I don't think I've ever posted about my garage PC here before, so I figured I would.
For about 3 years now, I've had a computer in the garage solely dedicated to play MP3s. The original one had one DVD drive and ran Windows 98. The second one had 3 internal DVD drives, and one external DVD drive (modded from an external CD burner). The only problem with this one is the drives would often fail in our harsh Canadian winters.
So, I built a nice solid state machine. This is a Pentium 200MHz machine (which I found in the trash) with 64M RAM running Damn Small Linux. The hard drive is a 2G Compact Flash card:
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/bponyblog/PICT0216.jpg
I removed the floppy drive and wired in a USB Hub instead. I mounted it using half of a metal floppy shell, and wired up the power by cutting out the connector from a dead CD drive, and solering the plug on. I had to solder the USB cable directly into the hub because the cable stuck out too much.
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/bponyblog/PICT0218.jpg
I installed a DVD drive 'just in case', but I doubt it will ever get used... well, maybe for the occasional audio CD.
Here's what the thing looks like assembled:
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/bponyblog/PICT0227.jpg
I stuck three 8G USB flash drives full of MP3s, totalling almost 3000 songs. I wrote a nice Linux script to do all the chores after it boots: it loads the music player, scans all the USB ports and DVD drive for MP3s, adds them to the playlist, and starts playing them.
I've got outdoor speakers mounted on my garage which makes for great parties, or provides music while doing yardwork.
For about 3 years now, I've had a computer in the garage solely dedicated to play MP3s. The original one had one DVD drive and ran Windows 98. The second one had 3 internal DVD drives, and one external DVD drive (modded from an external CD burner). The only problem with this one is the drives would often fail in our harsh Canadian winters.
So, I built a nice solid state machine. This is a Pentium 200MHz machine (which I found in the trash) with 64M RAM running Damn Small Linux. The hard drive is a 2G Compact Flash card:
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/bponyblog/PICT0216.jpg
I removed the floppy drive and wired in a USB Hub instead. I mounted it using half of a metal floppy shell, and wired up the power by cutting out the connector from a dead CD drive, and solering the plug on. I had to solder the USB cable directly into the hub because the cable stuck out too much.
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/bponyblog/PICT0218.jpg
I installed a DVD drive 'just in case', but I doubt it will ever get used... well, maybe for the occasional audio CD.
Here's what the thing looks like assembled:
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb256/bponyblog/PICT0227.jpg
I stuck three 8G USB flash drives full of MP3s, totalling almost 3000 songs. I wrote a nice Linux script to do all the chores after it boots: it loads the music player, scans all the USB ports and DVD drive for MP3s, adds them to the playlist, and starts playing them.
I've got outdoor speakers mounted on my garage which makes for great parties, or provides music while doing yardwork.