Make electronic widget frames from old computers

After transforming an old laptop into an MP3 player, I show you how to turn a very (very very) old laptop into a digital clock with multiple "skins"
MP3 Player
The end of the project shows you what you can do with a more recent laptop with a real graphic OS. I am curently working in improving the interface on this laptop.
This is a nice way to recycle old hardware you can found or buy for cheap.

Step 1: Find the laptop

For this project, I used a very old 286 (80MHz) with a monochrome screen. This is a Compaq LTE 286. The passive matrix screen can only display gray levels...
Remove the screen. I recommend you to keep the plastic enclosure and cut the edge so that you can glue the back and the laptop with the back of the screen without damaging the LCD.
So find a way to reverse the LCD by cutting the screen hinge.

Comments

[WinbookXL3]

Cool!, what program is that can i download it?

[setiorion007]

http://rapidshare.com/files/414670651/clock.rar.html use my files to boot the clock from cd

[setiorion007]

It works with a Bootable cd .. follow the steps to boot the clock through cd 1. Download win 98 boot cd from (Win98_bootdisk.iso) http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html 2. Download Ultraiso software (it is a trial version ) 3. Open Win98_bootdisk.iso with Ultraiso 4. In the ultraiso screen you will see all the win 98 boot files----(select all of them and delete them) 5. Dont leave the Ultraiso screen 6.Copy the files from my clock and paste them in the Ultraiso screen from where you deleted Win98 boot files previously 7. Press save in Ultraiso 8.Burn the cd 9.Insert the Cd in a new laptop and select CD as bootable devise and restart the laptop and boot from cd 10.when prompted select option 1. Start computer with cd-rom support 11.enter D:\ 12.enter D:\autoexec U will see the clock now Hope this works for everyone Dont forget tot use my files for the clock as i did some minor mods so it will work with CD

[stephenniall]

Now all you have to do is program that Easy button to change slides ! using a parallel port it shouldnt be too hard

[mattccc]

how old is that laptop

[emilsegna]

Can i boot the "program" from an cd? First download clock.zip then unpack it then move the folder to the cd? or what... i only have 1cd left and the laptop has no floppy

[rensjuuuh]

And is it also possible to connect an usb-floppy-disk-drive to an digital photo frame and then run the programm on it??

[rensjuuuh]

Is this program in English or in French??

[lopez8675]

Could you put the flash program up?

[ReCreate]

Can you Give us the Source .BAS files for all of this?

[tonypascal]

Done, you should be able to download them, right ?

[ReCreate]

Ah Yes,It Worked. Is It that you Have 2+MB of files Compressed on the Floppy On a cabinet and that you extract it to a ram disk? Very clever:)

[tonypascal]

yes, if I remember correctly, this why the trick I used... Pictures have a good compression rate. Did the sources helped ? keep me informed about you updates, for instance, if you translated them. There is a bug I know that I didn't correct. on the matrix clock, at midnight, the white square is not placed correctly... have fun

[ReCreate]

Well You used .bmp They have the worst compression,probably a 600KB BMP Would be like a 1KB PNG. But then again you can't Display Png Images Without Massive Blobs of code to decode the image.

[techwreck]

hey just wondering where did you find such plexi glass. I have been trying to find one like that for quite some time now. Btw awesome job. but please do let em know.

[robots199]

Can you PLEASE distribute the widget dashboard. It would be the best!

[justindra]

that is awesome..... i'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this to you.... but it would be really cool if you could control it using touch screen.... In that case, i suppose you would need to use a tablet pc or something of the same sort..... Once again, great job...

[catpsi]

i love this instructable and was able to create a floppy bootdisk from vmware fusion in os x with a file from bootdisk.com - but! the ping pong program keeps crashing the whole shebang... error message: "Illegal function call in module PINGPONG at address 07B7:0DC5" - you can recover by hitting any key to "return to system" but it kind of makes this useless. is there a way to get it to not load the pingpong module and just stay on the same one? i'll try to delete just that module and see if there's error checking or something that will keep it running without it...

