The time Microsoft made a car stereo - The Auto PC Story

I’m sure you’d be surprised to learn that Microsoft made, or had a hand in making a car stereo. You’d probably be more surprised to know I had a hand in making it! The device you see behind me is the Clarion 310C, what I believe is the first 32-bit car stereo, or in car entertainment system as we’d now call them. Just why did Microsoft decide that car stereos were something they should dip a toe into, and just what is this odd little device?
Clarion 310c dealer video: • 1999 Clarion AutoPC 31...
Men & Motors review of Citroën Auto PC: • Birmingham Internation...
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[@BigCar2]

Clarion 310c dealer video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYXRoalrrMpqhJo Men & Motors review of Citroën Auto PC: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJKwppasrbiUjLM

[@bkh5746]

Pretty dang cool.the voice reminds me of the datsun 280z alert chimes.

[@bairikatte]

Reply To Big car Please Make Video & story about daihatsu Please

[@beardsntools]

The pocket pc. I love these devices. It's really a shame they stopped making them... basically they evolved into smartphones known today. Iphone took the form factor of these pdas (a giant screen with no keyboard) meanwhile Android was also copying windows mobile.. but they went after the wrong one, the "smartphone edition" which was a device that looked like blackberry but with windows mobile. Apple picked "windows mobile classic" or "windows mobile professional" essentially these were same, you know the touch screen ones with no keyboard, the only difference is one was classic pda and other one had a phone. From there they made their own dumbed UI wih alot of eye candy, complete with dumbed down device that only had one button instead several. Obviosly the apples concept catched on, android realized that and quickly copied the dumbed interface and swapped the blackberry type device with the touchscreen one. Unlike apple android the flexibility of windows mobile, rather than making the locked down os like iOS and Windows Phone that microsoft made later. In an attempt to catch up, Microsoft made exact opposite of their older windows mobile. Probably because they thought the fact iPhone is locked down, non costumizable, flexible, no sd slot,... you know all of it's negatives, is what made apple popular. It's no wonder WP failed. Should had just improved win mo rather than kill it. That was their best chance.

[@BigCar2]

@@bairikatte I'd like to - not sure when.

[@tarstarkusz]

@@beardsntools They were horrible. This radio is horrible. They took something that was simple and worked well and made it suck and made it overly complicated with a UI that didn't work. Have you ever spent any time in the hood? If that UI can't pick out a British accent, it will not pick out the accent of the hood.

[@BeefyMon]

I helped design the AutoPC developer documentation … primarily retouching screenshots and creating flowcharts describing various processes. It was my very first job out of college. As we briefly discussed before, I’m sure our paths crossed regularly around building 32 back in late 1999 :)

[@BigCar2]

Hey Matt! Loved Building 32. Lots of good memories.

[@BeefyMon]

@@BigCar2 Yep! The skybridge to building 31 was cool too.

[@CuoreSportivo]

where does all these take place? UK? Seattle?

[@gramajomd]

This is amazing

[@BeefyMon]

@@CuoreSportivo Redmond, Washington… near Seattle.

[@louisgreenleaf235]

The voice recognition is much better than I was expecting it to be

[@BigCar2]

A very small list of words (just 200), and all trained for a generic American accent.

[@straightpipediesel]

It may work fine in a stationary, quiet environment, but consider challenges like engine, tire, wind, HVAC noise, kids playing around in the back, sunroof and windows open. Even today, my car automatically decreases fan speed when you activate voice recognition.

[@claudiobizama5603]

This video was a great change of pace. 90s Microsoft must have been really something. I will now wait for a madman to run Doom on it.

[@guadalupe8589]

Should be elementary to run Doom on it

[@waltkowalski9040]

90s Microsoft was garbage they bullied the entire PC industry into using its crap Internet Explorer browser, Windows 95 was junk, Windows 98 was decent…let’s not forget Microsoft Bob and MS Office and their annoying prick of a paper clip.

[@steeviebops]

@@waltkowalski9040 I really don't think 95 was any worse than 98, at least not the OSR 2.x versions anyway. I've seen this quite a bit lately, is it just to line up with the perceived "every other version is bad" thing?

[@pistonburner6448]

90's Microsoft was basically grown on crime and corruption, and its monopoly position abuse did absolutely astounding damage to the whole world. If Microsoft had been wiped off the face of the Earth in the 90's the world would have been a much better place.

[@noel80s71]

The 2 for 1 show tickets 😂 priceless. Great insightful video as usual 👏

[@Styphoryte]

Oh and I am very certain they went straight to Floor 2 and totally didn't check out what was goin on down there haha... :P

[@edmundhodgson2572]

I worked in an aftermarket fitting shop around then. Back then, in-car entertainment sounded woeful, anyone bothering to upgrade would be doing it for sound quality purposes, that sort of cash would buy an in-car earthquake! That was the market. Today though, standard stuff is amazing from factory, so thanks for kicking it off!

