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Crazy Eastern European G4 Car Mod

If there was ever a doubt about Eastern European Mac fans, let that shred of uncertainty be squelched. Today on MacMod one of the most amazing car installs of a Mac I have ever witnessed was posted after being translated [from Czech?].

Jiri Jirout first created a custom housing with waterproof-yet-breathable Gore-Tex ports for his 450MHz G4 (codename Sawtooth). The Sawtooth model is near and dear to my heart, I am writing this post off my 400MHz Sawtooth which was upgraded to 2GHz with a Powerlogix CPU. Next, he modded his Eastern European Tatra brand car to include:

  • An ethernet network
  • Wifi for hotspots
  • GPRS to internet for the car in cases where one is too far from Wifi
  • GPS with a Garmin module and Route 66 mapping software
  • Custom front end software written in Cocoa for car data
  • Custom movie player software
  • Scripts for iTunes so that back seat passengers can listen to different music than in the front
  • And much more...
The fact that the original article from which this is translated dates from the winter of 2003/2004 makes this mod all the more amazing. Huge props to Jiri Jirout and his crew of microcontroller designing and software writing friends.

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If there was ever a doubt about Eastern European Mac fans, let that shred of uncertainty be squelched. Today on MacMod one of the most...
 

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Ian Walker

Just FYI, that article was posted in January 2005, not this year.

January 19 2006 at 12:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
elliothtz

I have the same G4 laying around the house. How do you like the Powerlogix? Do you think it's worth it? I've been looking in to getting a processor upgrade to tide me over until I can sell my first born and buy that maxed out G5 I've had my eye on.

January 18 2006 at 9:07 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kirbdog

They already do. It is only $79 or $50 if you are a student.

January 18 2006 at 1:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jeffrey

Here's a link to the first time tuaw covered the story in April of 2004:

http://www.tuaw.com/2004/04/12/a-truly-mobile-mac/

January 18 2006 at 12:06 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
alex Downey

definately have seen this before... it's an awesome install, though.

January 17 2006 at 10:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Durandal

that has been around foorreever

January 17 2006 at 9:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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