[rotamagic]

great job.... is there anyway to change the settings besides BIOS?

[drotten]

Really nice and inspirational! Because the clock needed MS-DOS and I couldn't play with the source code i wrote a new clock application myself using C++, SDL and OpenGL.

Feel free to visit http://lifeasme.se to download the source code , perhaps it could be useful for someone.

[tonypascal]

thank you for your update, this is a very nice project that you prepared. I will have a closer look. Bye bye

[cotton]

sick give me the program i will run it under linux on a destop hooked to a tv or monitor it wont be as goot looking but i want it with net controls

[eric.muir]

PLEASE provide this flash app :) are you still working on it? just curious because this will make my project awesome!

[tonypascal]

The problem is that it is not working yet. I do not work on it anymore (for the moment). Another proble is that you cannot modify the access code (to facebook, gmail...) without going into the flash code... this is a problem I cannot solve easily. I will try to post the application one day, I just need to make it work first... bye

[eric.muir]

oh, I figured as much bc I played around with it and ran into several problems... Thanks for the help tho!

[geekzilla]

Great job, i was wondering that when you release the dashboard ui where it will be available

[Xellers]

For some reason, this isn't working for me. When I try to boot this on my old laptop, it claims that there was an error and that something is missing. Please help. TY

[claytontheaggie]

This is incredible! I love it! Will you distribute this flash application?

[motorman]

How complete is the code for the color apple widgets you have in the last step. I've had this same idea but have no idea where to even begin to code something like this. Also is there a way to have the widgets full screen? And could it be set up to display with voice command? Any help would be appreciated as i have already designed mine but am lacking on code and computer components. Would it be better to do this on a mac machine or a pc? Thanks.

[awkrin]

if the computer was better, u could of make it kind of touchscreen, with a webcam and touchlib, but that needs to run many programs at once, probably making the computer run extremly slow. anyways, I always thought that u can't run videos on old computers because of the viceo card. the first time I ever ran a video on an old computer(486) I was like 9 and didn't exactly know about codecs, compression, decimpression etc. so what u meant in step 4 is that u can really run 800x600 or whatever was the res of that on pentium 1s, right? and why is the autoexec.bat in french?

[tonypascal]

Yes, the video runs quick smoothly, but its an uncompressed video. It takes a lot of space but requires less running time. I recall that the first computer woth a black and white display is not the one on which the video runs. The autoexec is in franch because I'am french... and I used a french version of windows to generate the floppy disk, I suppose...

[gschoppe]

ummm .... how is the MONOCHROME screen from a 286 playing smooth COLOR video?

[tonypascal]

That's an other project and laptop, but the idea is exactly the same. I think that a picture/video frame is not very innovative, so my Instructable does not deal with it. By the way, the specs of the other laptop are not but better, except a color display

[ironsmiter]

"Not much better"? certainly not modern, but anything capable of playing video files at that framerate, with more than 16 colors.... makes a 286 look like a pocket calculator(except for the fitting in a pocket issue :-) I'm guessing a high end 486 or pentium, at least(100Mhz+ with a small wad of ram JUST for mp3 decoding) Sorry to nitpick, but when you begin spouting numbers like 286 that people haven't heard in over a decade, we all get a little nastolgic and excited :-)

[Yerboogieman]

im sorry but, you said a high end 486 and i cracked up laughing, im pretty sure you mean for this project but its still pretty funny, lol

[bmlbytes]

If you get excited by hearing 286, I have to know what you think when you hear the word Commodore. I have a Commodore 64 with a few missing keys, and a Commodore 16 that is almost new (I have the box and there are no scratches on it). Now I want to go write a BASIC program and play Atari 2600

[Yerboogieman]

i like to play Street rod and leisure suit larry

[ironsmiter]

Shame... you better send those Commodores to me, so i can fix them and put them in the collection! :-) Hehe, I'll do you one better I have a TRS-80 model 3, in the basement, just for taking "Oregon trail" breaks while doing stuff! I've been fortunate enough to be able to "retire" my 2600. it's fully functional, but has been replaced by a modded "atari flashback" so the oigional cartridges still get used... but the hardware is saved(it's older than some of my friends!)