[@kensmechanicalaffair]

What's some good standard factory systems?

[@flemmingsorensen5470]

What a cool story - and must have been so interesting to be part of! Would love to see more like this👍

[@BigCar2]

Sorry - I'm now out of fun stories from my past.

[@Stefan_Dahn]

​@@BigCar2What about a story about the rise and fall of the DIN "screen/display-coming-out" radios? Kind of high end HiFi car audio & sat nav lesson? 😊

[@Banom7a]

@@Stefan_Dahn that somehow still decently popular in Japan lol

[@KarimErrytouny]

I'm in my early 30s and already very nostalgic and passionate about 90s, 2000s tech. Although things were basic, tools were basic and it was the age of custom designs, incompatibilities, software crashes...but that era had a taste. Thank you for sharing your stories, always very interesting and exciting to hear from an insider.

[@danwake4431]

Im 50 and I was young, living on my own, and making decent money. So I got to live through all this stuff coming out. My first pc was windows 3.1. I think I had a 90mhz processor, 750mb hdd, and 4mb memory. A co worker of mine and myself really got into gaming so we were constantly trying to one up each other. He would upgrade his to 8mb memory, id run out and upgrade mine to 16. His first processor was a 75mhz, he went out and got a 120mhz "overdrive". Then I went and got a 200. Keep in mind this cost hundreds of dollars every time. I remember I had a P2B-F motherboard with a 450mhz chip and that ran everything, lasted quite a while before I had to upgrade again. I had a 14.4 modem, he got a 28.8, i got a 33.6, then we both got 56k. I went out and bought a Dell 8100 desktop AND an 8100 Inspiron at the same time, that was an expensive day. And so on. Looking back, it was awesome. Even dealing with Win95 and early Win98 blue screens, hell we didn't care. This stuff was so fun. 98SE was great, XP was better. Trying to download music from napster and just being blown away by it. Playing all the early games when they came out. Doom, Quake, Blood, ROTT, Unreal was incredible. I remember downloading south park episodes from IRC when we finally got DSL. You switched phone brands all the time and they all looked totally different from each other. xbox, ps2, we got to grow up with it basically. No parents to say no, we had money to get it. mp3 players came out, he had a Zen, I had a Sandisk. The old people at work couldn't believe music could go on those things, they thought Sony Walkman's were the only way to carry music around. Now a pc lasts years before needing an upgrade. iphones and androids look the same year after year. Nothing fun about getting a new phone really, not like then. Stuff like chatgpt and AI is cool, but there was something about those 90s and 2000s that can't be captured again I don't think.

[@dwarftoad]

As a frequent sufferer of a Ford Touch system (MY2014 car) I've been enjoying your deep and inside looks at Sync etc.

[@JPIndustrie]

This is probably the best and only informative video on the history of car infotainment and embedded devices in vehicles. Interesting because all of these off shoots are all inter-related!

[@Rapscallion2009]

Yes, I genuinely love the "mate in the pub" style. My favourite lessons at school were where teachers went off piste into adjacent areas I was wondering about!

[@chuckwyble7719]

I remember when MS announced it publicly. At the time I was an aspiring PC tech and I was fascinated with idea. One day we had a MS sales rep come by my work and gave all of us techs flyers promoting the Auto PC. Just recently I discovered one of the original flyers again while cleaning up old files.

[@zacharyf.568]

I kinda like how you can select what songs you want to play on an album. Some songs you are sick of or just never liked to begin with and just don’t want to hear or skip.

[@MrDuncl]

Many early CD players had the same feature.

[@dwarftoad]

Yes standard feature for a hifi (higher end) home cd player, so must have been on a comparative feature list?

[@BlueAtlantic38]

I have an Alfa Romeo 159 with the Blue&Me module, also a Microsoft product. Considering that was available for this model from 2006 or so, it's pretty impressive what it can do: connect you phone with Bluetooth (with all hands-free functions), play music by artist/folder/genre...via USB, multiple voice commands... and you can control it all from the steering wheel displayed in the on-board computer. Such a shame Microsoft does not offer support for this product anymore, even the web page is unaccessible because runs with Flash Player 😂

[@rowmaniax1998]

What infuriates me is that there's Bluetooth connection but only for voice and not for music... And I'm talking about Blue and Me on a car that was produced up until 2013 haha

[@BeesonsCars]

Does the Blue & Me System Support iPod/iPhone playback over usb?

