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LATEST 20in iMAC USING AS PC SCREEN

T

tan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 11, 2004
3
0
Does anybody have any idiea how the latest 20in iMAC can be addapted
so the screen can have a dual purpose where by the screen can be used as a pc screen, by connecting it to the DVI output of the graphic card of the pc

I think you would have to open up the imac to find the connective wireing between the imac graphic card and its screen ; rewire this to a multi switch witch can be mounted on the back side of the iMAC and also mount a DVI in put plug on the back of iMAC.

The switch can be used to switch between the iMAC graphic card and the dvi input from the pc graphic card .

I know there will be a fair amount of complex wireing and some holes in the back or the side of my new iMAC
Can this be done ? can anyone do it? and if so can anyone make any suggestions how it can be done ?
 
One suggestion...

tan said:
Can this be done ? can anyone do it? and if so can anyone make any suggestions?
Click to expand...
dont.gif


This is a bad idea, you don't buy a brand new all-in-one only to start pulling it apart and start drilling holes. Buy a 20" ACD if you want a screen.
 
edesignuk said:
This is a bad idea, you don't buy a brand new all-in-one only to start pulling it apart and start drilling holes. Buy a 20" ACD if you want a screen.
Click to expand...

He didnt ask if it was a bad idea (anyone knows that it is) but if it could be done. Its one less thing you'd need on your desk and it would be kinda cool.
 
edesignuk said:
dont.gif


This is a bad idea, you don't buy a brand new all-in-one only to start pulling it apart and start drilling holes. Buy a 20" ACD if you want a screen.
Click to expand...


My god thats the fuuniest thing i've seen in ages. I've had a really bad day, (been installing a pc so i could play doom3) that really cheered me up. Think i'm going to have to go out now and get black books on dvd now! :eek:
 
Quite an interesting idea... but no way would I do this :p Apart from warranty, you'll also end up making your iMac look ugly. And... how would you switch between inputs without getting electricuted :p
 
You could maybe rig something up with a KVM switch, but if you're willing to mess around like that inside one of those babies, you've got more balls than anyone I know.

At least it's not a CRT, so the possibility of electrocuting yourself is almost zero.
 
Of course it's possible. It's a regular LCD panel in there. I don't, however think it's possible to do without at least two of the following: destroying the Mac functionality of the iMac, drilling holes in the iMac, building a home made connector for the LCD panel, building a custom logic chip for the panel or setting the whole thing on fire.

And I wholeheartedly agree with the picture (funniest reply ever!)
 
While it would be great to be able to hook up another computer to the iMac screen, I don't think it is possible. And, if it is, it probably isn't worth what it would do to the functionality of your iMac.

I've never heard of anyone doing this with their iMac G4, so I suspect the same will be true of the imac G5. It is too bad though, because it would be really nice to be able to use the screen for other things.
 
stoid said:
It would seem that if you could do that though, it would be just as 'easy' to upgrade the video card in the iMac to something a bit more impressive than the standard 5200.
Click to expand...

MORE impressive than the 5200??? Doesn't Apple always use SOTA parts? :D
 
it would be much easier to buy 2GB of RAM and Virtual PC 7 w. XP Pro. even though VPC only uses 512MB of RAM... who knows, they might raise the ceiling with 7.1.
 
Why not just go to www.mactopia.com (The Mac part of Microsoft's website), and then under the other downloads section download Remote Desktop. This will allow you to take COMPLETE control of your PC right on your Mac, including pushing the sound through your Mac speakers. Works really well. You just have to have the 2 computers connected either with a crossover cable, 2 ethernet cables and a hub (like me!), or wirelessly. Then on the PC side turn on Remote Desktop and give yourself rights to access your PC from another computer and you should be all set.

Just launch the Remote Desktop program on your Mac and type in the the IP address of the PC then under the other tabs select the options you want and click connect and it should go right through. Its fairly easy to setup and best of all, its FREE!!!! No screwing around inside your Mac either! I use this all the time and it works great!
 
mklos said:
Why not just go to www.mactopia.com (The Mac part of Microsoft's website), and then under the other downloads section download Remote Desktop. This will allow you to take COMPLETE control of your PC right on your Mac, including pushing the sound through your Mac speakers. Works really well. You just have to have the 2 computers connected either with a crossover cable, 2 ethernet cables and a hub (like me!), or wirelessly. Then on the PC side turn on Remote Desktop and give yourself rights to access your PC from another computer and you should be all set.

Just launch the Remote Desktop program on your Mac and type in the the IP address of the PC then under the other tabs select the options you want and click connect and it should go right through. Its fairly easy to setup and best of all, its FREE!!!! No screwing around inside your Mac either! I use this all the time and it works great!
Click to expand...