[thinker]

all we have are
an AMSTRAD with colour monitor
a sega megadrive
and sega master system II
=p

[Yerboogieman]

i loved my 286 :-)

[computerwiz_222]

lol the 486 MP3 Decoding is soo true!! I have a 486DX with 24 mb ram and a 2 gig hard drive. It barely keeps up with playing an MP3. I hate it when people take perfectly working old computers and rip them apart to get something stupid like LEDs or the shiny platters of the hard drive lol.

[yeddi]

I've taken the HDD out and tried booting up with my floppy but get the error message: Erreur: un gestionnaire de mémoire étundue est déjà installé. Le pilote XMS n'est pas installé. And the computer just sits, I can't seem to do anything. Any Advice? If it matters: I created the disk with Windows XP and it is a Toshiba 1730 notebook. Also: I had Linux installed on the laptop, but since I removed the HDD I can't imagine that's an issue..

[yeddi]

Okay, I managed to get it working:
I used the Windows 98 bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm instead of the one that I was creating through my OS (XP) Everything now works. However, is there any way to adjust the time and date or do you have to do that through the BIOS?

[tonypascal]

For the moment, the only way I managed to change the time is through the BIOS, yes... I know, this is a pb, especcially when the only way to enter in the BIOS is when their is no more save battery as on my laptopr (I don't know the key...) I tried to write a small program, but, I don't have much time to go back on the project... Happy to see you've made it work withand thanks for the link

[kiwi_soccer_maniac]

Hi nice job but can someone please explain to me where the keyboard/rest of the computer went? Thanks KSM

[tonypascal]

Yes, the keyboard is on the back, you can have a look at the picture in step 1. Thanks for the message

[arnoldt]

On the back on the monitor

[kiwi_soccer_maniac]

OK thanks, now to find an old laptop.....

[Istarian]

The disk files you put up have a problem. If you try and boot a floppy with those it tells you that command.com and emm386.exe are either missing or corrupted and that there is an error on line 5 of the config.sys

[Sandisk1duo]

too bad its not touchscreen...

[eleven]

This is a great Instructable, Tony, thanks a million. Today, I went down to Ultrasoft in Montreal-West where I bought a thinkpad for 50 bucks and got an old 286 TANDY 2810 HD for free. I was looking to put it to some use, as the poor thing only has 1MB although it is expandable to 4MB. It´s so beautiful though, old skool laptops rule, this thing doesn´t even have a mouse! :D Anyways, since the hard drive is busted, I hope I can find a way to boot it up with your "horloge"... i´m gonna give it a few more goes, although I am starting to think the 1MB won´t handle it... ;) If that is the case I´ll install PONG and keep it that way. thanks again. 11

[cotton]

what software ddi you use

[RockInBlack]

Saturday October 7 2006 (in french on the moniter) Woo Hoo! thanks French 1!

[Yerboogieman]

i have a 366 mhz AMD K6 64 mb ram windows 98 plus SE Toshiba laptop what do you think can fix the hinges to make the laptop close properly?

[SlimDan22]

im wondering how you would keep the images from not burning into the monitor im not sure about lcd technologies, do they get burn in's like CRT's??? maybe someone can help me out i only want to make this for the weather and rss, clock, and calander features so it would be static images on there all the time

[Yerboogieman]

as long as you reboot now and again and play Moving stuff every once in a while it wont do that...

[underserf]

Yeah, it was and still is a problem, especially monochrome where entire regions get ghosted. There's also a temperature issue, if the environment is <40 degrees F, the displays get sluggish & can look weird

They ARE =Liquid= Crystal Devices ;)

[Yerboogieman]

i used to have a 286 my dad gave me to play with, part of the screen didnt work but it was just a few pixels and a small line on the side, street rod and leisure suit larry, good times

[Jerimiah40]

It's too big! It doesn't fit on a 720kb floppy disk, which is all the computer I wanted to use can take! However, the thing does have two floppy drives. So, I booted from the first drive, and just put the contents of the cabinet file onto a floppy. However, I get memory errors when I try to run any of the clocks!