[@BlueAtlantic38]

@@BeesonsCars I think only supports non-touch iPods, but I don’t know for sure…

[@dturbo306]

@@rowmaniax1998 06-11 ford focus has the same problem without the bullshit software. Why make it calls only? (Transit, mondeo, fiesta, focus any of them with the round stereo or sony one)

[@SKYWURX]

​@@rowmaniax1998 The Fiat 500 & Abarth 595 had blue&me all the way until late 2015!! No music via bluetooth was SO annoying, however, the voice recognition for your phone contacts worked surprisingly well.

[@alejandroalessandro7820]

We're so used to GPS now, but I remember having my mind blown in the very early 2000s when my friend pulled out a pda-type machine with GPS!

[@XMguy]

I had the Pharos GPS CF module for my Pocket PC. I actually used it. It was a wow thing. It could even see the satellites and their signals.

[@filanfyretracker]

An item of note is I do not think it was until sometime in the Clinton admin that GPS became properly useful, It was under his admin that the USAF turned off the inaccuracy mode for non military GPS. Naturally to avoid politics I doubt it had anything to do with who was president and more that the late 1990s was seeing an explosion in progress in portable technology, And with the cold war nearly a decade in the rear view the computer industry pushed to get precision mode available for all.

[@babelhuber3449]

$1800 in 1998? This thing was dead from the start, for this money you got a good radio with CD changer, an amplifier and loudspeakers (though only barely). Well, for a first tech demo it probably was not too bad. Thank you for sharing this, never heard about this before. Very interesting!

[@envisionelectronics]

Our shop didn’t sell Clarion but a friend’s shop did. They sold one. I think they sold more of the Clarion 32” subwoofers which were wildly impractical.

[@GenXPertChannel]

Some people wanted the highest tech available... I had one of these in each of my cars. Still have them, but not the cars I had them in.

[@paulie-Gualtieri.]

Really enjoyed this feature about the Microsoft radio, wouldn't mind seeing more videos about car audio systems, especially the Blaupunkt Bremen and other high-end stuff from the 1980s from other companies which are often rebranded cheap stuff now.

[@Timico1000]

That would be cool! Blaupunkt, Grundig, Becker, Fujitsu...even Nakamichi made some great car hifi!

[@paulie-Gualtieri.]

@Roadbart77 Yes absolutely, those brands had some amazing car radios back in the 80s and 90s, and Phillips did too.

[@GenXPertChannel]

I still have some of the old head units from the early era- the Harmon Kardon (Traffic Pilot, I think it was called) that Lamborghini and Land Rover used, as well as the Blaupunkt that required one to have a binder of something like 20 CDR's with maps. Maybe it would be worth doing some videos of those- I tend to never throw old stereo equipment away, so have several of them stashed away.

[@Preske]

Cambridge Soundwork speakers!!! i have the white ones. still going amazing even after all these years.

[@AxeGaijin]

One of those videos where you're curious where it's going to go when you start it, but then has you glued to the screen for the duration. 👍

[@seanoneillsongs]

A nerd's delight but maybe a 'Little Car' video. Please don't say you've run out of cars to focus on. That said, both your involvement and presentation made it interesting - even for someone who needs the kids to set up the tv whenever I babysit.

[@yips_way]

@18:07 YES - I would most definately use this feature as I always skip through tracks to find the same ones I always play. Having it preset to skip to each one would be great.

[@kitko33]

I had a Philips Nino 200 - exactly like the one you showed in the video in 1999! It was actually a neat device to use alongside your phone - it recorded sound (useful for a journalist like me - mobile phones could not record sounds back then :) ). For notes, contacts, recording etc... it was great. I sold it to a collector in 2014 :)

[@jakethreesixty]

Early infotainment systems are cool, I like the 1986- early 90s Oldsmobile touch screen infotainment systems, they stopped bothering because the _actual_ Boomers that bought them usually didn't want the option, but they still work great for the most part. Touch screen CRT in the dash was pretty neat

[@MrDuncl]

Check out the Aston Martin Lagonda. Definitely ahead of its time.

[@leomux2004]

Yeah, the Mazda Eunos Cosmo was one of the first cars to have a built-in intotainement system with touchscreen and GPS, and this way back in 1991.

