hi there, i am really interested in a solution of this:
having my iBook (G4 1GHz) beside my iMac (G4 700) on the table, i think it would be great to have a video input on the iMac. i could plug in the book, best would be to have a switch to change between iMac and iBook as source on the iMac screen.
in the service manual, i see a cable coming from the motherboard to the screen. do you think it is possible to hack this cable and mount a standard VGA input and a switch?
in fact, i believe if that works there are several ppl out there that would like to copy this!
thanks for any ideas or suggestions in advance,
filzer
[Pulls on helmet]
LCDs are digital. They talk with 1's and 0's.
VGA is analog. It talks like "hey yo man, put one of those rectangle thingies on the screen dude! lolololol!"
To change regular VGA babble into LCD requires an expensive convertor.
*follows advice and puts on helmet*
thanks alot for the advice! helmet is on head...
had tried some search...
sorry to bother.
the part that goes from analog to digital is already there in the form of the LCD driver,i think thats what that does...gets the data to the screen
so what you need to do is get the video into the system before that point
one thing you might give a shot is send an email (or a few to different people) at Tekserve (www.tekserve.com) a couple years ago at MacWorld NY they had a 2-headed iMac and both displays worked (for a while till it got touched too much)
*also puts on his helmet*
good luck!
If I'm not mistaken, the iMac talks directly to the LCD in digital, never even talking in analogue to the built-in screen.
hmm.
i wish VNC on OS X could create a virtual desktop like it can on X Windows, maybe you could rig X11 somehow to be a 2nd display, then use VNC to connect to it, and display that on the iMac...
it wouldn't be particularly fast, but locally like that it wouldn't be unbearably slow, you could use it for PS pallets, buddy lists and IM windows and stuff...er, well, buddy lists and im's if you ran an XWindow IM client, nvm on the pallets...
Check out http://www.opendarwin.org/projects/osx2x/ - It will do what you're thinking.
Alternatively, if you got a cheap 15 inch LCD, and gutted it, hooked the controller up to the iMac's display lines, it might work.. but you'ld only want to do that if the rest of the iMac was dead.. making it switch between the two would be difficult