[Tuxaloosa] Any hardware hackers out there? Fun to be had with a LCD display with busted cable?

[Stewart Dean]

The picture frame wouldn't work as described since VGA monitors don't, 
by default, accept composite video.  There isn't a lot that can be done 
without hacking in a cable, but I wouldn't bother with splicing it -- 
I'd simply open it up and wire in a whole new cable.  Better still, open 
it up, wire in a female DB15 (or male, you know, if that's the way you 
wanna roll...  I know *I've* got a load of M/F VGA cables just sitting 
around being useless...)

Of course, once I went to the trouble of getting it PC-worthy again and 
tested it out, I'd rip out the backplane and lamps, drop an IR-sensitive 
webcam behind it, and make a tiny little multitouch screen.  If you 
wanted to get really fancy, you could make an infrared light pen and 
make a Cintiq-like device, though it would be a little difficult to 
reliably do pressure sensitivity that way.  (One possible solution could 
be to dim the LED based on pressure, but the resolution of such a 
solution would be incredibly low [compared to the 256 levels of 
resolution of a normal tablet pen] and, depending on the webcam used, 
could give wildly inaccurate results...)

Now if you want a picture frame or vehicle hack, go down to Dirt Cheap.  
They're always getting in portable DVD players and LCD picture frames.  
The picture frame screens may not be the best for hacking, but the DVD 
screens should work great!  I've got one that I've separated from the 
DVD control board that I'm trying to hack a composite input into so I 
can have a little 7" screen for those times when I need to check 
something on the main entertainment center without turning on the 
projector...

Stu

E.H. wrote:
> picture frame?
> http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-_n-Easy-Digital-Picture-Frame/
>
> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Nilson Cain <nilson at gmail.com 
> <mailto:nilson at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Pimp out your truck with it :)
>
>     On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Cameron Purvis
>     <cameron.purvis at gmail.com <mailto:cameron.purvis at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         I have an LCD monitor which may or may not work in the
>         conceptual sense.  That is to say, the signal cable to the
>         poor thing was cut, possibly by the chewing of an animal.   It
>         has a foot or so of the VGA cable coming out of the back. 
>         It's a compaq 15" display.  It seems to be one of those stupid
>         @#$&@ units where the signal cable is permanently attached to
>         the insides of the monitor. 
>
>         Can anyone think of anything interesting to do with this?  I
>         suspect the monitor works, but the notion of spending a couple
>         of hours splicing in a VGA cable is horrifying and likely
>         pointless - any ideas other than trashing it?
>
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>
>
>     -- 
>     Nilson Cain
>     University of Alabama        Office of Information Technology,
>     Research
>     nilson at gmail.com <mailto:nilson at gmail.com>             (205) 292-5231
>
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