Hi! My first post here! My name is Martin... 21 years old... from Norway... Whatever... just wanted a polite start! Ok, heres the case... My family desided to throw out a realy old laptop... Consider my family never bought a computer, they just take over old ones noone wants to argue with anymore, use them 2-3 years, store them 1-2 years after they got useless, then they dump em... in other words... this is the first one so far! Now, I sayd throwing it out was a shame, so I took it! I allways dreamed about making a "wall-computer"... remove the keyboard, and mod it all into a frame I can hang on the wall. Tho, this aint the latest slim-model, and neigher has it a cdrom, pcmcia slot, or a network port... so it smells a little trouble! I'm sure I've seen someone making a wall pc before, and the result got neat! Tho, the mod job didnt look like the easyest thing you could do, and I've never done any kind of moding before! The question is, is it worth the trouble? I know its alot easyer to tell if you had the specs for the pc, and I'll bring those tomorrow, but I just wanted to post this right away! If it's just a dream, what about the lcd screen?! Is making a monitor out of a laptop a really hard job? Or is it something anyone can do if they just spend a little time? I dont want to throw away a perfectly working lcd screen! Thanks for your time!
Welcome to the forums! Okay ill be nice about this, for the in wall computer i dont know, but for the lcd, forget about it, next time um... for sure, then you know if there has been anything about it. The lcd screens are controller less so you need to buy a controller for it which is about the same if not more than a flat panel lcd monitor, so it makes sense not to do it. But other than that, nice to see some new members, looking forward to what you can add to the forums here @ bit-tech.
Hehe... thank you! Well, "buy" is something I try to avoid here! To a sertian point ofcourse! The thing is I wanted to start of playing a little with this laptop, as a first experiense, couse after all, its free! Ok, I'll forget the monitor... but what can I make out of a old laptop then?! ... and about the search! I couldnt get it working! No hits for "lcd", "laptop", or even "mod"! Eh... overlooked something?!
1. Search isn't working 100% 2. So long as you keep the LCD pluged into the same place it came off of on the laptop, yes you can still use it. 3. Best of luck to you! And btw, this will be a challenge, but you should be able to pull it off if you take your time. Don't be afraid to ask any questions, I or any body else will be more than happy to help you in any way possable.
first off, i cant get the search to work, hell i typed in my own neame and got "no results" but hold onto that laptop and read through this ---> HERE read throughit. the there is a link to the EXEs as well. might give you something usefull to do with it. oh yeah WELCOME TO THE GREATEST FORUM ON THE WHOLE INTERNET (and no im not exagerating)
Hm... but I still need one of these controllers?! Oh! Looks interesting... but, I'm affraid this laptop has no network capebility, and as I understood it, he use the whole pc and not just the screen right?! Affraid my laptop is a bit to big for something I whould keep on my desk all the time...
It's not even working 0% Hi Martin the Norweigan! I've nothing much to say, just a welcome. Oh... I'd suggest going ahead with your wall pc plans - what the hell, it was free, you might as well give it a try! If it works really well and you decide you really want that kind of thing, buy some better bits and do it again! It shouldn't be that hard really, if you do it very simply... bending the thing backwards so the screen shows but its still folded (if you get my meaning) would mean you could cram it into a frame...
DU'H! I was wrong! I confused thisone with... anotherone! This thing got PSMCIA suport, network, and even a cdrom! Ok ok... I havent got to check the full specs yet, but I figuret one thing out, and thats that this baby is good for a 166 hot Mhz! ... and it weares the label "digital". The "good" thing tho, is that thanks to my slippy fingers, opening this baby just got easyer! I not sure... maybe all thats worth something here is the screen. All I know is that I will need a hella solid screw to hang this thing on the wall... cause this is realy nothing for a lightweighter!
i too have a nice old Tosh that im thinking of gutting and modding but not sure if its worth it in the end i could get it to fit on my side panel but then it wouldn't really do anything unless i could get it to act like a huge LCD thing and have it display temps like the little 5" TFTs some ppl have. Any suggestions would be cool, if i could get it to retrieve info from MBM5 from the network and display crazy visulizations then that would be cool. Also welcome to the boards
No, if you connect the orignal LCD up to it's orignal plug, exactly like it would of been from the factory, you don't need anything more, it will work no problem.
okay, well this is what I suggest: 1. install windows 98 + 2. install VNC server from www.realvnc.com and installl the viewer on another PC 3. set VNC to run on startup and to log you straight into the desktop 4. test it, plug in network, power and run VNC viewer and connect to the laptop to take control. read the VNC FAQs for more info on this. 5. once that works, setup a shared folder for transferring files to the laptop on your network 6. take out the laptops CD ROM, battery, Floppy, and any other crap to make it a lot lighter 7. either rewire the power button or make sure you can turnit on/off with the lid shut, also set the power settings to do nothing with the lid closed 8. flip the LCD round so it covers the keyboard and fix it in place (you can take off unneeded plastic if you are going to frame it 9. install a picture slideshow program or make your own with all the pictures in the shared directory (heck, the laptop must have a smallish HDD, so store them off it) 10. set the slideshow to start on boot, and then you can change things, upgrade etc with VNC or plug in an external keyboard/mouse if possible 11. hang it up it should be a lot lighter after taking out a lot of that crap. HTH, computer PS: have a look at this for a stat program idea
You reaad my mind! When I pull out the battery and the cdrom it gets realy lighter (duh), and as you put it, the modding doesnt sound like a to big job eather...! The hdd is at 2gb, and its running win98 right now... I am a hobby digital photographer myself, so the slideshow thing whould be awesome! Hidding the heavy 90's design behind a nice aluminum frame, and the scary 98 interface behing my nice personal photo-slideshow! Yup! I belive this gonne work! ... and if everything goes wrong, I still got the screen. Nice to hear I whouldnt need that controller! Just hope your right Malfoleo... cause there is alot of talk about those... how can it be so many spent hard cash on em, if theyr not needed?! And one last question, if anyone tryed, is instaling a OS on a complete empty computer via network easy... or even posible?! If I remove the crdrom and the floppy I mean!
since it is a quite old laptop, i might be able to make it work with a pc without the controller. just need a graphics card with a 26pin vesa connector. a person posted the image of his laptop lcd at lcdgallery.net . u might want to check it out.
No no no, your not understanding me The screen will work only if you use the SAME PLUGS that it was ORIGNALY CONNECTED TO. IE, you leave it pluged into the same place you orignaly had it pluged into. OK, you know when you open up the laptop, and theres a plug coming from the screen that goes into the mobo of the laptop? THATS where you need to keep the screen pluged into. If you want the screen to work on any other video output, you WILL NEED a controller. Got it?
Oooooh! THAT way... D'uh! To bad tho... Thanks SFFMadness, will look into it! ... and thats a ten-four computer! Thanks for your help!
