Car Video Units With GPS/Nav

A Carputer, or 'CarPC', is a general purpose computing platform installed in a vehicle. As of the early 21st century, no OEM or major aftermarket supplier offers or supports carputer-class installations, limiting the installed base to the hobbyist, enthusiast and entrepreneur communities. more...

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In use as early as 2004 , the term generally refers to contemporaneous personal computers retrofitted in a production model car.

Since typical carputer installations enhance or replace the car's "radio", it can serve as a ready and recognizable comparison:

Each vehicle contains an OEM system, or the capacity to install one.; Default systems are upgradeable either with OEM or aftermarket parts.; Upgrades can be integrated such that they appear consistent with the OEM look and feel.; The type and capacity of upgrades is extremely broad.; OEM development generally follows aftermarket development with a lag.;

Carputer systems are usually built from traditional desktop components, particularly the increasingly compact small form factor systems. Laptops serve a particularly useful role as carputer system components, but because they cannot be cleanly integrated into the car they are not considered carputers in and of themselves.

Though not carputers per se, laptops are an excellent proxy when comparing carputers to an OEM or aftermarket integrated solution. For instance, as of 2007 GPS navigation is a common OEM equippable option and roughly equates to a laptop running GPS software. Actually doing the comparison across a few dimensions is illustrative:

Typical system

A typical Carputer system is composed of four parts:

Machine; Display; Interface hardware; Power Supply;

Machine

The machine consists of a motherboard, processor, memory and data storage method. Data storage typically consists of a hard drive or solid state flash memory. Small form factor and low power consumption typically require the use of a micro-atx, or mini-itx board. Carputers are also available second-hand as aftermarket additions.

Screen

You have to be able to command your carputer system. Preferably, this process should be as easy as possible. Initial carputers (pre-2000) typically used LCD character displays to interface and play music. Commands were typically sent to the carputer by means of a keyboard. Not far after the initial advent of the carputer, many people started using a wireless serial port remote to control their machines. This was about the time that small TV screens became affordable. The majority of the first (affordable) carputer screens were RCA video input only.

This awkward phase of sub-par display devices was frustrating to the carputer community. Users had difficulty justifying $1000+ for a nice screen, and for the most part, screens that nice were rare or just unavailable. Modern screens are leaps and bounds better than those just a few years ago.

Read more at Wikipedia.org