Citizen Engineers Unite on Channel 9! The Junktop Revival

Very nice, Jeff.
I would like to build something like that too, if i had the skills.

But, one point comes to me, how would you deal with the heat that comes from the laptop.

I mean being the screen so close to the heat parts of the laptop, couldn't the display end up damaged ?

Thanks

Maybe you guys can show me how to accomplish that when I come to check out the Microsoft campus for the summer?

can this display simple videos too? could i get it to do a countdown of 60 seconds as a video, or maybe a really cool carchase scene from one of my fave movies...

sure, it's a Windows XP machine. You can run any media player on it.

We're working on also creating the Picture Frame project using Windows CE - The Windows CE development tools ship with a "Virtual PC" emulator that will give you the ability to configure, build, download, and debug your operating system without needing any additional hardware.

The first step in building the Windows CE Picture Frame should be posted early next week... keep an eye out for the instructions !!

Mike Hall
Mobile and Embedded Devices Group
Microsoft
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall

Really enjoyed this article - need to find an old laptop at work now and give it a go!

martindolphin wrote:

Really enjoyed this article - need to find an old laptop at work now and give it a go!

Yes, this is channel9 at it's best, a place were we can come together and learn something!

Does anyone remember "The Mirror", a monitor you could walk around your house with?

I have thought of building one of them, it was a great idea but they were too expensive.

It sure looks cool!

One thing that seems unresolved is how the machine will get its power. The laptops at our company (Dell) have a rather chunky adapter to connect it to a wall outlet.

How did you solve this?

Alex.

Wow, great post! Now I wish I had an old laptop lying around... that would be a really cool weekend project to work on.

Just like a previous post, I wonder how you handle the power requirements. I noticed that one of your requirements is to not have anything sticking into the picture frame... then how do you have the power plug going into the wall? Is there a plug hidden behind the frame?

ericch1 wrote:

Wow, great post! Now I wish I had an old laptop lying around... that would be a really cool weekend project to work on.

Another way to go is to build this using PC components.  This gets around some of the complexities of disassembling a laptop and allows you to be more discerning about which components you invest in and which ones you skimp on.

The Windows Network-Connected Devices group took this approach built this frame around a VIA Mini-ITX board.  They ended up with a frame that was thicker than Ivan’s frame, but since this was done as a proof-of-concept for the WinHEC demo the thickness was an acceptable trade off.  
 

They also went with wired Ethernet on the theory that demo’ing a wireless device would be less predictable and would also start to get away from the main thing they wanted to show – their new Network Connected Device DDK.   I suppose if I have to run power through a wall then running a network cable is not a huge issue.

Notice that the PC next to the frame is showing the sample app that comes with the NDC DDK (Instructions on how to get the DDK bits are at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/netattach/NCD.mspx.)

Front view:

Back view

Note:
The remote controls you see in the picture are to something else that was on the same bench, I didn’t realize they were there until just now.  Sorry for any confusion but they have nothing to do with this device.

True. The laptop that I used was pretty good laptop machine. That is why I installed Windows XP on it. I could use even older machine and install older OS on it too, but it is all realtive. In our group we scrapped our Windows XP machines and replaced them with Longhorn compatible machines. They require a  beter video to be able to support the cool graphics features of the OS and a little bit more RAM: let's say 1GB to have the performance and the glitch free animations.

Actually no. There is cardboard between the computer and the display screen. The cardboard creates a barrier for the heat. Also the computer is in it's original case and it uses the original ventilation mechanism. To help all that there is an air layer between the cardboard and the display (about 2 mm of air) that works like the air layer in the double pane windows.

Last Tango J105

  Make a few holes in the box and close it, looks better, the holes for the cables, and make a few more in the center (on the back) for air to escape, and come in.