I haven't really searched the board's messagebase about this question, but I was thinking..

I'd very much like to have a larger screen for empeg. What I'm talking here does NOT have anything to do w/ connect your PDA (like Palm etc..) to your Empeg. What I mean is an external display unit connected to the Empeg to replace its natural display.

My car (Golf) has a fair 3x Empeg-display size room for a larger display. Ideally, it'd be a laptop-like display that could do 800x600x16bit graphics (but can Empeg?).. and it'd be physically attached to Empeg with no visible wiring... something like that. This would really make it viable to code something for empeg.. currently I'm running into problems about the display being too small for anything reasonable (such as GPS navi / playing .mpeg movies etc.)

Am I just hopelessly lost here or is there a possibility to do this. Wish there was an add-on from the original Empeg people that could do this, but alas the situation is what it is.. ;(..

The other possibility would be to have a laptop in the car, but the models I have at my disposal are just:

a) too large in size to have 'in car' in general,
b) run out of batteries at some point,
c) look rather hilarious sitting on the front panel (eat half of the windscreen visibility = probably illegal),
d) could be seated on the passenger's seat, but yet again not a good solution
e) attract thieves too much.

I did some searching on the web for such LCD color display units, but all I can find seems to be stuff that already has some gadget installed to it / has an AI of its own (ie. sort of touch screen -type operations / computer / PDA-type).

Anyone else having better luck?

check this

http://www.carlcds.com/

http://earthlcd.com/

good luck

Okay, this is off the top of my head, and would cost a ton of $$... but you could install a cappucino tiny PC... or similar... and hook it up to an appropriately sized lcd screen (touch screen... mmmm..), then hook up the ethernet from the empeg to the PC and install Hijack and use one of the slick XML interfaces through a maximized browser on the LCD screen to control the empeg. That would be pretty kick ass. I'm sure there's other less convoluted ways.. but man that would look cool.

For a low cost starting point you may want to look at this ebay auction. This seller keeps putting these units on, and has 4 up at the moment (View sellers other auctions).

I believe that the motherboard is made by advantech whose specs are online, but you should check the model number with the seller. Most of the Advantech boards support disk-on-chip which would allow fast boot times, and potentially no need for a hard disk (I'm not sure how small an XML compatible browser can be made. I know that there are micro-sized X11 implementations).

It has a serial port, so should allow for the addition of a touchscreen, which the seller sometimes has available.

This is a hack job - you'd need to remove the unit from the case supplied, sort out a suitable power supply (or use an inverter) etc. But it could form the basis of a very nice solution.

Make sure you ask the seller any questions you may have! He appears to be upfront and honest about his auctions, but you probably want to confirm details - especially the motherboard model, as this will dictate whether Disk on Chip is possible or not, and power consumption. Feedback is 3.5% negatives on over 4000 auctions - not the best, but not bad either considering the volume.