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I suppose if you can come up with a display with a DVI or HDMI input, plus a power supply, for under $20, you can get close.

First hit searching "2x20 USB LCD" is only $24.

Not sure why you want a DVI monitor that's gonna suck way more power...

I'm not disagreeing that SSD offers an unattractive price/performance tradeoff for the consumer, but where are you coming up with these price figures?

640GB laptop hard drives seem to be going for about $85.

$85*6=510

So we have $3118 left over. Call it $3120 for easy computation... Where are you getting a Core i5 laptop with a 17" display and 1-TB hard drive for $520? The closest I can find is Dell's Inspiron 17 for $820, and that one only has 500MB storage in it, not the terabyte you'd need to build up your LAN-in-a-shopping-bag (it averages out to 1.6 TB per machine).

Manufacturers get nice bulk-ordering discounts, of course, but given that a (marginally slower) Core i5 is selling for ~$260 and a 1 TB Scorpio Blue is selling for ~$120... something tells me you're not quite comparing apples to the Apple.

According to Honeywell's release, Samsung licensed their technology.

According to Samsung, Sony and Samsung have a joint partnership in lcds: SAMSUNG and Sony Signed a MOU for TFT LCD Joint Venture

So, Sony buys its lcd panels as OEMs from Samsung. So, Sony is purchasing its lcds from a licensee of the technology.

If you look at some lists of lcd manufacturers and LCD/LED Driver IC Manufacturers, you'll notice that very few of the listed defendents actually manufacture panels. There's Fujitsu, Kyocera, Sanyo, and Toshiba/Matsushita.

This would be hilarious if it were not the sort of thing I do all the time.

Basically, if the engine will fit under the hood of the car (and often times, even if it won't), somebody has mounted it thusly. The only real problem is adapting the output of the engine to the transmissions, which can be done using adapter kits from Kennedy Engines and others.

The coolest I've seen is the guy who got his '65 Beetle running with a 1.2l Mazda Wankel Rotary engine. Nice looking car, and 160 hp is pretty good for a car in the 2500 lb region.

Incidentally and to get back on topic, EIO is a surplus electronics shop and hobbiest mecca. They've got a LOT of older LCDs that they pull and sell with instructions, information and forums FULL of smart folks that know how to access older displays. Five years ago, they were the first company to retail a 6" backlit LCD for under $100. That LCD looked great in my van's media center back when I was a dilletante college student with time to burn.

Yes, it would take some time. Yes, it would be a challenge. But it's a long way from impossible, and all it takes is a handfull of off the shelf parts - AD even has application notes. Combine one of their evalkits with the specs for, say, an IBM TFT display (13.3" 1024x768 units are like 80 bucks on ebay and 14" 1280x1024 units are only slightly more) and I''ll wager you could not only make your own display circuit, you could probably offer the pcboards after you design it and make enough money to buy a proper projection hdtv.

Let us know when you have the circuit - I want about four of'em.

Yes, it would take some time. Yes, it would be a challenge. But it's a long way from impossible, and all it takes is a handfull of off the shelf parts - AD even has application notes. Combine one of their evalkits with the specs for, say, an IBM TFT display (13.3" 1024x768 units are like 80 bucks on ebay and 14" 1280x1024 units are only slightly more) and I''ll wager you could not only make your own display circuit, you could probably offer the pcboards after you design it and make enough money to buy a proper projection hdtv.

Let us know when you have the circuit - I want about four of'em.

This site http://www.eio.com/datashet.htm has a bunch of datasheets for various LCD screens. From what I can gather it's terribly difficult to make use of an old LCD screen. They're not directly compatible with standard vga. You must have a controller.

This site has the answer to connecting a laptop monitor to your pc.
http://www.eio.com/lcdconnect.htm
google cache: href=http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cache:Ily0Qs g_-twJ:www.eio.com/lcdconnect.htm+site:eio.com+lcd connect&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

It's not been updated in a while, but the summary goes: You need to buy a controller, the one that came with the device won't do. They cost more than an lcd screen itself, so unless you're desperate to recycle, you might as well buy.
As for ideas what to do; I always thought i'd be cool to have a little display of system statistics cpu/ram/disk usage, maybe any new emails that have arrived - basically most of the features that superkaramba gives you, except you'd be able to see it when running full screen apps.

I did alot of research into converting an LCD from a laptop to a monitor. This website has kits/components for sale and forums that discuss all kinds of weird electronics issues (including LCDs). Best of luck!

• http://www.eio.com/lcdprodt.htm
• http://www.matrixorbital.com/serial-lcd.htm
• http://www.crystalfontz.com/ (A few pages here)
• http://www.cwlinux.com/eng/products/products_lcd.p hp
• http://www.usblcd.de/ (Hardware link)

..And it would costs abouts $200 a pop to get converter boards to use those LCD monitors on a desktop display. A lot of people assume that it's economically advantageous to use laptop LCD's instead of desktop ones. Typically, it doesn't cost less to use a laptop screen with a desktop, and the only places it makes sense is when you very specifically need like a 12.1" or 8.4" screen in a dash board or control panel. This thread talks about the technical problems associated with laptop screens on the desktop, and these guys carry everything you need to do it. Check it out, it's really expensive, even if you have 16 laptops with identical LCD's.

You could salvage LCDs from old laptops.

Not so easily done: http://www.eio.com/lcdconnect.htm as far as I can tell, you'd have to get into some pretty heavy-duty electronics and buy convertor cards to handle the different input expected by a laptop display from that which is delivered by a vga card.

I assume you've found the following resources, but just in case...

