
Connecting an iPad retina LCD to a PC - noonespecial
http://emerythacks.blogspot.com/2013/04/connecting-ipad-retina-lcd-to-pc.html
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ChuckMcM
That's pretty awesome, and a pretty grim testament to the lameness of Laptop
makers if they aren't willing to put that panel in a laptop! (I mean
seriously, you can't pull the display port connection out of an ivy bridge
chipset?

Something I have always felt there would be a good market for would be a
compact an inexpensive LVDS (TFT-LCD connector) to some sort of driver (small
FPGA or maybe SOC). You could then salvage displays from "dead" laptops (where
the display works) and build up some pretty awesome sorts of deca-panel UIs
:-) I'm thinking 'home star trek bridge' to a whole new level.

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ajross
Of course you can pull the DP connections out, that's not the problem. The
problem is that when you put that display on a windows machine, you end up
with a bunch of legacy windows software and web graphics content that looks
unreadably small, followed unhappy users who return those fancy DP panels to
your retailers.

Of course, the same thing is true of iOS and OS X software, which is precisely
the reason "Retina" (as distinguished from arbitrary 200+ DPI hardware)
displays are always shipped in resolutions that exactly double those of pre-
existing devices. So even though the legacy software doesn't handle it Apple,
by controlling the framework, is able to make it work more or less seamlessly.

Dell and HP don't have that freedom, they need help from Microsoft, and
Microsoft, well... At least Windows 8 does high DPI natively, though the MS
decision was basically to jettison legacy visuals and hope no one runs the old
software anymore.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I had a Thinkpad with a 15.4-inch 1920x1200 screen, back when such wonders
existed, and I had no big problems with its 150 DPI running Windows XP, even
less with Windows 7. Yes, there were some really old applications that
wouldn't react to system-wide DPI settings, but that was a small minority.

I think there is simply no excuse for the regression in laptop resolutions - I
can't even find a laptop that will give me 1200 lines anymore, they give me
"full HD" at best, which is less. And we can see proof in all the comments
saying that they would buy this guy's hack to plug a hi-res screen into a
laptop.

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ajross
I had a Compaq in 2004 with the same display. And indeed, windows works pretty
well up to about 150-170 DPI. But I have a 10" Acer tablet with a 1920x1080
screen sitting next to me, and the legacy windows desktop is basically
unusable. Yes, it can be made to work if you are tolerant of VERY SMALL
BUTTONS, largely unreadable text in graphics assets, and know where to find
all the font settings. But it pretty much sucks, and no one sane would try to
use it that way.

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ElliotH
Does anyone know if there is some company I could send off a schematic of the
adapter he uses and have one sent to me? (This would be UK, but I have no idea
what term I'm searching for to get a single circuit board made)

~~~
silasb
I haven't done profession PCB printing yet, but the one that catches my eye
for cost and finishing is <http://oshpark.com/>

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tomkinstinch
OSH Park does an outstanding job. I've used them for work and hobby
prototyping, and while the turnaround time isn't great (week or two) the
quality is first rate.

From what I gather the boards are actually made by Amitron outside Chicago.

Unlike most quickturn PCB fabs they don't bury you with options. The standard
options give you everything you need (ENIG, double mask+silk screen, either
2/4 layer, etc.). The OSH Park ordering wizard is a case study in how PCB
orders should be done, and for the quality the price can't be beat. Best of
all, it's just a "Fred in a shed" operation in Oregon that came out of a
hackerspace there.

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deevus
Props for using OpenTTD to test the screen :)

<http://www.openttd.org/>

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malkia
My immediate thought was - Raspberry Pi! - an LCD screen like the iPad one
would be very nice for it...

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acous
The Pi doesn't have a DisplayPort output, I imagine it would be significantly
more complicated to convert from hdmi!

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voltagex_
<http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=AC1621>

~~~
jychang
Well, that like doubles the price, for one. Also, it maxes out at 1080p
resolution, good luck getting it to work with the ipad screen.

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sinak
I thought seriously about building and selling something similar to this about
4 years ago - really cool to see someone hack it together. Awesome work
Andrzej!

Compact, portable screens seem like a no-brainer to me. My MBA display is less
than half an inch thick. Why does my desktop screen need to be significantly
thicker? Why not use the same panels from laptops to build a display that can
be used both on the desktop and for portable use? I love to use one large/two
smaller screens when coding - and I want a display that I can pack into my bag
along with my main display and use at a coffee shop. The panels themselves are
generally cheap (it's something of a commodity market, but depending on the
display size/specs they run $35 to $90)

When I originally started researching this, there were two problems, both of
which have been (pretty much) solved:

1 - Connectivity. Laptop panels generally use LVDS, which from my
understanding are bit-reversed versions of DVI, possibly with some extra
baggage. So you needed to have some intermediary processing, which was then
(and is still) possible using a DisplayLink chip. The DisplayLink chip
basically uses CPU power to create a virtual DVI/LVDS port over USB. The
advantage of DisplayLink is that it negates the necessity for even using the
Thunderbolt/DVI/Displayport output of your laptop, and allows you to simply
plug in via USB and go. But the chips cost ~$15 each, require non-trivial
integration, and use up CPU. As Andrzej mentions, displays are moving towards
eDisplayPort, which means you can pretty much plug them in directly.

2 - Power draw. For the display to work well as a portable device, it should
be possible to power it via USB alone. USB 2.0 standard is 5V and 0.5A, so
2.5W, which isn't sufficient. But USB 3.0 is 0.9A, bring the total up to 4.5W.
As Andrzej mentions, the iPad display can be powered off the Displayport power
(3.3W, 0.5A, ~1.9W), and with a step-up convertor you should just about be
able to power the backlight up to max brightness from the USB port.

