At the heart of the system Elliot chose a VIA EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX board for its small form factor and ability to fit nicely in the trunk of his car.
Elliot worked on his car bit by bit over the years. Little setbacks couldn’t derail him, like when someone broke in and stole his Xbox and PS2. He kept at it, adding in new components when money was available, installing more and more video displays and finally pimping it out till he had reached his goal of one of the best in-car entertainment systems.
Unfortunately this story doesn’t have a happy ending. In 2007 “My engine in my 4runner got damaged. Basically my engine block cracked while driving and all the oil spilled out so I need a new motor. Also less than a week after this, thieves realized the vehicle was not moving anymore and broke in and stole all my TVs amps subs and everything else they could damage while trying to rip me off. They cut all the wires for the monitors making them useless in the process. They even went as far as stealing my A-pillar with the gauges in them. This just broke my spirit as far as repairing the car is concerned because I'm sure I will have electrical issues when I finally get enough money to put it back together.” Well here’s hoping some good fortune comes his way and he finds a new car to put his passion into.
Table of Contents
The Dakota Project
Modder: Brian K. Shoemake
Country: USA
Date of Project: 2003
VIA Board Used: VIA EPIA M10000
Inspiration: Grad Project
Purpose of Mod: Car PC
Link to Full Story: https://www.dakotaproject.com/index.htm
Back in 2003 Brain Shoemake was still in College pondering his graduation project to finish off his degree. “The Dakota Project Car PC was originally conceived as a Grad Project for my Heald College Portland, Oregon IT degree. After several months in the making, it has not only surpassed all of my expectations I had for the project, but it took first place honors at Heald College, and became the foundation for a business providing hard to find parts to other Mini-ITX enthusiasts.” Sounds like he chose wisely.
His main consideration in the project was a clean professional looking installation with everything being as close to stock as possible. Using a VIA EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX board, the most natural location for the installation was in the glovebox.
The final installation included a steering wheel mounted keyboard, (not sure what the police would have to say about that these days), a 7” LCD screen and mouse to access his database for storing MP3 files for his travels.
Brian added CD/MP3 playing functions, a navigation system, and also integrated a security system along the way.
Table of Contents
The “DOS Head Unit”
Modder: Hayden Smith
Country: UK
Date of Project: October 2nd, 2006
VIA Board Used: VIA EPIA 5000
Inspiration: Something to play his FLAC files on in his car
Purpose of Mod: Car PC
Link to Full Story: https://www.mini-itx.com/projects/headunit/
Back in 2006 Hayden Smith was searching for a solution to play his newly transferred digital music collection in his car. At the time there were a few head units available which supported USB drives and MP3/WMA files but they had a few drawbacks. “Firstly there are limits on the number of files that can be accessed by various media, secondly they are painfully slow loading files, and thirdly they are yet to support lossless music files.” Now what good would a pimped out car stereo be if the source music was of inferior quality. He decided to solve this problem on his own and to “produce a music player capable of playing both lossy (MP3/WMA….) and lossless media files (FLAC/APE/WAV) for the price of a cheap headunit.”
Initially thinking of using an old Pentium 200MMX motherboard and CPU he had lying around with a SoundBlaster AWE32 soundcard, he quickly ran into troubles with its size and needed something small and affordable. The solution was a VIA EPIA 5000 Mini-ITX with a 533MHz Eden processor as its compact dimensions were perfectly suited to fit into his glovebox.
The most impressive part of his mod was building the controller, not wanting or needing a full sized keyboard in his car, Hayden drew inspiration from another install by TomG involving the adoption of a stock Ford headunit to control an IR remote. Hayden decided to use the stock Toyota headunit in his car. After some serious rewiring and programming he had all the basic functions built in including play, volume up/down, skip to next track, pause, random on/off and repeat on/off and a button to switch to file manager view.
With this done he made an MDF base for the computer to fit in the glove box and mounted his LCD screen in the ashtray slot. All wired up and stealthily hidden away, Hayden had his solution and could head out on the road to enjoy his favorite tracks in all their glory.
Table of Contents
The “VESPA-PUTER”
Modder: Luca Barzelogna
Country: Italy
Date of Project: 2004
VIA Board Used: VIA EPIA MII 12000
Inspiration: Vespa scooter
Purpose of Mod: Scooter PC
Link to Full Story: https://www.viaarena.com/the-vespa-puter.aspx?ID=148&MCatID=1
Vespa riders have had a long and historic love affair with their vehicles. Vespa enthusiasts for more than half a century have taken their wasp-shaped scooters on the road en-masse for sightseeing excursions, sharing their passion and love of the Vespa. The Italians even have a word for it, vespaizzari, which means to get somewhere on a Vespa.
Back in 2004 Luca Barzelogna, president of the Italian Vespaonline Association, was gearing up for the “Desert Raid in USA” and wanted to pimp his Vespa 200 Rally out, thus the VESPA-PUTER was born.