[@retrocompaq5212]

buick had the best system by far, its works better than modern european infotainment systems

[@guadalupe8589]

Physical buttons > touch screens in vehicles

[@DangerousDevilOfficial]

Didn’t Cadillac also have a early touch screen navigation system stock in some of their cars? Sometime in the 90’s? I remember this, because of a movie from Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn The Out Of Towners remake I think. I was into sound mainly only in the 90’s. Me and my friends built sound systems in our cars for competitions. And we won multiple competitions with systems from Orion, Legacy, JBL, ect… We weren’t concerned with the head units with operating systems from windows or navigation ect.. Just custom sub enclosures and amps. Crossovers, ect.. And good, standard cd head units. So I don’t know a lot about the 90’s navigation systems. Does anyone else remember the stereo in their car in that movie? I just remember it seeming pretty advanced for the 90’s. 🤷‍♂️

[@nadeemchaudhry6585]

Unexpected but brilliant video, thanks for sharing your inside knowledge and expertise

[@frogandspanner]

5:20 We used to call one of the managers who had a PDA a _complete palm pilot_ .

[@MrDuncl]

I picked one up a boxed one at a car boot sale which still had the Comet receipt in the box. I was amazed that whoever bought it paid about £90 just for the extended warranty.

[@nothere572]

I really like these stories about car tech. This video and the MyFordTouch story, would love to see more about them!

[@964tractorboy]

The Clarion Autopsy: now I'm interested! Crazy story, thanks for the history lesson. I think even Microsoft have matured somewhat since then.

[@shaywhelan1]

Thank you sharing this fascinating and personal story. While your videos often take us down the memory lane of the cars we, or our Dads, owned, it was nice to take a trip down the Tech memory lane. My brother was a big fan of the Psion PDA's and I think I have my other Brother's beloved Sega Mega Drive in the attic.

[@simonhodgetts6530]

Amazing looking back at the early era of the pocket or palm PC. When I was studying industrial design, we even had Jony Ive set us a project to design a new palm top PC (he’d studied in the same BA course a few years before). A really inspiring chap - and we all went away and designed palmtop computers - mine was based on a Zippo lighter, with an anodised aluminium case which would age with use…….we all thought this was novel, but a bit of a luxury back then, and never dreamed of what would happen next - when I saw my first IPhone, and later IPad, and what they could do, I saw the end of industrial design for small handheld devices - now it was all about the interface and the software. I think you are talking about the ComDex show, which was held in Las Vegas every year - I worked for a Taiwanese VDU manufacturer during the mid 90s and would go every year……..I remember there being various ‘other’ activities being available at the same event 😉

[@BigCar2]

CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is held in January every year. COMDEX used to be held in November and was more computer focused. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMDEX

[@derodge]

I bought this radio when it was on clearance for $600. I had this in my SUV for almost 2 years. I had mp3s on a compact flash card. The wake word was "Auto PC" . I also had maps on compact flash you had load from off a CD. You could say things like , next song when playing mp3 , next radio station (but presets only). The biggest problem, it "SLOW" and just too underpower. I believe they did come out with a newer version later. But, it was completely different . The one thing I loved was the screen!! It was very small, but a novelty in cars those days. I would load 240 X 240 jpgs on the flash card. The pics would scroll though like a slideshow!!

[@derbagger22]

I remember when this came out. I was a huge Clarion fan and had numerous head units. I think it was a weird time. New tech was cool, but sound quality was king. I cared more about 20 bit Burr Brown D/A converters than speech recognition. 12 or 18 disc Clarion CD changers in the trunk were essential. I also remember the navigation option offered. You used a CD for data and the small screen would tell you what your next street to turn onto was. When you made your turn, you'd hit "next" for your next turn.

[@rvoisey]

We shipped the empeg car (later Rio Car) in 1998, running Linux on a StrongARM as a single DIN unit. Our focus was on music rather than navigation. It did ok but even at half the price of the Clarion it was a niche product. We also did a version for Visteon with an autochanger interface (speech controlled) but I don't think it ever made it beyond Ford concept cars of the time. There was a period between DIN slots going away and smart phones arriving when in-car entertainment was highly anti consumer.

[@AndyGraceMedia]

That thing was awesome and again ahead of its time.

[@KarlHamilton]

Love this laid back style of video. Nice!

[@nicholaskajfasz9558]

This was great and very interesting! Especially with your own enthusiasm intertwined in the video because you actually worked on it!

[@Karpour]

What a great video! The AutoPC was always a bit of a mystery, there used to be barely any information about it on the internet! Hearing the whole story from someone involved in its development is fantastic!

[@Seiskid]

Enjoyed this video. Its very undeveloped product, but what made it really interesting is the fact you worked on it. Thank you for sharing this.

[@ludovicbon5903]

Citroën sold the Xsara Windows CE, with an integrated Clarion auto PC back in 2000 or 2001 .

[@BigCar2]

500 special editions were sold, apparently.

[@barc0deblankblank]

The SH-3 was also found inside the NPDP cartridges, for the NPDP GameCube devkit/tester/reader =)

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

SH2 , previous processor was used in Segas 32x and Saturn. Both had 2 of them.