[Barner]

Je sais que la langue francais est superbe, mais do you have a version of your clock software in english and maybe in color?

[tonypascal]

I will provide the source very soon, once translated in English and some last modifications made… Thnak you

[calinux]

Hi why don't you try using a lirc plugin so you will access it remotely

[Pudgzilla]

that's sweet...it would be cool if you made a similar device with a touchscreen

[arnoldt]

I downloaded the file, extracted it, made an msdos boot disk, put the files from the zip onto it. When i try to boot from it i get an error that says ERREUR : un gestionnaire de memoire etendue est deja installe. Le pilote XMS n'est pas installe.

[tonypascal]

I think it should depend on the quantity of memory your computer has. Try to look on the Internet for setting up XMS memory manager, or something. I know that under DOS, the memory is divided into 2 types, and if your try to set-up more than available, it doesn't work. One other cause could be that, when you copied the files to the floppy disk, some hidden files remained from the formatting. Try to display the hidden files (in folder display properties) and remove them all before copying the provided ones.

[digjam]

I know this is likely a silly question, but how are you toggling between the apps on this project. I assume that this wasn't a touchscreen, so are you keeping the keyboard and trackpad on the other side or are you connecting with a usb device? I guess I'm asking about mail and putting post it notes...Thanks, though! the project really looks awesome!

[arnoldt]

I think he has the keyboard mounted on the back of the screen. He is pushing the esc key to change modes.

[tonypascal]

This is it, the keyboard is still at the back of the laptop, as shown on one of the picture. To change the clock, press ESC. On the other project, to type note, I use the keyboard, I agree, it is not very convenient...

[SlimDan22]

he could be remoteing into the pc

[bikr]

Once the app is released I plan on doing this myself as well, but don't have the coding ability to pull off the UI myself. I will use Synergy to interact with the display http://synergy2.sourceforge.net if you aren't familiar with it.

[J50Nunlimited]

Nice! I love the graphics =] I wonder how you could do such thing with QBasic..mind teaching me how you do it? I successfully bootted on the floppy, but returned an "error" type sort of thing. It's not in English, so I can't actually recognize what it's saying. Any ideas? Thanks

[SlimDan22]

Yeah, providing the flash app would be awsome and much appreciated

[Ian.G]

second that.

[idiotjohn]

Thats cool!

[larskflem]

this is cool, would you distribute the flash app when finished? :P

[homunkoloss]

I'm unable to copy it to a floppy disk. Do you format it as MS-DOS Boot disk ? If i just copied the files to a floppy disk and it doesn't work. Can you post the source code ? mfg Daniel

[kpataska]

I have successfully hacked DIGIT.EXE to switch the text to English, albeit abbreviated (Mon instead of Monday, Jan instead of January, etc.). I used XVI32 (freeware) to alter the program, then downloaded the CabSDK from Microsoft to generate the CLOCK.CAB file, and replaced it on the disk. Making a disk from XP is a snap, and you REM out several lines in both CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. I have all the modification steps noted, and am awaiting a reply from TonyPascal on how he wants to handle the posting of the changes. Please do not send me any messages - we'll let everyone know at once how to change things. I did REM out LETTRES.EXE and 4LETTERS.EXE from the RUN.BAT file, as I felt they were extraneous. And honestly - I have no clue what 4LETTERS does, other than display 4 letter words... Visualize Whirled Peas

[jimmytheexploder]

Wow great improvements in the new interface. I love the first one. I'm thinking about installing Linux on a such a laptop, probably on a flash memory card in order to reduce the noise coming from the laptop. With Linux on such a system, I think we can make some damn good things

[Computothought]

I got it to work on my old compaq 486 laptop without any real issues that I could not fix. I just wish as some one else there was an English version. I would even use an Italian version since I need to learn that language.

