Holy Grail - iBook LCD Panel

It's not so much as just having "a" controller, as having one that is compatible with that particular panel. LVDS solves this somewhat, but you'd still need the proper cables. And even then, the controller might not exactly match the capabilities of the panel, and vice versa.

Thanks for your reply, is there anywhere where I can find the specs for the Apple LCD screens?

For example this motherboard has LVDS capabilities, would it do the job?

It really depends on the controller. Google will provide hours of research on the subject. What you will need to do is find the OEM part number for the panel you plan to use. Then search the manufacturers website for info and specs on the panel. That might get you enough info to see if it will even have a chance of working with your mobo. Then, you'll need to compare the plugs and pinouts of the LVDS on both the mobo and the panel. Then you'll need to find the proper cables to get them to work together, and find a way to power the panel and backlight. Then, add up the costs of doing all that, and weigh it against the cost of a similarly sized LCD panel.

The thing is, it wouldn't just be used instead of a standard LCD monitor, it would be to use in an embedded system.

For an embedded system, things might be somewhat easier, esp. for the PC104 series you mentioned in your OP. There are LVDS mobos and cards for them that make it easier than trying to get something going for a regular PC, but there's the costs for them too. Depending on why you'd need to go direct LVDS to the panel would go right along with cost. Most of the time that I've started looking at prices, it keeps coming backto using regular VGA with a pre-built monitor, for my purposes. (Admittedly rather few)

If you have design needs and don't mind the cost of buying the parts, then the holygrail arguments don't really apply to your case. For at least 99.5% of the people who ask around here about adapting an existing panel to use on another machine the holygrail and the costs involved show them that there is little to save over buying complete.

For your research, do you already have a mobo in mind, or were you looking for soemthing that would work with the iBook panel to get?

For the moment I haven't decided on a mobo, I've been looking around trying to find the best solution for the screen. From what I've seen, the screen is by far the most expensive part (if you want anything with a decent size), but when I found out that there are iBook screens for sale on ebay from people who are selling what's left of their machines for spare parts I started to look for ways of connecting iBook LCD's, which led me here.

I'm looking for a small footprint mobo (like PC104), with and integrated processor, the ability to boot from an SSD (CompactFlash to be precise) and then some way of adding wireless functionality, be it through a USB dongle, or other means of extension. I've found plenty of candidates, this being my current favorite, but I can't really start getting excited about any of them until I've figured out how I'm going to manage the screen part of the machine.

The machine would run on Linux (Debian if I've got enough room), it would be a sort of wireless information panel, the uses are endless, just need to write various functionalities and it could do anything, from displaying latest RSS feeds, monitoring email accounts, pick ing various art from DeviantArt and acting as a picture frame, to more technical tasks, such as running Nessus to monitor a network and inform you visually when there's a problem, or scan logfiles and alert you of anomalies.

One other thing I'd like to look into is perhaps getting it to run off a battery. With a large capacity battery like the 8 cell ones available for IBM ThinkPads (Sorry.. Lenovo ThinkPads) and the fact that the mobo has no moving parts and a low power proc, the life shouldn't be too bad.

You could run a VLC client on it to receive streams, you'd be walking around the house with a wireless TV. If you made a few of them, and dotted them around the house and added some basic control interface, you would have the video equivalent of airTunes.

I know I'm seeing far off, and it's quite a lot of work, perhaps there's even a commercial product that already exists, but it's not the same as building something yourself.

Anyway, there's my utopian vision ^^

For the moment I haven't decided on a mobo, I've been looking around trying to find the best solution for the screen. From what I've seen, the screen is by far the most expensive part (if you want anything with a decent size), but when I found out that there are iBook screens for sale on ebay from people who are selling what's left of their machines for spare parts I started to look for ways of connecting iBook LCD's, which led me here.

I'm looking for a small footprint mobo (like PC104), with and integrated processor, the ability to boot from an SSD (CompactFlash to be precise) and then some way of adding wireless functionality, be it through a USB dongle, or other means of extension. I've found plenty of candidates (http://www.parvus.com/products/CPUs/Celeron/CPU-1850/ this being my current favorite) but I can't really start getting excited about any of them until I've figured out how I'm going to manage the screen part of the machine.

The machine would run on Linux (Debian if I've got enough room), it would be a sort of wireless information panel, the uses are endless, just need to write various functionalities and it could do anything, from displaying latest RSS feeds, monitoring email accounts, pick ing various art from DeviantArt and acting as a picture frame, to more technical tasks, such as running Nessus to monitor a network and inform you visually when there's a problem, or scan logfiles and alert you of anomalies.

One other thing I'd like to look into is perhaps getting it to run off a battery. With a large capacity battery like the 8 cell ones available for IBM ThinkPads (Sorry.. Lenovo ThinkPads) and the fact that the mobo has no moving parts and a low power proc, the life shouldn't be too bad.

You could run a VLC client on it to receive streams, you'd be walking around the house with a wireless TV. If you made a few of them, and dotted them around the house and added some basic control interface, you would have the video equivalent of airTunes.

I know I'm seeing far off, and it's quite a lot of work, perhaps there's even a commercial product that already exists, but it's not the same as building something yourself.

Anyway, there's my utopian vision ^^

just buy an early dualUSB iBook for under $300 total and have a complete battery equipped, lowpower Unix workstation with none of the hassles of building your own?

Ooops, I forget, this is AF, where the easy way isn't nearly the funnest way.

dan k

The thought had crossed my mind (yes, I admit I contemplated the easy way out). But then I realised that even though Debian runs on a PPC, support for Apple hardware is often sketchy, and when it comes to Airport, inexistent (Broadcom chip drivers are not, and never will be open source because I seem to remember they have the capacity to infringe on restricted radio frequencies).

And I must admit, there's slightly less appeal.

The AP driver issue only applies to G4 and newer iBooks that support AP Extereme. Regular original AP works just great. Ubuntu is working on things, and the current release (Breezy Badger 5.10) runs ok on my G3 600 iBook.

Thanks for the info , I now have a secondary plan to fallback on if I don't have any success with a more "DIY" solution.

Although the unit would be a lot heavier, and the battery life would be laughable since there would be moving parts for the HDD and the fan(s ?).

If you want to use an SBC be sure to look on eBay. I often see ones going for cheap there.

I have an old P1 233mmx SBC. It has an LCD controller on it and is on an ISA card. One these days I plan to build it into a router.

I've got an old Dolch LPAC586, which runs a 233MMX CPU and has a riser with an ISA LCD controller card. I know it's a custom Dolch card, but it runs a C&T 65550 chip or similar LCD controller. I think the port(s) on the card are labels LVDS, but I'm sure the card only supports up to 1024x768@8bit. It's got an 800x600 panel in there ATM, and I can't find drivers for anything newer than Win98 or old versions of X Windows. That'll be the big problem with running an old card, unless you plan on coding up your own drivers.