[@TheVintageApplianceEmporium]

What a fascinating product. Thanks for sharing with us :)

[@CityLifeinAmerica]

This was always something I was interested in. If I ever get an older car that still takes one DIN, I’m going to pick one of these up!

[@GenXPertChannel]

I still have two of these that I removed from my cars when I sold them. Have all the manuals printed and all the software and nav discs I could get my hands on. Always planned to put them in an older car as a period correct mod, but never did. Great video and a blast from the past- thanks for posting!

[@ekozlov]

Looks like a piece of history! ❤

[@lucashinch]

I had that same Infinity back in the late 90's.. great car

[@MattBradshaw]

My very first CD player had that “choose to play only these tracks” function. I used to use it all the time. You were a trailblazer! :)

[@finnjb3249]

I love the videos you do based on things you've worked on, just watched the MyFord Touch video, would love to see more on these topics!

[@BigCar2]

I've thought about doing one on AutoRoute as I know the people who ran the company.

[@Jagermonsta]

that was really cool to learn about!

[@oldskooldriver9379]

Hi Andy, nice to run across your YT channel. This is Gerry C., we worked on the Ford Sync project together. I still have my 2014 Ford Fusion Energi with MyTouch, working great still.

[@BigCar2]

Hey Gerry! Long time no see.

[@jesdadotcom]

I remember playing with these at Best Buy. Fascinating and futuristic.

[@sorenandersen2159]

Always really cool when you make a new video. You do a great job every time. Maybe one day you will do a video on the isuzu trooper 2. I think its an interesting vehicle and i still own mine. 🤠

[@stephentidwell2022]

Fascinating video subject. Never knew anything like this existed back then.

[@giuseppeprincipe5340]

I installed a Clarion similar to these in the 90's. I remember saying the phrase "Navigator Next" to it and it would respond with the next direction. It actually worked pretty well

[@JoshuaC923]

Super cool, and ahead of it's time

[@minus3dbintheteens60]

Really, very cool video and product!! I've been a sucker for in-car-entertainment (ICE) since I was a child in the early 90s, I taught myself to install Alpine headunits in my parents car each time they bought a different one, when I was about 10 years old, and so no wonder in my mid 30's I've spent more on my ICE than most spend on their mortgages lol. I have respect for Clarion and their amazing products like the HXD2, HXD3 etc but never knew of this unit. Thanks for the education!

[@autoanimals]

Genuinely fascinating! I for one would love to see a video on the Fiat Blue&Me system. I remember using it in my Grande Punto from 2006 and it was definitely unusual for the time and very quirky!

[@BigCar2]

I talk about it in the Ford SYNC video. It's essentially v2 of Blue & Me.

[@notpoliticallycorrect1303]

Fiat blue and me modules are poorly made,I frequently replace them.

[@worldtraveler930]

I do remember Clarion back in the day I wouldn't put it on the same level as Pioneer but you definitely got your money's worth!!! 🤠👍

[@WhatEver-dx3eu]

I wasn't aware of the Auto PC. In those days I did come across the EMPEG Car Radio from Cambridge, UK. This ran on Linux and sported 2 x 2.5" drive bays, Tbase10 RJ45 network socket. It also had pretty nifty DSP; a full parametric EQ with adjustable freq/Q/level. Also time alignment for 4 channels. With the network connection I could manage content on the drive, but also stream from it to my laptop. Having 12G of memory was sufficient to cram in just about my complete MP3 collection of music, so I'd be able to play anything whilst travelling. I splashed out on it late 2000/early 2001 for a mere GBP 2000, including the cradle and FM radio module. It was great but way too ahead of its time! The EMPEG community is still alive and kicking!

[@cmorche]

My grandpa was an electrical engineer at Ford, working on designing their radios. I remember him telling me about that exact same convention, although he definitely spent more time in the adult section 😂

[@thomasfrancis5747]

Definitely one for a museum. At the time (late 90's) I was involved in TV/VHS video, GPS nav, high end audio and mobile telephony at Land Rover on Range Rover - not sure that the Auto PC adds much in terms of functionality (and very fiddly for a driver) but, as you say, it was ahead of its time and had to wait for the hardware to catch up.

[@ramadhanisme7]

The concept is really ahead of the time

[@Rich.Aardvark]

Very enjoyable, interesting and nostalgic. ✅

[@estusflask982]

Awesome video!

[@fmphotooffice5513]

Clarion (and their top line Audia) and Cambridge Soundworks were the bee's knees at the time, quality stuff any hifi snob would be proud to show off.

