Yes, you read right! It's a Mac computer in a 350Z. This will be the ultimate in-car entertainment system!

I've been putting this together for about a year and I think I finally have every thing worked out. Thanks to all the "how to" threads and everyone who helped get me this far. I've played out the installation in my head at least a dozen times and I feel pretty comfortable. I have a lot of experience with hardware and software configurations, but I lack experience in electrical set-up. What I'm looking for is advice on what size wires and in-line fuse's to use through out! To make it easy for everyone to view my set-up, I've put together a website with all the details.

http://www.mac-mobile.com

I look forward to hearing feedback and suggestions.

Cheers. -m

 

Sweet.
I've been thinking about putting cube in Z for a while now. If you need any other parts for your mac go here, I used to work at this place

Other World Computing

They have processor upgrades, HDs, memory, everything.

Mac people got to stick together

 

So where are the pics of the install? i only see diagrams lol ...i need proof because I have an old G4 lying around and thought about doing the same..

but I struggled with a few key points and went over to the dark-side instead to make life easier on myself

--mike

 

I think you're off yo a good start there... hopefully someone can help you with the EE portion of the install.

Can't wait to see the marrying of the Mac and the Z... (also fan of both, as I type this on my G5)

 

OWC, I've ordered from them in the past. They're pretty good. I think the AGP will be a great car pc because of the expandability. The Cube would better for size. Does the Cube have AGP video input? That's another advantage the Mac has over the PC boards.

leemik: Haven't installed yet. This will be happening over the next couple of weeks. The AGP is great because of the AGP video port and (3) PCI slots, (3) FW ports, (2) USB, PC Card, etc... he list goes on.

photoz: I'm on a G5 (2.0 dual) as well. Blistering fast!

Thanks. -m

 

No the cube doesn't have an input. I've seen people change the video card, but they basically had to pull the video card apart, and set and wire parts of the card in different parts of the cube to get it to fit. When the new PBs come out next year I'll look into puting my iBook in, except for the problem that the iBook has to be open for it not to be in sleep, extra moniter or not.

Are you going to remove the internals from the case and set it in a custom box, or are you just going to mount the case in the car?.

If you want a good person to talk to a OWC PM me and I'll give you a name and extension of a great sales person, I sat behind him when I worked there.

 

Cube: That's what I mean by limited expandability.

I've already moved the internals out of the box. Unfortunately the box is rather large (with out all the plastic) and doesn't fit behind the passenger seat. Removed from the case, the mobo deminsions (7 3/4" x 11.5"). Even with PCI cards, the maximum height is only 5".

iBook: This is why i didn't go with a PB Ti 800 I have laying around. I didn't want to deal with power management issues and lack of expandability.

Hopefully my experiences will help you and others with installing Macs.

 

Where are you going to mount everything?

 

First I want to see how much room is behind the Bose subwoofer. There may be enough room to fit the mobo and power supply. Otherwise, it will go behind the passenger seat. DVD will be mounted in letterbox, same side as computer.

 

Get Verizon BroadBand Access:
link to verizons info on it

and your car will be online ALL the time, cable modem speed, unlimited access.

Okay, so it's $80 a month, but you would be the first Z with always on internet!

 

I had specced out a cube setup for my G35, but I sold out and put a PC in there. Going the cube route was too much money and the GPS options are better on a PC, unfortunately.

Used cubs still grab a pretty penny on ebay. My old iBook didn't have a DVD player, so I couldn't use that either. Also, if you have a 7" touchscreen, the touchscreen no longer functions when OS X wakes from sleep.

 

here another option using your xbox, some guy found a way to turn a xbox into a mac, more info if you go here.
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~ranma1/mac_install.html

 

There is only 1 problem with Pear PC (from my experience), the emulation is painfully slow.

 

Any OS emulationis slow, even Virtual PC. One thing I have noticed is when you emulate Mac OSX on a PC it causes problems, and runs so slow it's unbareable, but when you run XP on OSX is slow, but XP never crashes!.

 

This is true. Virtual PC is garbage (I think it's your only option to emulate windows on a Mac though). I use VMWare on my Linux boxes to emulate Windows and it's rather quick. If you think Virtual PC is slow try running Pear PC.........now that is slow! But it is still very cool, wish I had some extra money for a G5.

 

I too am dying to see some pics of the actual install. I am getting ready to do an XBOX install, but would LOVE to scrap that and use my powerbook G4 instead - I am a Mac guy through and through, but don't have the experience to do the install myself. I really need good documentation to give to my installer. Any help appreciated!

sundevil67

 

looks cool