[taylorishere]

I'm thinking about doing a case mod where i take a mini-itx motherboard, stick it into a mac classic, take out all the guts, put in a color lcd screen, cut out a hole in the front to put in a cd drive... any ideas? also, i want to know if there's an internal video card so that that i can connect the screen from inside the unit. where to get parts (lcd screen.. i'm looking for possibly a 640x480 or 800x 600) any help would be great.. thanks...

p.s. i know it's a sacrelige to put pc guts in a mac, but this sounds cool

[TheRoadWarrior]

You would probably have to desolder and resolder the VGA port on the mini motherboard. I've seen it done before to put a modified PC in a small racing car. They guy who did it reversed the VGA port so that it fed inward instead of outside the case. Pretty slick.

[taylorishere]

Wow.. pretty.. hrm.. i'm going to have to find someone to help me soder.. I've never done a mod before... and this is quite the ambitious first try! thanks.. and if anyone out there has places to find small vga lcd color screens....

[Mediaman_12]

I was thinking of doing this with a SE case I found (I already have a Macquarium). The LCD was the first thing I looked into (as I reckoned on it being the most expensive/difficult to get part) I looked all over the net to try and find a company that sold Small VGA LCD's with no case, where prepared to sell One to a private individual, and didn't want a phenomenal amount for it. I failed, the case is in the loft.

[Zimwy]

I haven't found any VGA ones either, but there's this:

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/Search...mp;SKUID=39720

Hope that helps.

Gabe

[taylorishere]

Here's the answer to my lcd problem: I found that car modification sellers sell lcds for the backs of seats and whatnot, and they have ways of connecting them to computers, so all i do is go to one of those places and get hooked up... now i need an easy way to defuse the screen... can't i just throw rocks at it or something?

[lothar56]

i've modded 2 cases like that. on the first, I used the instructions on applefritter.com for diffusing a monitor. On the second one, I was just REALLY careful, and hid it in the trash. that worked well.

[tooki]

Not ideal, but Digikey has some SVHS displays... maybe they have VGA ones as well if you call.

The guy who built the Pathintosh cites two vendors of VGA LCDs: www.carlcds.com and www.junkware.com .

Maybe they have one to suit your needs.

tooki

[Avon]

I have also been looking into this project, but the big problem is the lcd.

You will need something close to a 9.5" lcd.
http://www.junkware.com/
sells a 9.4" lcd kit, including an inverter and a controler card.

Problems:

640X480
Dual scan.

In my opinion a dual scan screen is not acceptable for a $700.00 project.

The only size availible that might even come close to fitting is the 10.4" lcd.
These are TFT displays and come in a kit with pci card, inverter, back light and lcd for 300 bucks. They are also 800X600.

Unfortunatley its really large and I dont think it will fit. A more complex milling operation will be required for it to look good.


What is really needed is a 9.4" TFT LCD display.
If somone can find that, and a pci controler (I dont think a vga to digital converter is acceptable for such a project) this would be kick ass.

I would like to do the following with an SE case.

Mill open the bottom slot and use slot loading cdrom.
Use floppy in top slot.
9.4" lcd.
custom aluminum plate on the back with itx ports in place of where the se ports are.


If I ever find a suitable display Im going to build a cool little freebsd Mac SE.