-- remote control receiver hooked up via serial port (to allow play/stop/pause/playlist select)
-- sound output to stereo (currently via headphone jack: ugh! but Stereo Link SL1200 is on its way... USB Digital Audio out, then SL1200 does high-quality D/A conversion and provides line level to stereo)
-- TV output (NVidia GeForce2 Go) for song selection (see below) and needless but fun OpenGL visualizations
-- wireless ethernet card communicating to base station in my computer room, for full mp3 access
-- normal ethernet card, connected via cross-over cable to my Axis ethernet video camera
-- ethernet bridging, so I can access the network camera transparently from my computer room via the wireless link.
Now, to write some software (Perl-GTK (Perl-GTK2?)) to let me search for songs/playlists and enqueue or play them.
I'm going to label an old remote with letters, and do cellphone T9-style searches over my mp3. So I can enter:
663378
and limit the song box to all "Modest" matches (with playlists listed before songs) and then scroll up and down with arrows and play/enqueue them.