[Mr.Fun]

What is that video on your laptop that your using? i know it has to do with apple ipods.

[tonypascal]

That is just the advertising that is playing on the screen and also the name of the vidéo, but it has nothing to do with iPod, nor Apple

[spudgunman]

source? :) I have a laptop waiting for mod

[topsycrets]

I tried to run the file in an old compaq 1220 lap top, which doesn't have a hard drive and all I got was CHGE BIOS ( CHanGE BIOS For_ What do I do next? Frustrated I put the floppy with this downloaded file into a toshiba satellite 100CS which I never knew what was wrong with it in the first place it just shows the MS Windows '95 logo, but when I put the 3.5 floppy disk in I get the following CHGBIOS (CHanGe BIOS Utility for TOSHIBA) V5.10 Erasing and writing BIOS Data Please push the RESET SW (or turn AC power OFF/ON) to restart ROM Write Successful! Utility finished! BIOS ROM : 100 V5.30 FIOS File : 100 V5.30 I have to let you know that when I was given this particular lap top I could never get it past the MS 95 windows logo, so I can't get to any programs or other functions, Can anyone help so that I may load the Clock file described herein?

[Mr.Fun]

the software you have on here, i put it on a floppy and booted from it and nothing happened? any advice? Thanks

[tonypascal]

Did you formated your floppy properly as a boot disk before copying the files ? and did you unzipped the content to the floppy after removing every file ?

[Mr.Fun]

Thanks for the advice ill try Mr.fun ;-)

[spudgunman]

+1 request for source I would love to change some of the skins also have english

[e.bender]

very cool, Im gonna try and to one. Is this in the Laser Cutter Contest, cuz it should be. EB

[ICECRUSHER]

Hi, do you play this Video from the Laptop? From Floppy?

[tonypascal]

No, of course not, the second video is from another project using another laptop. What I wanted to show was that it was possible to do the same kind of project with a newer laptop and a hard drive. It’s a Pentium. I installed an OS, a media player and found some uncompressed videos (the processor was not able to decompress video in real time....). It runs smoothly and make a perfect media center that can display ambient movies.

[qwervz]

That's awesome and we'd really appreciate it if you post the source. I'm sure it wouldn't be too much of a hassle. And how do you adjust the time?

[tonypascal]

As I reply to Peter3D, I don't have the sources anymore (my PC disk scratched last year). The only thing that remains is this floppy disk with the compiled files (that I backed up since!!!). That's what convinced me to publish this instructions. Isn't the boot disk working ? Maybe with an hex editor, text can be changed, it can be tried. For the time, I change it directly in the laptop bios. That's not very convenient

[kunz]

While I understand your reluctance to post the source, I would appreciate it if it was posted so that it could be modified to suit different locales.

[passievrucht]

can you also use this: Compaq lte elite 4/50cx laptop?

[tonypascal]

I don't know this laptop, but if it works under DOS on a 286 in B&W, it should work also on even a slower laptop. Is it a 50MHz processor ?

[bofthem]

Would you consider entering this in the Mashup contest?

[tonypascal]

I don't really know what is this contest, but maybe yes, I think did... Do you think this project could compete?

[bofthem]

I think it's a great instructable, and a cool hack. It's also taking a technology, and disguising it as something else, a good mashup in my opinion. Also, this is a pretty popular instructable.

[Peter3D]

As requested earlier (by others), can you please supply the SOURCE code, so that we can alter it at wish (especially the language) ? Thanks in advance, Peter3D

[ELF]

Couldn't you make it transparent or something? By removing some of the back layers from the LCD panel. It would be awesome with a pastel color bg of some kind :)

[Emperor Dane]

when you slide your hand behind the display, what are you pressing to change display modes? awesome work! -Dane

[tonypascal]

I just press the Escape key to change mode. There is a loop running every mode. Thanks

[kpataska]

GREAT INSTRUCTABLE!!! This is fantastic! I modified it to work with a boot disk that Windows XP can produce, and removed the codepages. However, the clock itself still seems to display French. Could you please post the BASIC source code for all of them so we can modify them for our locale? We would greatly appreciate it!