There's a thread the 'The LED Forum' about this sign. The people there might be able to help... http://www.eio.com/public/led/0219.html

Also, one message in that thread is for a message at SignIndustry.com http://www.signindustry.com/mb/read.php?f=19&i=138 &t=69 which might also provide some people who could help...

While the information you are after is not on these boards, at least you will be able to contact some people who have the boards - maybe they've found some more information.

Other than that, I can only repeat what a couple of other people have said here - do some very methodical testing, starting with all single character messages from a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and punctuation. Then try a fair range of two character messages with the same options as the first run. (aa-az, aA-aZ, a0-a9, ba-bz, etc, but there's no real need to try ALL combinations.) Then try a fair sampling of 3 char messages. Next try some longer strings, modifying one character at a time and the same string modifying each property. After that, try a range of single characters (say 10-15 different characters) with each of the options. Finally, do some 2 char, 3 char and a longer message with a reasonable set of different options.

If you gather a truck-load of data (several hundred sets, not just 100) you stand a better chance of figuring it out. You really need the trivial cases (single and two character strings) and some non-trivial cases (a phrase, not just 'TEST') to make it easier to reverse-engineer the algorithm.

As others have mentioned, given the time frame and the fact that it is 6502-based, the algorithm is not likely to be particularly complex, but working it out can take a lot of time!

Mean-while, I might have a look at the 6502 code and your test data to see if anything jumps out at me...

Good luck!

eio has a few alternatives towards the bottom of the page (starting with the 5L-U4E). They range from $99 to $350 in with sizes 5", 6", and 12" available. Most of these accept an NTSC signal, so you could interface one with a cheap PC fairly easily. Unfortunately, all the color displays appear to be sold out right now. With a little bit of digging, you might be able to find another supplier of the same or similar products, or they might get more in stock sometime.

Also, Lik-sang has both a 5" and 7" LCD display for $99 and $199 respectively. The 5" is a PS One display that accepts NTSC/PAL, and the 7" is a more standard NTSC/PAL display. The latter has additional features like an screen orientation flip (so you can mount it however you like), speakers, and a battery slot. This would probably be my choice for this type of project.

Don't disregard the 3Com Audrey, however. You wouldn't even have to hack the thing to get it running as a picture frame. Just plug it into your network and use the browser to display the images from another server that is doing all the work. The browser has a full screen mode that is pretty well suited for this. I should know because one of mine was displaying a pr0n slideshow for a while :-). With a little bit of php/perl/asp/etc programming, you could make a very flexible (with respect to image size, delay between images, etc) solution that could behave exactly how you want.

eio has a few alternatives towards the bottom of the page (starting with the 5L-U4E). They range from $99 to $350 in with sizes 5", 6", and 12" available. Most of these accept an NTSC signal, so you could interface one with a cheap PC fairly easily. Unfortunately, all the color displays appear to be sold out right now. With a little bit of digging, you might be able to find another supplier of the same or similar products, or they might get more in stock sometime.

Also, Lik-sang has both a 5" and 7" LCD display for $99 and $199 respectively. The 5" is a PS One display that accepts NTSC/PAL, and the 7" is a more standard NTSC/PAL display. The latter has additional features like an screen orientation flip (so you can mount it however you like), speakers, and a battery slot. This would probably be my choice for this type of project.

Don't disregard the 3Com Audrey, however. You wouldn't even have to hack the thing to get it running as a picture frame. Just plug it into your network and use the browser to display the images from another server that is doing all the work. The browser has a full screen mode that is pretty well suited for this. I should know because one of mine was displaying a pr0n slideshow for a while :-). With a little bit of php/perl/asp/etc programming, you could make a very flexible (with respect to image size, delay between images, etc) solution that could behave exactly how you want.

Or, you could just grab an old 486-based laptop, rip it apart and mount the LCD in a picture frame. Easy.

Or, you could just grab an old 486-based laptop, rip it apart and mount the LCD in a picture frame. Easy.

Try these links:
http://www.eio.com/lcdintro.htm

http://www.eio.com/sage.htm

"Give the anarchist a cigarette"

Try these links:
http://www.eio.com/lcdintro.htm

http://www.eio.com/sage.htm

"Give the anarchist a cigarette"

I've been looking around all day trying to find out details about using laptop LCD's. The best site I've found is The LCD Information and Technical Forum on EIO. There's lots of information there (although most of it is about character lcd's) and it was a good lead to finding part numbers on laptop lcd's. This site sells replacement LCD screens - some of which are sub-$150. However, on EIO they often sell laptop LCD's for $9-$25! Unfortunately I still have no idea how to use them. Sharp makes the biggest range of laptop LCD's but they don't supply datasheets for the high end LCD's on the web - you have to call them up and ask them to fax it to you. If someone can get Sharp to email them pdf's on the various laptop LCD's they make (hell, even a selection guide would be nice), I'd love a copy.

I want a monochrome LCD screen connected to an ultra low power CPU. I don't need 600 MHZ of processing power on the road. I just want some random motorolla processor hooked to an IDE interface, a half size keyboard (detachable) and a monochrome LCD. Using your standard lithium ion laptop battery (the one that powers a desktop equivilent laptop for 1 1/2 hours tops) I could power this baby for hours. Put it in an attache case and you've got a laptop that I can install linux on and code for days. Perfect for lectures, holidays and when you're out and about and bored out of your mind.

http://www.eio.com/sage.htm

If you're looking for a cheap way to get an LCD running on your system, check out the Sanyo DM016Z at this place (scroll down-near the bottom). It's a 2x16 character backlit LCD that uses the industry-standard Hitachi HD44780 controller for only USD $5.99 + S&H. You may also want to purchase the lcd cable for $0.99 if you want to make life easier. There are also links on the page to schematics to show you how to connect the device to a parallel port or serial port.