Proposed Hack: iMac G4 15in SXGA mod.

[macintoshme]

I am thinking that if I can talk my mother into it, I am going to try to get her iMac up to 1280x1024. Anyone think this is possible?. GF4 can surely push it, do you think if I found a screen with the same connector it would "just work?" Upgrade the ram on it, and it shall be cruising the tubes once again!

 

[LCGuy]

The only way you'd have any hope in Hell of it "just working" would be if the bigger display (it would have to be a bigger display, most likely off a 17" iMac I'm assuming, as just about any 15" LCD you'll find, including the one on the 15" iMac, will top out at 1024x768) were to come off the exact same model iMac as the one you have. The LCD in there is a bare LCD, with no controller or anything, all that is built into the motherboard, and LCD panels are extremely specific about which controller they need, you can't just mix and match willy-nilly.

 

[macintoshme]

I am just curious as I have a 15in dell laptop screen. I don't feel like buying a bigger screen for it, as it would require more effort than a slight chance of this other one working. If I matched the panel brand and era within a year or so, what are the odds that it would just work? I may just have to try this when they are out for a weekend. That would be crazy if they came back and it was changed ... I doubt anyone would notice...

 

[macintoshme]

The card and size have nothing to do with the amount of pixels. Thus the XGA mod on the Clams.

 

[Osgeld]

the lcd panel has a fixed number of pixels, you can go lower cause the screen can add a border or stretch it, but you cant go higher ... even if you can fool it into running 1280x1024 on a 1024x768 lcd what will happen is, you will see 1024x768 worth of area and not anything outside that, some screen controllers will allow you to scroll to that area, but its much more annoying than the lower res

 

[macintoshme]

What i am saying tis, there might possibly be a panel that is 15in and sxga that is compatible with the interface on a g4 right? would anything preclude that?

 

[Osgeld]

its very very VERY doubtful, theres no such thing as a standard lcd controller and In my 30 years I have only ever had one laptop where the controller is removable (comp usa brand which i swaped out my dstn for a tft with controllers from similar model machines)

you may luck out and find out you have a compatible screen, but its a lot of little screws work and time just to look, and hey I may luck out and find a porsche at home when I get there, but I wouldn't hold my breath

 

[Christopher]

The other problem is with 1280X1024. That is a 5:4 aspect ratio resolution verses the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, so even if you found an lcd that would work, you wouldn't have the room.

1280X960 is what you're looking for.

 

[Bunsen]

http://www.applefritter.com/faq

Forget it. There's no such thing as an LCD with "the same connector". Just get a VGA monitor and plug it into the iMac's VGA port. Viola, two screens, half the cost, twice the real estate and 1/1000th of the effort.

 

[~Coxy]

I personally don't think it's as hard as all that. Depending on the exact vintage of the parts, they probably speak the same language of LVDS. The main concern would be whether they use a similar enough connector to do it. I would imagine if the laptop SXGA screen is full 8 bit then it could be done.

The "Holy Grail" is people posting and expecting an easy answer about re-using the LCD out of their old laptop (see http://www.applefritter.com/holygrail ). The response is generally "blah blah needs a custom controllers blah blah too hard blah blah". To an extent, it's right. You do need a controller, and it's not that easy. But it's not as hard as they tend to make it out to be. There are two main types of signalling - TTL and LVDS. Newer stuff (last 8 years or so) is all LVDS. LVDS comes in four flavours - 8 bit 2 channel, 8 bit 1 channel, 6 bit 2 channel and 6 bit 1 channel. The more bits/channels, the more data can be thrown at the LCD. Then the hard part is getting a cable. If you check the right datasheets, you may find that panels/controllers can be swapped around pretty easily.