 1 thing 100 different ways....can be confusing.
25) Do you have to open the xbox? Or is just software that you put in?
It's all software unless you want to upgrade your harddrive (EX: Put in a bigger harddrive)
26) How do you connect the DVD drive and the HD?
XBox comes with a DVD and Harddrive....XBox is just a Celeron 733 Mhz Computer.
27) I am a little confused about the usb ports. Do you have to splice into the wires for the controller ports inside the box to add the usb ports?
You CAN splice into the ports, but it is not necessary. Its one option. The other option is as you mentioned below. I just didn't want to take up a controller port.....I splice into the port on controller 3, but I can still plug a controller in and use it.
Here is a pic, I have not soldered the connections yet:
Here is a pic from the rear of the xbox:
Another Pic:
28) Is there a way to make an adapter that would plug into the controller port instead, such as cutting the end off of a controller extension cord and splicing it into a usb cord?
Exactly, you can get an XBox Game Controller extension cable and just cut into that. The only disadvantage is that it takes up a controller port.
29) I guess all of the peripherals such as mouse, keyboard, etc... are run through the usb hub then?
Yes they do, anything USB.
30) Also, are you running the sound through your stereo?
My plan is to yank the GD Bose stereo out and go Office Space on the Bose amp with a baseball bat. I will run an AMP, the Computer will do FM Modulation.
31) What size HDD is currently in the XBOX?
Hardware specs for the XBox: http://www.modz.co.nz/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=374
XBoxes now ship with a 10 gig. EvoX supports any size harddrive. The only catch here is that not all Hardrives will work, you have to use a drive that is compatible with the XBox, there is a list out on the internet somewhere, Google it.
Here is a guide to upgrading your XBox Harddrive:
http://www.copying-xbox-games.com/u...-hard-drive.php
I plan on eventually upgrading to a 500 GB Harddrive, that should hold allot of games.
32) For the DVD do you have to buy the seperate DVD module or is it already enabled on the XBOX to play DVD's?
The drive that you put games into is a DVD drive. No hardware is required. If you want to play the DVDs in your drive from an Operating system (Linux), then you have to have software (DVD Player) to play the DVD. I choose Ogle, look up Ogle in Google.
Side Note: Now if you want to play DVDs with the XBox Operation System (Slimmed down version of Win 2k), then they make you buy a dongle that hooks on one of your controller ports.
33) does Car Control, GPS and PC01 picutes actually work, if so that is so freaking awesome, please give more details on how you tied that stuff in
Car control will work, but you have to buy some hardware from http://www.dashwerks.com to make it work. I am not going to bother with it.
I currently have my GPS installed, and it works fine. GPS is not vector based so there are not street directions, however I have a copy of McNally Street Finder and Another piece Windows GPS software (forgot the name) that I am going to try to run under wine.
34) I thought the chip allowed you to run EvoX, I thought it sits on top of the Xbox bios and tricks it and let's it know you have a different hard drive in it, but it tricks the xbox into thinking it is still just an xbox so you could still play regular games. I didn't know you could load EvoX without the chip, that d@mn thing cost me $75 with shipping and it is seriously delaying my progress because I can't do anything else until it gets here, I got everything else and I am ready to roll. So you are doing all of that with no chip huh, that is awesome..
The mod chips do allow you to run unsigned code (Evox) on your X-Box. However, another approach is to wait for Microsoft's Bios to load, Flash when the bios is in memmory, after it boots. No need for a chip.
35) Can you still play regular games?
Yes
36) Can you rip games directly to your HD and play them?(I am guessing so if you have EvoX)
Yes, you can play ripped X Games.
37) Why do people get a mod chips?
That used to be the only way, before the software exploits. (http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showforum=44). I don't know why people buy mod chips. I am not being sacastic, I really don't know.
38) If you have a link to what you did (exploit), I would love to read it.
I did the 007 exploit.(http://xbox-scene.com/articles/007-ma-phoenix-loader.php)
38) Oh yeah, I have been doing a lot of thinking on the whole touch screen thing and I read about you were thinking of going the VGA route, more info if you have it.
The VGA route can be accomplished one of two ways. You can either build your own converter (http://xbox-scene.com/articles/vga-cable.php), but really who has time for that, or you can buy an X2VGA converter.(http://www.x2vga.com/)
39) I almost forgot, I am assuiming you upgraded the RAM, I can't imagine you are doing all of this on 64 MB.
I did not upgrade my ram, I am at 64 megs atm. I plan on upgrading to 128, but it is serious work. I really don't know if I am up for it. I might hire someone to do it for a few bucks. I cannot find a link for this right now, but there are a couple of tutorials out there that tell you how to do it.
40) Well.. another thing is that it still looks like the whole thing is gona come near 900 bucks.. so i'm really trying to decide if i want to go with the xbox or go with the PC that's described in the post mentioned above (http://my350z.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70400)..
Any pros/cons that you could point out?
The PC Will be more expensive. The motherboard in the system above is about $160 (http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/search/search__cat_id--419,prod_id--7787235.html) plus shipping. Then you need ram, case/power supply, DVD Drive, HardDrive, and shipping for these items.
Just looking up a couple of prices:
Case is 155
DVD is 159.00
So, at the least, it will be 300 dollars more. Plus if you go windows, you will need to buy all that software (OS and Applications). Advantages is that it would be a little quicker, 733 MHZ vs 1000 MHZ.
Advantage of using an XBox would be that you can play XBox games with XBox controllers.....etc.
Its all about what you want. If you have the money and want spend a few extra bucks, then go for the PC System. If you want to play XBox games and are on a little tighter budget, then get the XBox.
I would price the two out, you should better make a decision based off that.
Another consideration is time. The PC route will save you some time. You will spend more time setting up your XBox than setting up your PC. On the other hand, if I give you my load setup time will be shorter on the XBox as you would just need to copy files over.
Also, if you don't know Linux then you might want to get the PC. I can set you up with an image of my XBox, but you wouldn't be able to support it yourself if you ran into any issues. You would be able to use it no problem, as it has a Windows Manager just like Windows. But if there were any problems 10 months down the road, you wouldn't have a clue on what to do.
Either way though, you cannot loose.
If you want to go Ultra Cheap. Just get the XBox and don't upgrade the harddrive. That will leave you with about 5 gig of space to stuff on. You won't be able to rip games as each game is about 2.5 gigs.
41) I mean.. are you basically going for the xbox set-up because you already have most of the parts? or is it because you see it as a better solution?
I am going XBox because people will look at it and go WTF is that? Also I like playing XBox games, PC emulators at t3h suck. I like the challenge of something that "cannot be done" (Linux OS on a MS platform). Quite frankly, I find it all very interesting. Also I choose Linux as my OS because of all the Open Source (free) projects out there. I don't want to spend money on Windows Software when its free on Linux. Lastly, I want to show people some cost effective alternatives.
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