Car Chip
Ken Hopkins leads off tonight's presentations with a discussion of the "Car Chip," a device that plugs into your vehicle's engine computer and records the streaming diagnostic readings. It was introduced by Davis Instruments (near Sacramento, CA) at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show held in January at Las Vegas, Nevada.

It's about the size of two 9-volt batteries, runs on the power provided by the computer port, and stores about a month's worth of data. If your car was built in 1996 or later, it probably has the necessary computer port for the Car Chip. Every five seconds or so, the diagnostic data read from numerous sensors fixed to the car's engine and body by the car's computer is dumped to the Car Chip's memory.

Modern cars are no longer the weekend warrior's hobby. Engine performance is controlled by sophisticated electronic computers with operating parameters set by factory installed ROM chips. There is an established after-market for chip mods, whereby the performance is enhanced at the sacrifice of minimum exhaust pollutants. The Car Chip is not a "mod" but rather a recording device to store and play back those performance parameters.

Using diagnostic data, malfunctioning parts can be identified with greater accuracy and repairs can be completed quicker. For example, a Jeep has come in four times in the past four years to have the fuel pump replaced. By using diagnostics, a technician not only replaces the damaged fuel pump, but also determines what's damaging it. Diagnosticians not only use equipment on the car, but also performs research in published texts and manufacturer bulletins. (As it turns out, this car has a plastic fuel tank, conditions were right for a mold to grow inside of it, and chunks were breaking off clogging the pump.)

The Car Chip also plugs into a PC (via serial port) so that, when queried by the software, the data is dumped and displayed as any of several appropriate types of graphs. This is going to end the problem of the mechanic telling the owner that the reason why the car stalled on the freeway the day before could not be determined.

(One can imagine that a similar approach to Microsoft's having programmed Windows XP to phone home every time it crashes could be applied to automobiles. One day, you might see a warning message on your car's 10-line by 80-column text display in the dash board say, "A malfunction has occurred in the braking system. Recommend the car be stopped. Shall I notify the nearest Chrysler service center?")

The Car Chip can also be considered akin to a computer "key-logger." A key-logger records every keystroke a user makes and, for some of these programs, also takes periodic snapshots of the screen. Reasons to install such programs are varied, from creating a base source of data for diagnostics, to collecting incriminating evidence to be used against a suspect.

In logging the data, your reasons may include finding that one particular set of environmental and attitudinal factors that cause the vehicle to malfunction. Or to collect and monitor your children's driving habits for later analysis and constructive criticism or punishment.

The types of data typically available from a car's computer are: vehicle make, model and year, date and time, odometer and speedometer readings, engine RPM, acceleration and braking rates, etc. There are typically 23 performance parameters provided by the car's computer, of which the Car Chip E/X model can store any four every 5 to 60 seconds. The Car Chip is not compatible for certain vehicles using the CAN protocol.

The Car Chip also records the date and time whenever it is powered on and off. Thus, should the Car Chip be removed, the parent of the teenage driver would know that something inappropriate had happened, it just wouldn't be known specifically what.

The economy model is $139 and the E/X model is $179. Both come with software to analyze the data, and other analysis and vehicle maintenance software utilities are available.

VIA EPIA Mini-ITX System Board
Rick Clayton of Pat Meyer Associates is representing VIA Technologies tonight, who has recently developed an extremely small motherboard. This VIA EPIA Mini-ITX board is best utilized as the founding component for sophisticated multimedia systems. High-speed internet access, games, video-on-demand systems, and custom personal video recorder systems are just some of the products already created using this board.

This board is also a hobbyist's dream platform. See some of the custom cases and projects that have garnered world-wide notice. Especially note the Atari case that has more computing power than one would have ever imagined. "For developers who choose to dream outside the ordinary beige box."

VIA Technologies has a long history comprising a wide product family: chipsets, CPU's, audio cards, fast ethernet solutions, discreet chipsets, and motherboards. This 17cm x 17cm board has embedded technologies that include: Apollo CLE266 chipset with embedded MPEG-2 decoder and a new integrated UniChrome 2D/3D graphics core, DDR266 SDRAM, ATA-133 hard drive data transfer, and support for 5.1 surround sound courtesy of the onboard VIA VT1616 six-channel AC'97 codec. IEEE1394 and USB 2.0 connections are provided, as well as S-Video and RCA TV-Out (NTSC & PAL) and 10/100 Fast Ethernet.

The board includes one PCI slot for expandability options, and is compatible with a full range of Mini-ITX chassis as well as FlexATX and MicroATX chassis. It's compatible with Microsoft WindowsrME/2000/XP and a variety of Linux-based operating systems. It's available with an embedded VIA EdenT ESP processor core for fanless, ultra-quiet systems, or an embedded VIA C3T E-Series processor for more demanding digital multimedia applications.

Multimedia and connectivity is the key to this board. The PC is considered the solution for productivity, uniformity, performance, connectivity. VIA believes the PC is going to converge into one device: entertainment, location, appearance, and connectivity. This allows for entertainment devices to look like entertainment devices - components that match the rest of your home theater equipment.

For more information, projects, and forums about the mini-ITX form factor, see www.mini-itx.com. Also visit A HREF="http://www.viaarena.com">www.viaarena.com for support and drivers for all of VIA Technologies products.