PowerBook 170 with e-ink screen

[CharlieFrown]

I miss my PowerBook 170 I dont have anymore and consider buying PB 170 or PB 180.
What scares me off is yellowed LCD (tunnel vision is another story), is there any chance to reverse that? I remember one article about upgrades from MacAddict magazine that even suggested replacing "pencil (thin) lightbulb" in PB 170 screen.(BTW Is that some BS or viabla solution?)

Look at this crisp, super white, almost e-ink like LCD screen when it was new. Sometimes I get to see similar LCD quality in nowadays' photos and YT videos posted by PB users. AFAIR my PB 170 that I got as from my brother was already "yellowish" in 1996 or 1997, so the screen quality detoriated quite fast.

That got me thinking about replacing standard LCD with e-ink/e-paper screen, did anyone tried that? Maybe something like RGB2HDMI based on PiZero could be handy?

 

[cheesestraws]

e-Ink is a very different technology to drive than LCDs. That's not to say it's impossible, but it wouldn't be at all trivial.

 

[CharlieFrown]

that's why I am talking about using PiZero based RGB2HDMI, while modern e-ink screens are HDMI compliant. Here's expample of 9,7" screen.

Waveshare E-paper E-Ink 9,7'' 1200x825px -

Wyświetlacz e-paper E-Ink od Waveshare posiada w komplecie rozszerzenie GPIO umożliwiające podłączenie do Raspberry Pi. Sprawdź w Botland!

botland.com.pl

 

[avadondragon]

I didn't realize the LCDs yellowed over time. I had a pristine 170 not too many years ago. Not the slightest sign of tunnel vision but I did notice a yellowish tint to the LCD which I thought was just the way that they were.

Putting an Eink display in a PB1xx series machine has always been on my dream projects list. They can do pretty decent greyscale nowadays with Eink. The biggest roadblock for me was finding good documentation on precisely how the LCD was being driven. Without a thorough understanding of what signals are driving the display you have nowhere to begin. If you were to chose one of the machine that has the external display output you could easily tap into those signals since they're a know standard. That would also open up the possibility for higher resolutions. Eink displays tend to have much higher pixel density and wonky resolutions that you'll need to scale to.

Really awesome idea. I'm sure someone will do it eventually.

 

[akator70]

I love the idea.

The only drawback I see is the high refresh rates for most e-ink displays. For example, the display linked above is "Full refresh time: <1s" which is very slow. In comparison, most modern LCDs are <=8ms. A gaming monitor is around 3ms.

 

[CharlieFrown]

Sure it's pretty slow, but on the other hand you have Dasung Paperlike displays.
link

 

[luRaichu]

I've seen phones and even a handheld console that use monochrome e-ink displays. See the Panic Playdate for instance.

 

[desertrout]

Isn't the yellowing a symptom of dying / older backlights?

 

[4seasonphoto]

Some LCDs are known to become discolored, even "coffee stained" with age. In one such instance, I replaced the fluorescent (CCFL) backlight tube, but this did not solve the problem, so perhaps the actual source of discoloration lay elsewhere. More recently, I dealt with a very faded LCD, and it turned out that the polarizing filter is what had faded badly; the LCD itself was fine when viewed through my polarized sunglasses.

 

[techknight]

Its the plastic light spreader/diffusor plastic which yellows as it degrades.

 

[avadondragon]

Yep technight is right. The CCFL tubes tend to get reddish when they start to fail in my experience.

 

[CharlieFrown]

is it possible to retr0bright this plastic?

 

[luRaichu]

is it possible to retr0bright this plastic?

You know what... that might be worth a try

 

[techknight]

The UV produced from the bulb itself will accelerate this.

It might be possible to retrobrite, or vaporbrite, but it would probably re-yellow with time.

 

[Byrd]

Refurbing old LCDs is very much trial and error, unique to each model, etc. In the case of a yellowed PB170 display there are various substrate layers of plastic, reflectors, adhesives, polarisers - all of which can age depending on condition and location. No such thing as a quick fix, and the more you play around with the existing LCD there is a greater chance of damage.

The day someone comes on here with a universal LCD replacement for a PowerBook will come - it would be a big market. I'm awaiting a TFT replacement for my beloved IBM PC110 - a couple of people are doing this right now.

 

[Dogmander]

An LCD replacement for these machines would be great
Replacement LCDs are expensive and tunnel vision is pretty inevitable for active matrix panels

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Tunnel Vision can be fixed though, to an extent, more info here: https://macdat.net/important_issues/tunnel_vision.html

Also, TV only affects active matrix monochrome and grayscale LCDs manufactured by Hosiden. Color Active Matrix panels, including those made by Hosiden are not affected.