[@mndlessdrwer]

I will give Microsoft credit: the Sync system that they made for Ford is amazingly good at voice recognition. I've fed my 2013 Ford Fusion Titanium with a flash drive full of obscure and esoteric music and it parses what it hears and manages to match up the song titles with very few failures. It is legitimately impressive. It probably helps that I have a very standard, neutral American accent. No obvious regionality. When I was growing up, back before my city became a mini silicon valley, nobody believed that I grew up in the south because I didn't have a trace of a southern accent. Now, with so many different people from all over the country and world moving here, it has become more believable.

[@BigCar2]

That's the benefit of a faster CPU & memory and progress in speech recognition technology. That tech was bought in (from Nuance maybe?).

[@jackdough8164]

Pfft what unicorn module did you get. I have nothing but problems with mine, although when it works it does work decently. I’m all updated and everything too.

[@mndlessdrwer]

@@jackdough8164 IDK. I'm just on the Sync 2 system with the 8" display and Sony sound system. It's on the latest version that I could install myself without needing to take it to the OEM to get them to reflash it manually. It does sometimes have issues recognizing certain words, but the screen to have you select which of several options it think it heard is enough for me to forgive it. It's not very often that it gets confused.

[@mndlessdrwer]

@@BigCar2 That's the thing: when major companies come out with something revolutionary that doesn't seem to match with the rest of their products particularly well, then there's a good chance that they acquired a company that was already producing such a product and just had them integrate it.

[@jackdough8164]

@@mndlessdrwer I don’t have a problem with my voice control as much as I do with the thing just being a piece of crap lol. The Bluetooth is my biggest issue. Goes out of sync (ironically enough). Disconnects for no reason. Will show connected but no sound will come through. And there’s lots of times when I start the car and the only thing that will work is the am/fm radio lol. Pulling the fuse fixes the problems and I don’t lose any info or settings but it’s still a pain

[@NeroVingian40]

Look at that, you’re talking about old tech! Man, I never knew you worked at Microsoft once. That’s so cool.

[@MrNice_]

Very nice UI!

[@robertwolf9380]

Cool stuff I used street and trip many times driving across the USA. Currently have a wince powered head unit can't fault it.

[@wal]

The AutoPC dealer video is one to watch if you suffer from insomnia. This video, however is MUCH more interesting. Thanks for the back story and additional info. I have one of these as well and planned a video, but now a bit concerned if it will work or not…

[@BigCar2]

I'd love to see the video if you do it. Let me know. I only just found that dealer video, and it was great to see the bits of the UI I couldn't get to. Brought back lots of memories.

[@wal]

@@BigCar2 I uploaded it on another one of my channels as I was given the VHS tape to convert to mp4 a few years ago for a friend. I’m glad this video was recommended to me now I’ll go check your other videos 👌

[@josephroberts6027]

@@BigCar2 You worked for Microsoft? Or Clarion?

[@josephroberts6027]

🤣🤣🤣🤣 As a dealer I remember that video.

[@BigCar2]

Microsoft

[@POVwithRC]

The demo unit is quite attractive and understated. Compared to a lot of what the aftermarket ended up doing.

[@davidt-rex2062]

This is really intresting. I am a content designer and learning UX design - it must have been a bit of a nightmare with the limits on the device

[@BigCar2]

I know the graphic designer for the UI quite well. The device had 8 colours, and he specifically avoided using magenta as it wouldn't have looked good on the system, so he limited himself to 7 colours on purpose. I think he did a pretty good job, and it was one of his first jobs. He went on to help design the Microsoft copy progress bar in Windows 10.

[@give_me_my_nick_back]

I love pocket PCs, they were just on another league compared to early android and iOS, it took a DECADE for others to catch up with Pocket PCs software and games library...

[@spazzman90]

Yeah, the minor league. :)

[@kennyg4744]

Very interesting.

[@themamosians62]

Cool I remeber using AutoRoute (a copied a was given if i remember) Great video as always! p.s. this is fascinating stuff and great to see your passion

[@mrjsv4935]

Very cool, kind of like early car infotainment system :)

[@deeiks12]

Fascinating story, fascinating device. My favourite kind of episode. The headunit itself looks physically awesome, I definitely want one now. I wonder why didn't you guys add text input via the numpad if it even has the alphabet printed on the keys anyway?

[@BigCar2]

T9 wasn't really a thing. We didn't think of it. Remember we're coming from a PC background, not a phone background.

[@deeiks12]

@@BigCar2 since i’m not a native english speaker i’ve basically never had the honour to use t9 “for real” but i remember typing on the regular keypads just fine :)) back then i had a becker traffic pro headunit (dont remember the time exactly) but i always thought why didnt they add some kind of way to input the address except just arrows.

