The Gibson started out innocently enough. It was just an idea I was kicking around with a couple friends - we'll call them "Keith" and "James" to protect the innocent. Keith had an old Ford van that he wanted to do something with, so we all spent a few nights talking about what exactly that something should be. The idea of an ultimate wardriving van came up and was in the process of being developed when Keith mentioned that he was going to California to visit some friends in three weeks. I'm not sure who it was that decided we should bring the van, but it just happened. So after getting the van out of an impound lot, that left us about a week and a half to actually do the project. For that week we all moved into James' house and did it in his driveway. A week and a half later we left for California in The Gibson. Total cost was never added up, but we estimated it at around $600 for parts, since we already had all of the computer equipment except the wireless and GPS units.

Ironically, in all that we did, we didn't get around to doing much wardriving. In my opinion though, it doesn't really matter, because building the thing was a blast. The computers included: two desktop computers, two laptops, and a Virgin Webplayer. One computer was the main navigation/wardriving computer - it was connected to one of the GPS recievers and the 802.11b antenna on the roof, and to the internal wired network. The other computer was an MP3 player/server. It ran headless, connected just to the network and speakers, while we used Terminal Services to control it. James' laptop was for navigation mostly, and whatever else we needed an extra computer for. Mine was used for whatever I was doing, usually documenting the trip, editing photos, and playing Worms: Armageddon. The Webplayer didn't get used much. We never had time to set up anything useful on it before we left, so it was relegated to the role of controling the MP3 player and blinding the driver at night. Not much to say about the Xbox and PS2 - they did their job just fine.

So that's The Gibson. Gibson 2 is in the works, but may be a little ways off. In the meantime, we'll be working on some smaller prototypes.