Constructed using a VIA EPIA MII 12000 Mini-ITX, an 8” touch screen monitor and a USB web cam on the handle bar, his creation was truly ahead of its time.
Today Luca could easily find a wide variety of devices to satisfy his needs but they just weren’t available then. With its wireless connectivity, the VESPA-PUTER could function as a GPS navigational system as well as provide access to the Internet to locate the nearest gas station or hotel wherever he happened to be.
The touch screen and web cam allowed him to upload photos to his ftp server in Italy, providing his friends back home with a firsthand view of his trip. For areas too remote to access wireless networks, Luca enabled the system to use a satellite phone.
All completed, Luca mounted the build on his Vespa and was all set for the rally. You can read a full account of the trip that took Luca and the Vespa group around the American Southwest to such places as Joshua Tree National Park, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas at: https://www.viaarena.com/the-vespa-puter.aspx?ID=148&MCatID=1&P=2
Table of Contents
Mini-ITX Goes Commercial
As the modding community grew larger and larger and the popularity of the Mini-ITX form factor caught on, specially designed accessories began to flood the market place. One of the first suppliers was Logic Supply, who created a range of chassis for a variety of different scenarios including their MV101 Automotive chassis, the SL1UR-B Rackmount chassis and the SLFJT-01 fanless chassis that enabled a whole new wave of users to develop their own systems.
Logic Supply MV101 Automotive Mini-ITX case
A number of small start-ups also picked up on the growing demand for Mini-ITX based systems and began introducing products to the market place. Some of the first products to be introduced using VIA Mini-ITX boards were the B1 Box compact PC by Bleu Jour, the iGoLogic JBOX system for embedded Java development, HogarDigital firewall devices with Web-TV and entertainment services, MacroSystem ‘Enterprise’ Home Entertainment systems, the ChiliBox and AreanTalk SOHO servers and the VoomPC family of compact x86 car PC kits.
B1 Box by Bleu jour
iGoLogic JBOX
Voom PC
Chilibox SOHO Server
Imaginail NailJet Pro
4everports Teepod
Audiocharta
/> Table of Contents
Domo Arigato, Mini-ITX Goes PC-Bot-O!
Another important group closely tied to the modding spirit to seize the Mini-ITX form factor was the robotics community, for whom low power and compact size are absolutely critical. The Mini-ITX gave developers a platform to build truly innovative robots with advanced capabilities on which they could leverage the flexible functionality of x86 platforms.
One of the most impressive innovations for robotics featuring VIA Mini-ITX boards was the SRI International Centibots joint project between Stanford, University of Washington, and ActiveMedia Robotics, the aim of which was to design, implement and demonstrate a computational framework for the coordination of very large robot teams, consisting of at least 100 small, resource limited robots, on indoor reconnaissance tasks including mapping, tracking and guarding.
Another was the TC-series of robots from Tom Burick’s White Box Robotics, which attempted to revolutionize hobbyist robotics. Tom’s aim was to not only provide a product that could be sold and used, but also to define a common platform on which robotics hobbyists and industry alike could experiment on and develop their own custom solutions to meet their own requirements.
Other robotic projects included RoboDynamics’ Robotic Personal Assistant and GeckoSystems’ service robots such as the CareBot that autonomously navigated and patrolled the home, office, or workplace without human assistance.
Table of Contents
Mini-ITX and the DARPA Grand Challenge
One of our favorite robotics projects was working with teams that participated in the 2004 and 2005 DARPA Grand challenge, an unmanned autonomous vehicle race sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in which entrants were required to pit their robotic racing skills against each other in harsh off-road desert conditions between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
In the inaugural year of 2004, VIA sponsored Team LoGHIQ, comprised of a group of Rensselear Polytechnic Institute graduates, and family members from up-state New York, who used a VIA EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX board for their vehicle. The course covered 142km of the harsh Mojave Desert, which proved too much for all the 15 finalists and their vehicles. Unfortunately Team LoGHIQ was not one of the finalists as they failed to make it to the starting line of the final race due to some technical difficulties, which was not uncommon. Carnegie Mellon University’s Red Team and their car Sandstorm were the winners but failed to collect the one million dollar grand prize as they only completed 11.78km of the course, showing how technically challenging the competition was.
The next year VIA sponsored two teams in the event, the Prodigies and Team Jefferson. The Prodigies was comprised of two extraordinary young students, Nicholas Hoza aged 15 and Christopher Medrzycki aged 20, who used a VIA EPIA-Mini-ITX board to create their eXpeditor vehicle to navigate and conquer the hazardous off-road conditions of the race. Here is what the young team captain Nicholas had to say: “The DARPA Grand Challenge is the most exciting, fun, and challenging project I've ever participated in -- knowing that I'm building something completely unique makes every small achievement exhilarating. As my team's VIA EPIA Mini-ITX platform based autonomous ground vehicle gets closer to perfection, I'm more and more confident that it will provide tough competition on race day." Although their eXpeditor failed to qualify for the finals, the two young guys made a strong impression amongst their fellow competitors and DARPA organizers.
