I did a little research, and apparently I can play mp3s on a 486/66 if I'm not
using X11 and using mpg123.
Anyways, you can mount the drive in read only, which I'd be doing anyways as I
keep all my mp3s on cd. If you compile a completely stripped down kernel, you
can get it to boot in 10-15 seconds.
On Sun, 28 Mar 1999, you wrote:
> I use to have a Cyrix 5x86-120. It's basically a suped up 486 running at
> 120mhz. It plays MP3's fine in Win98 from a fresh boot. But that's all it
> can do. If I play a song I can't do anything else or it'll start to skip.
> Playing the songs in mono was okay but everything else is slloooow. and
> you can only do one thing at time. At 100mhz, it plays mono, but stereo it
> skips like hell. 486-120 may be the minimum but I'd go with a Pentium-100
> at least.
>
> This brings up another question regarding a comp in your car to use as a
> MP3 player. I was thinking about doing the same thing with my old
> computers but how do you prevent the computer from just turning off while
> it's running when you shut off your engine? Turning off the computer when
> it's doing something is not a good idea. And you also have to wait till
> the computer boots up before you can do anything. Booting up takes
> anywhere from 30secs to a couple of minutes. So anytime you park the car,
> and then start the engine again you have to go through the entire boot up
> sequence. Does linux let you do "suspend to harddrive/instant on"? which
> allows you to have the computer instantly turn on without booting. It also
> turns off with the computer with one button and saves where you left off?
> Some modern desktops and laptops have this feature which is tied in with
> the motherboard.
>
> That's the only way I can see how this would be viable. I know that if I
> shut down Linux or Win98, while it's doing something, it scans the HD the
> next time it boots up and reports lost chains and errors etc. This also
> adds to the amount of time it takes to boot up. This isn't very good for
> the HD either.
>
> >On Sat, 27 Mar 1999 14:26:59 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> >>Hi all.
> >>
> >>I am thinking of taking an old computer and putting it in the trunk of my
> car,
> >>with the cdrom and a numeric laptop keypad in the stereo slots.
> >>
> >>Does anyone know what kind of a computer would be bare minumum to play mp3s?
> >>This computer would be doing nothing but playing music, so should a
> 486/66 or
> >>100 cut it?
--
"A good traveller leaves no track." -- Lao Tzu
"No computer will ever need more than 640kb of memory." -- Bill Gates
(Moron...)
