<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9"> <TITLE>MP3 Player Box HOWTO: MP3 box</TITLE> <LINK HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO-3.html" REL=next> <LINK HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO-1.html" REL=previous> <LINK HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO.html#toc2" REL=contents> </HEAD> <BODY> <A HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO-3.html">Next</A> <A HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO-1.html">Previous</A> <A HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO.html#toc2">Contents</A> <HR> <H2><A NAME="s2">2. MP3 box</A></H2> <P>The sole and only reason why you, the reader, is engulfing yourself in reading this material along with a nice warm container full with java, is so that you: <UL> <LI>Wish to make a self-supportive box with only four cables sticking out of it: an RJ-45 network cable, a power cable, and two RCA cables (or just one 1/8 mini stereo plug).</LI> <LI>Have all your mp3's on a big-server, while this MP3-box would fetch the files from the server.</LI> <LI>Have no floppy driver, no video card, nor any harddrive in the MP3-box. Just a power supply, sound card, network card, memory, cpu, and a serial infrared receiver.</LI> <LI>Be the envy of your friends :=)</LI> <LI>Play your mp3's using your remote without having to turn on your workstation. </LI> </UL> <P> <P> <H2><A NAME="ss2.1">2.1 Design </A> </H2> <P>Its important to keep certain things in mind: <UL> <LI>Size of the computer component (I was tempted to use PC104 boards, but they were to expensive). Height of ISA/PCI cards (so that the box doesn't look like a baby-AT case).</LI> <LI>The appealing side of the box - does it look like a square rectangle, pyramid, triangle, or something even more weird?</LI> <LI>Paint. Do you want see-through box with flashing lights inside, inconspicuous black box, or chrome looking?</LI> <LI>Cost. The absolute minimum (taking into consideration that you, the reader, has no spare computer parts) is about $70 (excluding tax, shipping, etc)</LI> <LI>KISS (Keep It Simple and Stupid) - take everything that's unnecessary and get rid of it (parallel port, modem card, video card, etc).</LI> </UL> <P>The idea behind this box is to separate tasks - the MP3-box can only play the mp3's from a server, while you, the reader, can freely add more files to your big-end server. Thus, the MPEG-box wouldn't need a harddrive, nor floppy drive. It would boot the operating system from the network (from the same server where the mp3 files are located). <P> <P> <HR> <A HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO-3.html">Next</A> <A HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO-1.html">Previous</A> <A HREF="MP3-Box-HOWTO.html#toc2">Contents</A> </BODY> </HTML>