[@AlfaGiuliaQV]

@@deeiks12 Probably the software to make it happen didn´t exist at that timepoint, so even if someone thought about it - if you don´t have the means to make it happen - someone must spend time and money inventing it first. Wich somebody did at the end, but too late for this device.

[@tarransanders21]

This is unrelated to the video - though it's definitely a fun personal story that I appreciate greatly - but I'm curious if you have ever thought about doing a long form video on the life and death of British Leyland as a company? Your videos on the cars of BL have given glimpses of what it was like in the back offices and the production line, but I still find myself intensely interested in seeing it in a wide scope way, much like what Regular Car Reviews did with their Life and Death of AMC podcast.

[@BigCar2]

Thanks for the suggestion - someone else has mentioned this. All I know is what I've put into the videos. You might appreciate a deeper dive into this issue I do in the Princess Optional Extra video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i17choKkg6qrnNU

[@TheExileFox]

20:45 "Very simple process with voice operation" Yeah, Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips would like to have a word with you on this topic. Google has stopped prioritizing local contacts, so the thing can no longer understand the command "Call Ivon Ho" - it will keep auto-correcting to "Ivon Home" and fail to make the call as that contact does not exist. On a good day, it only takes 4-5 attempts for the system to forget to do the auto-correct step and voilà - it does call her successfully.

[@JayParkKanal]

Your Knowledge and experiences are always beyond my mind! High respect from germany! I think Fiat had some Windows for car(?) Products in the early 2000s. Are they simillar(or succesor) of that 'Windows Car Stereo'?

[@BigCar2]

Fiat "Blue & Me". See my video on Ford SYNC.

[@JayParkKanal]

@@BigCar2 thank you!

[@MiamiMillionaire]

Very interesting 👍

[@HowardMessias]

Those wonderful HTC phones with CE!

[@manxman8008]

It stands for WINCE, which is what users did when using it

[@AAYMF]

Interesting video ❤

[@ilgwent8061]

Single DIN CD Player: My favorite infotainment👍

[@TopaT0pa]

this is a... different episode. Didn't expect that. Take my like + comment super algorythm combo

[@pizzalover3]

Very interesting, thank you! No RDS? Even back in 98 that would provide traffic news, radiotext etc. As an aside, I had some 2.1 Microsoft PC speakers back from another one of their mid 90s spin-offs made by Philips I think with their proprietary wOox passive radiator. Excellent sound quality.

[@BigCar2]

We just had basic control of the radio and I time to add RDS. This was also a very US centric product and RDS want a big thing there. They still don’t use the traffic info feature.

[@BigCar2]

We just had basic control of the radio and I time to add RDS. This was also a very US centric product and RDS want a big thing there. They still don’t use the traffic info feature.

[@AndyGraceMedia]

@@BigCar2 Yeah MS wanted to kill RBDS - the US version of RDS with very few differences but which had little traction at the time- and replace it with their 11/12kbps system which could at least deliver news, traffic, etc. In the end that subcarrier digital data became America's IBOC (in band on channel) digital audio service instead of using DAB or DMB like the rest of the world.

[@SlackActionBumble]

A British guy talking about obscure gadgets from the past... I kept having to look down and make sure I'm not watching techmoan

[@BigCar2]

I did offer to let him borrow to make a video, but it's not his cup of tea.

[@glucid4222]

I'm sure that it was hard to create this episode in which you had to admit that your creation wasn't all that good or it didn't work all that well, but then again, you didn't have much to work with either, from a technological perspective. Thank you for shedding light on the genesis of the idea behind all the in-car entertainment & navigation technology we now take for granted. Before your video, I always thought that brands like Clarion, JVC, Kenwood, Pioneer, etc. just grabbed much later on already existing technology like GPS, Bluetooth, etc. and put it altogether to offer the next step up from car radios & cassette players, rather than imagine Microsoft trying to take portable computing into cars, back in the '90's. On another level, instead of videos about the history of individual car brands and models, I'd love to see you take us on historical journeys of individual automotive technologies, like electronic fuel injection, ABS braking and retractable seat belts, as well as your take on just emerging or possible future automotive technical trends.

[@BigCar2]

When you’re making something new like this you’re in a bubble where you think it’s going to set the world on fire. It’s only from a distance that you can see it from a different perspective. I’m rubbish at the technical parts of cars, so I’m not sure I’d be good at talking about their history. I did a little on my second channel (Little Car) about Turbos, windscreen wipers etc… if you’re interested.