The second team sponsored was Team Jefferson and their “Tommy” entrant, which came close to qualifying for the finals, successfully completing the qualifying course in one of four attempts.
The second year saw a drastic improvement in the technology and competing vehicles. Five teams successfully completed the 142km course, with the Stanford Racing Team and their Stanley Vehicle coming out the winners by completing the course in 6 hours 54 minutes. Quite a leap of improvement in the space of just a year.
Table of Contents
Mini-ITX and the VIA pc-1 Initiative
Building on the success of the Mini-ITX platform and its low power, low cost feature set, in 2005 VIA launched the VIA pc-1 Initiative, which is to promote the development and implementation of affordable computing and Internet access solutions throughout the developing world to address global inequality.
Striving to enable the next one billion people to get connected with a focus on communication, education and information the pc-1 initiative seeks to improve the quality of life through technology. The pc-1 initiative recognized that in many regions of the world access to power is a major issue. The low power philosophy behind VIA processors and chipsets as well as the Mini-ITX platform was a natural fit. Other key requirements include low cost and durability as the conditions in remote rural locations can be very harsh on computers and electrical devices.
Table of Contents
Mini-ITX goes into the Desert
A prime example of the pc-1 initiative comes from 2007 when VIA teamed up with Geekcorps to empower remote Mali communities through the deployment of specialized, sustainable information and communication technology, (ICT). Some of the key technical challenges were the high heat and dust of the desert environment as well as no grid power.
Using a VIA EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX board, the Cybertigi was born, a sealed Mini-ITX with Flash memory, a satellite link and powered by a car battery or solar panel. The goal was to empower local entrepreneurs, (A “tigi” is a local tradesman in Bambara, the local language), to create their own micro-businesses selling cyber services such as email, voicemail, printing, photography and web-based information.
Also desert community radio stations were created in the most remote locations such as the one in Bourem Inaly near Timbuktu. There is a history of civil conflict between local villages as communication is very limited due to the geographical circumstances. These community radio stations enabled villagers to create, store and share news and information, opening up communication channels with local villages and far beyond.
Cybertigi – Geekcorps and VIA pc-1
Desert radio station
Mini-ITX: The Next Ten Years
Perspectives
In the ten years since its launch, the Mini-ITX has gone through the classic hi-tech industry adoption curve. After being embraced first by enthusiasts, who so vibrantly demonstrated the huge potential of the platform, the Mini-ITX crossed over into the mainstream, driving the emergence of a new mass market for low power, small form factor PCs and establishing itself as a standard platform in the Thin Client and embedded segments.
Mini-ITX Adoption
With its low power consumption, small form factor, and highly-integrated feature set the Mini-ITX has had the greatest influence on the PC market, spurring widespread innovation in PC design not just in terms of reducing the size of computers but also in inspiring improvements in system aesthetics and style.
The low power consumption of the Mini-ITX also helped to accelerate an industry-wide move away from its obsession with processor MHz and GHz towards more power-centric metrics such as TDP (Thermal Design Power) and performance per watt. This transition towards greener, more energy-efficient PCs was an extremely important change given the complex environmental challenges that the world is facing and the electricity generation shortages that plague many emerging countries, where computer usage is growing at a rapid rate.
The Mini-ITX also contributed greatly to the growth of the Thin Client market by providing vendors with a reliable standardized platform that could meet the increasing performance demands from their corporate and government customers. In the highly fragmented embedded market, the Mini-ITX and its Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX cousins played a similar role, providing developers for the first time with standardized platforms that enable them to reduce system R&D costs and speed up time to market.
Low power consumption, proven reliability, rich multimedia and I/O feature sets, and the ability to operate in the most extreme environments and temperatures have been some of the most important keys to
the widespread adoption of the Mini-ITX and its smaller cousins in a huge variety of embedded systems ranging from industrial PCs, POS, and digital signage systems to advanced medical devices and in-flight and in-vehicle entertainment and navigation systems.
Next Ten Years of the Mini-ITX
After firmly establishing itself as the de-facto small form factor computing platform during its first ten years, what’s next for the Mini-ITX?
In the PC market, demand for low power, small form factor desktop computers will continue to grow, particularly in developing countries and regions such as China, India, the Middle East, and Latin America where PC penetration rates still remain low compared to the US and Europe.
The momentum behind Thin Clients is also rising as the transition to Cloud-based applications and services gathers pace, and the Mini-ITX will continue to play an important role in this market as the standard platform for powering such devices. But it’s perhaps in the embedded market where the most intriguing possibilities lie as a result of the rapid expansion of the Mobile + Social Cloud.
From Personal Cloud to Social + Mobile Cloud
When the Mini-ITX was first launched on the market, many of the enthusiast mods were focused on designing home PCs and home media centers for digitizing media collections, including music, movies, TV shows, and photos. This, in other words, was a time when people were building their Personal Cloud.