[benjgvps]

I love my black, white, and 2 grays powerbook 150. It's sitting in front of my keyboard so I can play glider, type a quick note, serial transfer something to my PC, or test a program for my site on helping people get things on their old Macs from a PC. Enjoy!
http://68kmacwin.googlepages.com/winmac

[Karel Jansens]

I don't get it. You take the screen off the base of the laptop... and do what? Glue it to the back of the base? Hide the base? Set up a subspace link between base and screen? It's nice to have all those pictures of the software, but I really can't make out the instructable of actually assembling the lap-clock.

[ironsmiter]

the idea COULD use some better illustrations as to the dissesembly/reconstruction... but each laptop is gonna be wildly different. use a little imagination. You could do a quick n' dirty version thus. Remove the hinge pins(or the entire hinge). Flip the laptop onto it's keyboard/screen. Add a couple good gobs of your favorite adhesive(hot melt, Shoe goo, 5-min 2-part epoxy, construction adhesive, whatever). "break it's back" as it were, adhering the bottom of the laptop to the back of the screen. If the video cable(tape/wire/etc) was long enough and nothing broke, It'll fire up, and you'll have keyboard access by reaching around behind the screen. Also, check out the archives of this site for things to do while you're hacking this ancient hardware! LED backlighting(adding to the really REALLY old ones, or replacing the CFL backlighting) would be a nice touch, and possibly lower energy consumption a bit. could also change your backlight COLOR from white to blue, or red, or whatever fits your design. other good mods to try, trash the floppy, screw the harddrive, and adapt a CF card to replace the HDD. Since the software is bootable from a floppy, ANY CF card will do.

[Karel Jansens]

Thx. Actually, the quick 'n dirty version I had in mind, was to make a wooden cover for the keyboard (maybe extending it to support the screen as well) and not break the laptop at all. You'd have a clock and a little table to put -- errmm -- actually to put nothing much on at all, because it'd obscure the screen. I like the CF idea, although using just a floppy for the purpose of this instructable is perfectly adequate: he program loads into a RAMdisk and the floppy won't be used anymore. Maybe more interesting would be to use a slightly more modern laptop, connect it to the Net and run an Internet time update software to keep the clock accurate. Of course, this would require one of the minimalist Linux distros to run efficiently, but it would also give the opportunity to have much more online information displayed, like SCO's stock (for a laugh, obviously). Hmm... I think I'm going to prowl the second hand shops for 386 black/white laptops with an ethernet port. This might look like fun.

[jammis]

Sweet, ill be looking for a cheap laptop to do this with now! Thanks man!

[WallaceTheSane]

QBasic RULES. You are my brethren.

[Kiteman]

Wow.

If you can fit your code onto a chip, and get it to drive an old B&W Gameboy screen, you've got a money-spinning watch there.

(My favourite is the pong clock)

+

[egreen767]

holy crap! that is so cool. i wish i could make one of those. but, i would never be able to do all of that complicated programing stuff.

[chooseausername]

Good idea, but it's not really "green" ... Unless it's powered with eolian or some solar panel =o)

[tonypascal]

You're right, but I don't use it very often, it is only a proof of concept... There is no hard drive, so it should not consume too much electricity

[thearchitect]

Cool project! Do you have the source code for the software? If you got it from somewhere else, could you please link to the original source? Thanks!.. K.

[tonypascal]

I posted the software that I wrote in the instructions... You can try it and give me feedbacks

[whatsisface]

That's really cool, I love the barcode one and the Pong one =]

[Zodiac58911]

Nice one- now to dig out my old laptop :) Only cristicism is the last two pictures look a little blurry. Other than that, its an awesome instructable. Rated + :)

[badrang4]

i think there blury cuz it was um lets see.... MOVING?