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