Here's how I did it for our car

I've got a GPS V (same as your old III Darrin, but with a bit more memory) which is screwed onto a block of wood which replaces the ashtray - then the cable (joint power & data serial cable) comes down to ciggy lighter & a Keyspan Serial / USB converter, and into the USB on my old Powerbook. The laptop lost it's screen a long time ago and has had various jobs since, but now it runs MacGPSpro and is held in a plywood frame behind the central cubbybox, with the stereo amplifier next to it.

The Mac then runs a Linitx 8 inch touchscreen monitor which I fitted where the radio used to live on the central console - it slides down over the heads of two big screws which are in a plywood sheet to fill the hole where the radio used to be. This way when parked the screen slides out and all potential tealeaves can see is a bit of wood with two massive screwheads in it where the radio used to be - with luck they won't bother breaking the window to nick that!

However - MacGPSpro doesn't auto open maps - It can read all the Russian Topo calibrated maps (and OS maps of Ireland which I've calibrated etc) but you have to select each one as you drive off the edge of a map - I believe that Touratec and OzzieExplorer auto open maps which would be nice

Generally the whole system works well, and an 80 gig hard drive gives us loads of music!

The orange blob suckered to the screen is a SPot tracker - also a good bit of kit if you are heading off outside normal comms range - it sends your location to a public Google Maps page which lets people check out where you are as well as having an emergency locator button... but that would be another thread...

Total cost - 200 pounds for the touchscreen, 125 pounds years ago for the Garmin GPS V 2nd hand about another 100 pounds total for cables, converters etc, and a laptop which would have been thrown away by most people, running on a 12 v car adaptor I got free with the replacement powerbook years ago...

Tony

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