Designed to be a "convergence" box, the design for the case of XFactor was heavily influenced by the XBox. The machine itself is a RedHat 7.3 Linux box. It has a TV card which is used for TV viewing and playing a PlayStation which will be attached to the other side of the case.

It also will hold my entire CD collection (converted to MP3), and uses a PostgreSQL DB to provide information about the MP3s and categorize collections of songs. A Perl script (that uses CDDB) automatically gets the information about the CD off the internet, rips each song, and records the information in the Postgres DB. Eventually a web based jukebox program will be written to access this DB.

XMAME and Stella provide support for Arcade and Atari 2600 game playing.

The XFactor case features electronics that fade (in and out) four high-brightness (2600 mcd) blue LEDs.

This picture shows the custom screensaver running on the "root" screen of XWindows. This screensaver (xflame) was recompiled to use blue as it's color instead of red/orange, and a custom bitmap was created in Gimp that mirrors the X theme. Running the screensaver on the background screen steals some CPU cycles but provides a nice backdrop for the X session and ties the theme together well.

The Cue-Cat (resting on the case) will hopefully one day be used for PAM authentication. The Griffin PowerMate available from Think Geek (barely visible to the lower lower right of the monitor) is used to adjust the volume for XMMS and provides a nice extra bit of blue to the theme. (Special thanks to William R. Sowerbutts for his excellent driver and for his recent patch which allows newer versions of the device to work with Linux.) See this link for more information on using the PowerMate with Linux.

Also visible is the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Games joystick.

The electronics that drive the LEDs are mounted inside the case and connect to a three-way toggle switch. The three modes of operation are always on, always off, and fading. Two connectors on the circuit board allow other devices (such as a lighted mouse pad) to fade in synch with case LEDs.

The X symbol on the side of the case was made from alluminum flashing (used to waterproof seams of roofs) super-glued to a 10 inch X 10 inch piece of plexiglass. The design was (patiently) cut with an exacto knife. The thinness of the flashing makes it possible to cut it with such a knife. The flashing gives the appearence of stainless steel.

I also was given blue light stripping for Father's Day that will eventually be added to the case.

Possible Future Addition

Email me at rpinglet@iupui.edu