It’s grim up north

Chapter 1, Status quo

After some days of intensive hacking I was pleased with the software setup. The web GUI worked fine, everything worked just as I had intended. I even wrote and compiled my first C program: A couple of lines of code that moves the X mouse pointer into the lower right corner.

For the next couple of months the new laptop with the nice software setup sat on my desk, constantly reminding me of a project that needed my attention. The only desk that I could use for this purpose had, over time, been cluttered by numerous of other things (mostly souvenirs from my trip to China, broken toys in need of repair and old children’s clothing bound for the basement). In my mind I had decided to pick up the project as soon as the piles of rubbish on that desk was taken care of.

Chapter 2, A clean slate

So, the day finally arrived, my workbench had been cleaned and a small surface of opportunity had presented itself. This was it. The moment I had been waiting for.

Stripping down the Omnibook 6100 was a piece of cake with my previous experience and the HP service manual at hand. My only concern was rebuilding the layout on the frames backboard to fit this motherboard.

Luckily for me, this turned out not to be a problem, the dimensions were the same, even though the layout was a bit different from the 6000 model. I was a lot more careful this time, making sure not to touch anything I shouldn’t touch and handling the parts very gently. As you can see in the pictures below, I put a sheet of plastic (cut from the kind of ESD bag that some hardware come in) between the back of the LCD and the motherboard. Apart from that, the approach was very much like my first try.

This beauty booted up nice on the first try, and runs just as nice inside the frame as it did in its ugly plastic cover. Here’s a short movie showing it boot into the slide show, and then me clicking around in the management GUI to replace some pictures and stopping and starting it, then shutting the machine down.

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Chapter 3, The future

I quickly realized that the paper frame (that goes between the glass and the wooden backboard) needs to be changed. I don’t know if I gave the wrong measures when ordering it, or if the framing shop made it wrong.

Some other to-dos:

• Reinforce the attachment of the backboard to the frame. The original solution is only intended to bear the weight of the board and the glass.
• Power switch! Turning the frame off remotely is not a problem, but turning it on needs to be done with what’s left of the original power switch (see picture). This one will probably be a tough one to solve. I don’t have the soldering skills (or equipment) to connect a more user friendly switch button, and I don’t think it’s possible to come up with a mechanical solution.

Another thing I will probably do is to incorporate more functionality into the software. A nice think would be output from RSS feeds (weather, news, et.c.). Maybe a synchronized calendar showing todays events. Daily Dilbert. Internet radio. The possibilities are endless here since there are plenty of resources left (only 63 of 512 Mb RAM used when everything is started and the CPU being 1000 MHz). All ideas are welcome!

Increased functionality also calls for some kind of interaction. I’ve been looking into hacking a keyboard controller from an old discarded keyboard and connecting custom switches/buttons to it (still have a PS/2 keyboard attached to the motherboard). Four buttons (up, down, ok, cancel/back) would probably be enough to create a nice interface to control things like switching between feeds, calendar and slide show mode. Ideas and hints on this would also be appreciated.

If you found this entry when looking for inspiration for your own project, just let me know if you have any questions or ideas. I’d be happy to discuss it!