Y'all should also know about my slight obsession with projectors, projection, and the like.

Thusly, it certainly should follow, that creating a projection system specifically for and of my PowerBook 100 is a natural progression.

(pulling it together section is alot of technical detail, the using it section is one big ad, so you don't *NEED* to read those, but it would help much. The last section, is shorter and I'd like for you to read it )
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|PULLING IT TOGETHER|
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This means reviving the PowerBook 100's display.
I've recently found a few "medical" Cells in the local Wallgreens (without even looking very hard, might I add!) and I believe that these are part of the answer to making my beloved PowerBook work correctly.

The next part of my scheme, needs a few questions answered. The first, is does the PowerBook 100 have an LCD which is transparent? (would I be able to remove all or most of the casing, so that I would be able to have a 'clear' screen, and light would be able to pass through it, and some lenses, in order to create the effect of "my desktop on the wall"

Then, comes mounting it all into a shoebox which I have. The whoebox is not normally big enough to fit a PowreBook 100 display, but I've done some creative engineering to create not only a bigger area inside, in which the display may be inside the box, but to create a more unique shape that will better suit the inclusion of PowerBook Guts™

After that, I need to get light to go through the whole thing. This starts at the "light source" I'm thinking a GE Reveal 100 light bulb. Apparently before the LCD, you need a Fresnel Lens. I'm not completely sure on what these do, but from what I can tell, it's extremely important to the effective operation of the thing. Then comes the PowerBook's LCD, and then another lens. This would be the projection lens. A convex lens, is what it would be. You'll apparently have one at the light source, and after the LCD. This flips the image over, so for an upside-down ceiling mounted installation, it shouldn't be needed, but who knows right? Then comes the Projection lens (iff'n it's even still needed..) it'll either be a zoom or a throw lens, depending on where in relation to the projection screen, or ceiling, or wall the projector will be placed (I forgot which was which at the moment)

Then, comes the challange of mounting everything in just the right spot in the box, and in the right order (light>convex>fresnel>LCD>convex>projection lens>Wall)

After that, comes the challange of finding a place for the motherboard and other PowerBook Components. I am hoping that the placement ends up a bit like as is shown on my diagram (link very soon). This way, the ports to the PowerBook will be conveniently accessible on either side of the projector, and networking/controlling it will be fairly easy.

Then, I'll want to have a nice cooling fan on the top to keep things in there going smoothly. This will probably be in addition to some vents under the lightbulb and near the PowerBook 100. I might have an intake near the front and a few outputs at the rear atop where the bulb will be. Black Cloth will help some of the light from escaping, as well as some reflectors inside to focus more of the light onto the fresnel/convex lenses.

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|USING IT|
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Using the PowerPlayer 100 (I challenge you to come up with a better name, the thing surely needs one) is as simple, trivial even, as using a normal PowerBook 100. Except, instead of squinting at a 9" LCD, you'll be happily squinting at an entire wall of black and white 640 by 400 goodnes.

Being that it's a 68000, mine has 6 mb of RAM, and a 20 MB hard drive, there is alot that you can do, and alot that you can't. For example, storing multitudes of applications, as well as system 7.x will be hard on just a 20 MB hard drive. A good idea would be to keep System 7.1 (in German, per my own preferrences) and a few apps and document space on the internal 20 MB hard drive, and use an external 100 MB hard drive when you have more to do.

Is there a version of HyperCard that'll work on this machine? (I'd be very happy if you told me that HC 2.0 or 2.1 would successfully run on the PowerBook 100...)

If tabletop and portable projecting isn't quite your gig, then running the PowerPlayer100 as a ceiling mounted unit is as trivial as removing a convex lens and strapping it securely up there on your Ceiling. You'll need a long ADB cable, and unless you can mount the hdd up there as well, don't expect more than the built in 20 megger can hold. Although, serial cables are both long, and speedy enough for using another Mac with multile hard drives as a sort of file-server, for documents and applications that needn't have the utmost of speed.