Both those problems are now fixed. You can now build an external display,
either using an iPad panel, or that from a 13" MBA or (possibly that of a MBP
Retina, not sure about the power requirements there). Then you have an
extremely slim, awesome external display that's completely portable and
powered by USB.

Some companies have been building crappy versions of this using DisplayLink
chips, but I really want to see something with a clean, minimal design and way
higher resolution. I'd try at it myself, but I'm busy trying to build software
to enable better online political activism. If anyone out there is interested,
I'd love to help, either with funding or advice.

A few examples of products that do this (not very well) using DisplayLink
chips:

\- <http://www.mimomonitors.com>

\- [http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkVision-
LT1421-Widescreen-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkVision-
LT1421-Widescreen-
Monitor/dp/B005L2NA54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366665383&sr=8-1&keywords=portable+display)

\- [http://www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-
Moni...](http://www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-
Monitor/dp/B005SEZR0G/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1366665383&sr=8-2&keywords=portable+display)

\- [http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-14-inch-Ultra-portable-
Mobile-...](http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-14-inch-Ultra-portable-Mobile-
Monitor/dp/B005F0IKHA/ref=pd_cp_pc_1)

~~~
scarmig
Out of curiosity, is the software to enable better online political activism
public yet?

~~~
sinak
Not yet I'm afraid. My pet project is <http://fixthedmca.org>. I'm working on
first implementing <http://trydiscourse.org> to help get the community engaged
and communicating and building tools like click-to-call legislators to help
drive action. I'll be abstracting out and offering the tools to other
campaigns (anti-CISPA, patent reform, etc) as quickly as possible.

At the moment it's just me, so a little developer strapped as I try and both
code and navigate getting an unlocking (+ DMCA hearings) bill through
Congress. If anyone's interested in helping out, please please get in touch.

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zokier
Next step: make four of them and get nice 20" 4096x3072 desktop. Of course
you'd need to plan your DE to suit the tiled nature, but I imagine that it
wouldn't be that bad.

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hmottestad
I want one.

Seriously though, I really want one. At 70 USD it's incredible.

 _Dreaming of all the places I want a screen in my future house_

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noonespecial
The really sad part? The entire build cost less than the replacement LCD
element to revive my old thinkpad.

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ibrahima
Woah, $55 for that panel? Seems like it costs less than $100 including the PCB
stuff, I'm really tempted to do this but I don't have the time :(. Heck, I'd
buy a reasonably finished version of this for $150, maybe $200, without
thinking too much. That's pretty awesome.

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gfodor
What's the cheapest most compact PC you could drive this level of display
with? One could imagine packing them together to put together a open source,
absurdly cheap (albeit bulky) iPad wannabe.

~~~
randallu
People have already beaten you to it, with accurate ID and everything:
[http://www.onda-tablet.com/onda-v818-mini-quad-
core-7-9-inch...](http://www.onda-tablet.com/onda-v818-mini-quad-
core-7-9-inch-android-tablet-ram-2gb-wifi-dual-camera-16gb.html) (they
probably have one that copies the big iPad, too, with the same panel mentioned
in the article...).

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drivebyacct2
I don't understand, can the iPad3 panel be put into that or what?

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moreati
If I'm reading [http://www.ifixit.com/iPad-Parts/iPad-Retina-
Display/IF116-0...](http://www.ifixit.com/iPad-Parts/iPad-Retina-
Display/IF116-022) correctly then all Retina iPads use the same screen i.e.
3rd gen (dock connector) and 4th gen (lightning connector) should both be
compatible with this.

Assuming you're brave/handy enough to cut the necessary holes to expose the
connector

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shawndumas
Add a Leap Motion device to the mix...

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adamors
Give me a Thinkpad with a screen (4:3 screen mind you) like this.

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navitronic
I would love to be able to hook one of these panels up to a Mac and use it as
a retina display (1024x768) for testing desktop retina usage.

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rocky1138
Props for OpenTTD in the last screenshot :)

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silasb
Any clues if the iPad Mini Display using the MiniDP interface?

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nobodyshere
Minis can be easily disassembled so if I were you I'd try those ifixit reviews
where they do it and compare the connectors. Chances are still unknown though.

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ttrreeww
Do it with the Nexus 10 panel! 2560×1600!

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CJefferson
I would just like a nice way of using my nexus 10 as an external monitor -- I
have tried a few things in Linux but nothing which really worked well.

~~~
jacquesm
have you tried this?

<http://dmx.sourceforge.net/>

I've used it to combine macs and pc's as one big display and it worked pretty
good.

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idupree
I tried Xdmx a few months ago. It failed pretty badly for me, so I blogged
about it ( <http://idupree.dreamwidth.org/2151.html> ; choice quote: "Xdmx is
broken in various different ways for various different people on the Web. Xdmx
isn't very well maintained. It doesn't support XInput2 [1], it relies on
Xinerama which is somewhat maintained but whose architecture needs improvement
[2], it may be incompatible with Composite [3], it just plain segfaults for a
lot of people [4], and is generally unloved [5]." — citations in blog post.)

~~~
jdc
There's also Synergy (<http://synergy-foss.org>).

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rektide
Imagine a beowulf cluster to... power them.

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teeboy
Or you could avoid all the trouble and bad a Surface RT or Pro, isn't it?
Compatible out of the box with thousands of printers, scanner and every kind
of peripheral you can possibly imagine.

~~~
wlesieutre
Perhaps you didn't read the article, but it's about using an iPad display
panel as an external monitor for a computer (via displayport).

There are no other parts of the tablet, only a screen.

