I'd been meaning to put a page up about this for _years_! I finally got around to it tonight. Give it a look! Sorry for the rather lengthy read. The pictures are towards the bottom.
http://www.alksoft.com/5300_stuff/5300_picture_frame.php
One thing I did a little differently with this hack was to implement "Program Linking" between the picture frame and a 2nd Mac on the network via AppleScript applications. This allows me to do all sorts of fun things on the picture frame without requiring the use of a keyboard or mouse. If I ever go one step farther and install VNC, it'll be a pretty slick setup.
Peace,
Drew
As pretty a picture (frame) as I've seen, nice job Drew.
Is the 5300c screen bright enough to really be seen in a daylit room? And is 'thousands of colors' adaquate for picture display?
The frame you got is perfect, but I wonder if a darker matting might show the pics to better advantage (a nice medium gray perhaps.) Also, I'd cut the matting so that it completely covers the edges where now shows the black border of the LCD.
I like the AS functionality, but (as you mention) VNC would be a more complete solution. Still, I guess you can use both, AS for simple basic functions and VNC when you need to get more involved.
Overall a very nice construct, and a nicely done page describing it too.
dan k
Thanks, Dan.
Yeah, the 5300c display is really quite bright. It's easily as bright as any other active matrix display made in the 90s. Even in a fully lit room (that room gets some nice sunlight in the mornings), it's easily viewable. You don't have to struggle at all to make out the picture. However, given the vintage of the display, the viewing angle is pretty poor. Also, I'm not convinced I don't have some extra refraction from the glass in front of the LCD making it worse. It's probably got a 90° viewing angle in the day time. At night, the colors wash out around 90°, but it can be viewed up to about 110°.
As for the colors, 16-bit is just fine. There's no visible effects from dithering down the colors. This is where JPEGView really shines - no other app does so well at reducing colors and scaling (up and down) images as JPEGView. JPEGView is just the king for this. It _might_ even be passable in 256 colors (I used to run it on my Performa 460 and never was too annoyed by color reduction) since JPEGView reserves a color map for itself to get the closest colors possible. But 256 is pushing it a bit. 16-bit seems just right.
Of course, if one wanted to do the same hack with a 5300ce, then millions of colors at 800x600 would be possible in the same sized box...
Peace,
Drew
I've got a second pictureframe underway that takes some of the ideas you've used like the flash memory. Once my PCMCIA reader comes in I'll get it finished and show you guys.
Nice job! I agree on the display though. It's quite bright, but the viewing angle is not good.
I like your first digital picture frame. Tacking on the plastic case on the back side actually worked pretty well, and it gave you lots of room to anchor the motherboard.
One of the big problems with these hacks is that usually the motherboard is as large (if not larger than) the display itself, so finding a frame or case that it will fit in without making the frame look stupidly huge is pretty tough. I like the shadow box because everything fits (just barely).
Peace,
Drew