As far as actually using the PowerPlayer 100, it would be very easy to use it to head off a labfull of compact macs (such as Classics, SEs and Plusses) with something like an SE/30 or other more powerful mac, again, attached to the deal by a LocalTalk network, to store files and give access to external networks.

If you can run a model railroad with a compact mac, you can run one much more informatively with a PowerPlayer 100, by letting everyone else know just what's happening as well.

Playing Bolo is as never before, with all those tanks appearing as though they are at least 6 inches in lengh, rather than just 6 millimeters, as with a compact mac or notebook's display.

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|And, some final notes|
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I want to do this hack with my PowerBook 100, because I already have it, and breaking it wouldn't exactly be the end of the world for me, because it's broken now as it is....

If I can do this hack successfully with the PowerBook 100, I might take it to school (esp. my German class) with German system 7.1 loaded up on it, and see the vast difference that it can make in a classroom.

I also want to do this with a newer PowerBook, 5x0 or other 1x0 unit, maybe even a PowerPC 'book like the 5300. This would create a slightly more "multimedia" unit, in which speakers might also be an option, and it would make the thought of using it all that much more pleasant. (*while a pb100 is nice, an entire wall of 640 by 400 graphics with 1 bit black and white, isn't the most pleasing thing I've seen in awhile...

I've also taken a look at car LCD screens, and the LCD screens like that PSone LCD Screen, which are designed for composite/svideo/playstation input. This would be an interesting option for video projection, it would make a great excuse to build in speakers, but it would not quite be useful for computer, with the exception of an Apple Presentation System, and many newer apple laptops, many computers would not be able to take advantage of that setup.

In addition, using an already-manufactured LCD panel (like a Sharp QA Series, or an nView or InFocus panel) would allow me to hook up nearly any source (av, computer, mac II etc etc) and as thus, would be much more of a "modular" solution, but sticking the screen and "guts" in would be just like with the PB100.

I do have a shoebox that when assembled right, resembles the shape shown in my diagram, but I'm not sure if a shoebox would be appropriate, or big enough for all those wonderful light optics and other miscellenous things. I wouldn't mind building a wood case for the whole thing to work out and be big enough, but I still wouldn't mind keeping the slightly tilted upward shape, which is IMHO, a unique and very worthy shape.

Here's the diagram
http://cory5412.50free.net/PowerBook100Projector.gif

Questions that I need answered:
Might new pram batteries help my PB100s display to work?
Is the PB 100's LCD clear? what should I do in order to get it that way?
What all would I need as far as light optics and such would go, in order to create a successful image?

- Thank you!

It shows basically what and how I'll be doing, and gives a few links to others. I also bookmarked your audiovisualizers link

All the more resources I'll be able to find for this, all the better it'll be for me

Another interesting development, I don't believe that my first enclosure, the cantilevered shoebox, will be quite a successful enclosure for the project.

First off, it's too small to successfully hold all of the optics and the display and the light and work properly. Some projectors built with this method have been known to be about 4 feet long, a shoebox isn't going to cut it.

Also, It has come to attention that a shoebox might catch on fire (especially if I were to use a very bright bulb) I'm only using a GE Reveal 100watt, but it's still a precaution worth taking

I found it somewhere in the thread at diyaudio.com that on linked on the above link. If you have not headed over there I suggest that you do. That thread is about 180 pages long and I have read the first 15 and it has a lot of good info.

I really like the idea of using LEDs as the light source but looks like that did not work out.

This is a resource which I had not yet ucovered

Today I checked in the library, it appears that there is a few books about light and optics, but not the book that I actually thought was there...

I photocopied a few pages showing basically what I would need, and I'm glad to say that I have it nearly all down in my drawing. Albeit, my drawing (the Adobe Illustrator one) is not quite accurate, as far as size goes. Size will be a large problem, there are probably creative ways to combat that, but I have yet to think of one. There's ideas though.

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