I know this is the sort of thing that Raspberry Pis are for, but I am specifically asking about PCs. I have an old laptop that I am considering putting in a box and using to play internet radio stations. For this to work I’d have to have some buttons mounted on the front of whatever case I put it in, and ideally a little dot matrix display to show what was playing etc.

Such a thing must exist – at least the buttons – but I’m not even sure what you’d call it to search for. Any ideas? The buttons themselves aren’t important, just some sort of unit to plug in that you can attach buttons to and communicate via usb.

“HTPC” may be what you need to google here. HTPC buttons, HTPC controls, etc etc.

a keyboard?
not quite as flippant a response as it may first appear. it is basically what you’ve described, just with less keys.

This?

Depends how hard you want to make it really? You could go down the arduino + LCD + buttons then serial->USB route if you wanted.

EDIT: Above links to this Etsy store.

EDIT2: … And they are NOT cheap!!! So scrap that!

Just found stuff about LCD dot matrix displays – that looks fairly easy. Not sure about the buttons. Googled HTPC and looks like some people are using bastardised gamepads or similar.

wouldn’t it be easier to do it over your lan from a smart phone or tablet?

web server on laptop, web app does whatever the buttons would do, browse from your phone.

That’s not a bad idea actually. But it’s much more of a faff to get your phone, unlock it, open the app etc than to just hit a button. But it might be easier to set up, you are right.

2nd vote for keyboard…

I built a HTPC into a old CD player and wanted the skip and pause buttons etc on the case to control the PC as they would do originally. I used an old Microsoft keyboard. Remove all the outer plastic and keys until your left with the main PCB control board and the keyboard membrane. It’s then a case of going through with a multimeter and working out what key activates what pins on the control board and then soldering your new case buttons to the correct pins.

An i-Pac will do the buttons, e.g. http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

You could achieve the same thing by cutting up a keyboard or a mouse but this is neater.

Another option is to use an Arduino. These will take button inputs, control an LCD and talk to a pc over serial. Not too hard to get going.

Probably easier to use a tablet though.

That’s a lot of faff though. If there’s no ready made solution I might just make it play the only station I ever want to listen to online on startup 🙂

IPAC looks ok.

I don’t want to use an arudino because I already own a screenless laptop that will be in the bin otherwise, and there’s no point in spending £50+ or more on gubbins I don’t need. Also don’t want to use a tablet because that requires having a tablet sat on a wobbly stand somewhere trying to be being a media player when it’s a tablet.

I think if buying a board with screw terminals to connect buttons to is too much faff then you might have started the wrong project. Just buy an internet radio. 🙂

I guess this is following from your Raspberry Pi thread and I’ll state again that I reckon you’re overcomplicating it.

I’ve got an old (android Galaxy S1 iirc) phone running tunedin (internet radio) playing through some speakers. As it’s permanently plugged in, the screen can stay on (though I’ve got it set not to) and it works perfectly. You can get phones like that for next to nothing these days.

So, you do that and your buttons are there perfectly in a small package that does exactly what you want.

Or you could faff around with LCD displays and so on… 😉

Faffing is the best bit.

Someone mentioned to me that they were thinking of making an internet radio which had an RFID reader, and a few cards with RFID chips inside them, and then programming each card with an ID so that they could tap the card on the radio and it would play the radio channel corresponding to the ID on the card. That would eliminate buttons altogether 8)

Don’t get me wrong, I love to do this sort of stuff just for the sake of it but molgrips’ criteria seems to be for the solution rather than the process.

Otherwise, by all means, try and get the LCD/buttons working 🙂

That Ipac website has a fabulous favicon…

oh and you could do something similar to the RFID with NFC tags and a mobile…

oh and you could do something similar to the RFID with NFC tags and a mobile…

Very true.

there’s no point in spending £50+ or more on gubbins I don’t need.

Can you tell me where you’re getting your free buttons and LCDs from? (-:

It’s a tricky one really, because you can’t do what you want to do without spending money, and if you’re spending money then it’ll be hard to beat spending £20-£30 on a Chromcast and controlling the whole thing from your phone.

It is sad when you have an old machine that you can’t get any more life out of. I have an old eeepc at the moment which I use as a spotify player for my hifi, but to be honest it’s a bit crap (Slow, makes lots of noise etc).

I just don’t want to throw it in the bin 😥

it’ll be hard to beat spending £20-£30 on a Chromcast and controlling the whole thing from your phone.

Chromecast is not what I want.

I’m aware that buttons would cost. I didn’t know how much because I could not find what I wanted using google.

This was a simple question about buttons, so that I could get some information and decide for myself if I fancied the project. As usual though it’s escalated into value judgements and character assassination. Good old STW 🙂

Actually.. Thinking about it, the laptop already has a mic so maybe I could find a software only solution and go for voice control 🙂

Did a carputer project once with a broken screen laptop. Power and wiring into ignition was a challenge, but attaching an LCD touchscreen was plug and play. And there was some decent touchscreen software available too. Try searching carputer and centrafuse on youtube.

Trouble is the LCD screens are not cheap; linitx.com

I don’t want a high res colour display.. it’d just be a small two line job.