[@tghsheridan]

Cheers for doing this video - I do love to hear these stories from your old work projects. Can you recall what the dev tools were for this project? Was it the Cross Products Limited tools (DASH JTAG probe, Codescape debugger), or something else?

[@BigCar2]

We used Visual Studio with the Windows CE SDK - the same tools that Pocket PC devs used. There was a proprietary file versioning storage system called "RAID", but we eventually used to Visual Source Safe.

[@KingEurope1]

Related to AutoRoute that you mentioned that you worked on at the start of the vid; my first job out of university was in a team of "job planners" at a major IT company, assigning next day jobs for a team of remote engineers across the UK and tracking which jobs they had closed that day. You might be interested to know we were using Microsoft AutoRoute to do so, pinning all the jobs on the UK map. The whole team were still using it when I left that job for greener pastures in early 2017! I would not be surprised if they still are to this day. Just thought you would like to know the AutoRoute software you once worked on is still being used in the wild! 😁

[@BigCar2]

😀 Good to know!

[@Timico1000]

Me, some months ago: "Do it!" You: "Nah, it's boring!" 😊

[@FortyTwoAnswerToEverything]

Coincidentally, I had a Clarion CD deck in my 98 Mustang Cobra. Kinda funny seeing a 94+ Mustang interior in the showroom @ 10:55.

[@shaun4bigblocks993]

I was working at Circuit City in the car audio department when this was released. Initially, it was the coolest thing out (as cringe as it may seem now.) I was still running a Kenwood KRC-980 which had not been surpassed feature wise as that was right around the time things started getting cheaped out with marketing pushing "minimalist" BS. Even though I was the the Sales Floor Associate (SFA) I also installed two of these on the side (the only two we ever soled at such an outrageous price- $1800 when $400 was normal high end) since Circuit City did not have an install department- they installed like any other radio. I was still living at my parents and had little overhead and started saving up for one for my muscle car. I never ended up buying it though because as a sales associate who had plenty of down time to play I learned really fast that this unit was not ready for production- nothing ever worked right and it crashed often. I literally had to wire the demo to a remote power switch to keep it powered off so that when a customer was interested I could turn it on and ensure that it the memory was clear from a fresh boot. I don't know if it is fair to say that it was "the first of its type" or a "ground breaking game changer." I think it would had to have "worked" in order to claim that credit. I feel like it was a product that was rushed just so Clarion could take synthetic first to market credit for something that as I already stated was totally and completely not ready for market. If Clarion would have just waited until it was ready I think it would have been more of a sucess- even at the 4x premium markup price since you always have a large group of wealthy people who buy every pricey gimick just to have the bragging rights- buy said gimicks have to "work" as advertised...

[@haajee1]

Hmm, story does me remeber about the VDO Dayton systems with navigation and Philips CARiN. :) Nice history look!

[@BigCar2]

I’d like to do a video about the Carin.

[@petercrosland5502]

I had a 2001 Citroen C5, I think we have sort of met. Anyway it worked fine, it had GPS but I have seen the Xsara Picasso was available with something suspiciously like your version!

[@christ2290]

Lots of mobile navigation systems run Windows CE in the background. Our nav system in our car reboots when you do updates and it's a Windows CE message window with a progress bar 🙂

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

When you said SH3....i was like - hey Sega's 32x and Saturn used the SH2 processors, 2 of them... And then suddenly you mentioned dreamcast with windows CE. lol. Threw me a bit lol. ...cor 1990s speech navigation. Any slight accent - lol.... and then cue to Clarkson trying a similar device in that 2006 Mercedes lol.

[@DMDaskalakis]

The menu system and text input systems are pretty much the same on my 2012 Giulietta with Blue&Me. Idk if it's a coincidence or B&M is actually based off of it though.

[@opuzlife]

Not a coincidence, it was developed by Microsoft for FIAT and runs windows CE

[@peterwilson5528]

I remember years ago having a car with a Clarion and I remember it was very good indeed at that time.

[@WatchJRGo]

It does use GPS, I have the GP8 and the GPS antenna with my 310. If it didn't why would it have that with the nav module? 🍻You are correct about the front panel buttons too, they are reversed on mine.

[@BigCar2]

Infogation had another Nav app that was better, and I know they used GPS. You can see how long ago it was that I'd forgotten all about how the app I wrote worked!

[@user-fp1rx1ou1j]

My uncle still has infotainment system running Windows CE in his 2004 Toyota Camry. Still running good.

[@NLBassist]

What a cool vid, We sometimes forget we are in a digital revolution for decades now. It all goes so fast!

[@markcollins457]

Thank you for the walk down memory lane. Unfortunately installed in a vehicle the complexity of this application may have been in a court of law regarding hands free issues but I'm not sure we have evolved.😊