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Very cool thread, I was a long time member of mp3car.com 15-18 years ago, and this brings back a lot of memories. I had to work through many of the same issues and ended up using an 10.4" atm screen (called an allbrite) that was sunlight readable and had a good usable temp range, etc. But everything was custom and parts like that were hard to find in quantity.
Side note: My favorite part of the project was the software aspect and getting the User experience right (back then it was all new). I was a young software engineer still in undergrad and used the opportunity to push myself to learn and explore. I create a software called "Carshell" that was a replacement for the explorer shell on the then brand new Windows XP. It was designed so you could use it with a touch screen in a car. Later as the "frontend softwares" on the site evolved, I became heavily involved in creating plugins for Centrafuse which became my favorite. One of my plugins integrated iGuidance which was a popular GPS software so it could be controlled from the front end.
My favorite project though was one I worked with another forum member on doing hazard detection with a night vision camera. So cool. I used an old (even at the time) security camera called a nitemax, had a good sensor and interchangeable lenses. The software part was very hard, oncoming traffic would "washout" the image completely. Sorry for the digression, it was such a influential time that really formed my career in many ways...
But just a closing note... as I was experimenting with all of this, I remember the first time I could wirelessly connect a phone to provide music over bluetooth. It was a sony ericson phone that rotated open and looked like a camera when closed. I knew imeddiately it was the future of the whole idea. Eventually there would be no point in having a "computer" we called them carputers or carpcs in the car, just a screen that acted as a thin client for the phone that everyone would have in their pocket.
So now we are there (android auto / carplay). So long sorry long.. for me personally I do not see the value in having the "computer" anymore. We already carry it around all day.
What I would really like to do though if I can find time is dig into android auto development, see if we can build custom apps that talk to bluetooth OBD2 sensors, etc.. Let the phone do everything that I used to be able to do with the carputer...
Regardless, very cool stuff!
Brian
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