Details are starting to turn up online of a few people's success in converting the 5" Sony PSOne LCD screens to run directly from a VGA input.
This one includes a circuit for creating composite sync from a video card that only puts out hor/vert sync, as well as links to similar hacks.
Most of the other similar pages I've seen depend on a Windows util called Powerstrip or something similar in Linux to set the correct scan/sync/refresh whatever for the screen. What are the chances of being able to do this under Mac OS, either OS X or OS 9 and earlier? Say, for example, on a 6100, or an ATI Mac Rage 128 or flashed PC Radeon PCI card?
Timings - PAL LCD, on a video card that supports composite sync, or with sync converter
Property Value
Pixel Clock ~15mhz
Horizontal Back Porch 78 pixels
Composite Sync Checked
Horizontal Total 936 pixels
Interlaced Checked
Vertial refresh rate ~25hz
Horizontal Sync Positive
Active Vertical Lines 576 lines
Vertical Sync Positive
Vertical Front Porch 42 lines
Horizontal Scan Rate ~16khz
Vertical Sync Width 4 lines
Active Horizontal Pixels 720 pixels
Vertical Back Porch 22 Lines
Horizontal Front Porch 42 pixels
Total 644 lines
Horizontal Sync Width 96 pixels
These settings might actually need to be tweaked a bit, depending on the LCD; each panel seems to have slightly different settings. The versatility of the PSone LCD is well-known in video game hardware modding communities. One common mod to do to reduce power consumption even more is replacing the EL backlight with white LEDs, which reduces the current draw by about half. The LCD can also be driven by component and S-Video input, and the internal speakers are bearable. I saw a hack a while ago that had one of these modded LCDs under Mac OS (don't remember if it was 9 or X).
Yes but how?
Got a link or any search clues?
It was one of the G3 or G4 towers, but it wasn't the beige G3. It was modded into the front of the case. As for tweaking the settings, maybe something like SwitchResX will work. I don't remember how the person tweaked the settings on the Mac.
EDIT: I was mistaken about the nature of this mod. I found a page for it (http://www.riscx.com/blueiceg4/lcd_skinny.asp) but it isn't using a PSone LCD. The solution of driving it via S-Video isn't a bad one if you want to eliminate having to tweak around in the unknown, though.