We use this method for getting onto the campus server remotely, though I don't think it will work for gaming. Honestly, if you have a Mac, do you really do anything on the PC but game (maybe a few other minority apps)?
 
Bad idea today, but not tomorrow...

edesignuk said:
This is a bad idea, you don't buy a brand new all-in-one only to start pulling it apart and start drilling holes. Buy a 20" ACD if you want a screen.
Click to expand...

This is a bad idea *today*, but I've got a 17" G4 iMac that'll be obsolete as a Mac in another 2-4 years, but would (foxing at the corners excepted) be an awfully nice monitor for another box (like a Powermac or other headless box) for many years afterwards.

I saw a site in Japanese once that had a G4 iMac disassembly, but can never Google it back up when I want to. In the G4's case, iirc, the monitor had a pretty strong cord with four wires in it. I would imagine it wouldn't take more than someone with some real know-how a few hours to figure out what was going on and figure out if another input would work or not.

If you factor in having a reusable flat-screen monitor on a swivel stand, the iMacs become very attractively priced indeed.
 
I would be interested in this in making a G4 iMac into a windows machine. Strip the guts out and build a small pc in the dome. If I have to use a PC for work I would rather have it look like a Mac and change the gui to at least look like OSX. :D
 
edesignuk said:
dont.gif


This is a bad idea, you don't buy a brand new all-in-one only to start pulling it apart and start drilling holes. Buy a 20" ACD if you want a screen.
Click to expand...


What show is that from?
 
Dr. Dastardly said:
I would be interested in this in making a G4 iMac into a windows machine. Strip the guts out and build a small pc in the dome. If I have to use a PC for work I would rather have it look like a Mac and change the gui to at least look like OSX. :D
Click to expand...
ive had bad experiences with those os-enhancements. they make the system run like crap and are full of spyware even if you get the registered, pay-for-it versoins
 
Dr. Dastardly said:
I would be interested in this in making a G4 iMac into a windows machine. Strip the guts out and build a small pc in the dome. If I have to use a PC for work I would rather have it look like a Mac and change the gui to at least look like OSX. :D
Click to expand...

You people need help.
 
Mechcozmo said:
AFAIK, the monitor is hardwired onto the video out.
Click to expand...

Assuming the pinout could be determined, the hardwire could be cut and spliced into something, I guess. I don't know if it's a standard video thing, i.e. VGA or DVI. If it is then it'd be a simple issue of determining the pinout and splicing it onto the right connector.


The screen is probably like a 17" PowerBook screen; indeed, it's probably exactly like a 17" PB screen -- does anyone know how laptop screens communicate with the computer? Do they use VGA?
 
They don't use VGA, because that is analog and would degrade the signal. I'd guess that it would be something like DVI. I'm saying this because ADC dosn't make sense in a laptop, and my PowerBook has mini-DVI out, which could be easily achived with a DVI adapter. The long and the short of it is, yes you could get a pin out of the cable and go through all of that, but that still would be pretty tough to do. Isn't the video card, on the G4 iMacs, built onto the mother board? I thought I saw that on some picture somewhere....
 
stoid said:
We use this method for getting onto the campus server remotely, though I don't think it will work for gaming. Honestly, if you have a Mac, do you really do anything on the PC but game (maybe a few other minority apps)?
Click to expand...
That would be interesting...the PC would be doing all the actually graphics proccesing for the game? or would the Mac? If the mac is just recieving the output signal then it should be fine. Curious. If you use Giga-bit ethernet, is that enough bandwidth? Can you use firewire to do the remote access and would that be enough bandwidth? Anyone who have a PC want to experiment?
 
Krizoitz said:
That would be interesting...the PC would be doing all the actually graphics proccesing for the game? or would the Mac? If the mac is just recieving the output signal then it should be fine. Curious. If you use Giga-bit ethernet, is that enough bandwidth? Can you use firewire to do the remote access and would that be enough bandwidth? Anyone who have a PC want to experiment?
Click to expand...

it dont matter how fast of a connection you have, DirectX isnt displated through Remote Desktop Connection, so this is not a technical feesability.

Might (and I say might as a huge MIGHT) be able to run games through WineX on a i386 machine with Linux and use the x11 interface in OS X to display the OpenGL'ed output, I'm not too familar with the inner workings of WineX to know if this would work or not (and it certinaly wouldnt let you play new games, as they all but dont work on WineX (Project Codega))
 
sgarringer said:
it dont matter how fast of a connection you have, DirectX isnt displated through Remote Desktop Connection, so this is not a technical feesability.

Might (and I say might as a huge MIGHT) be able to run games through WineX on a i386 machine with Linux and use the x11 interface in OS X to display the OpenGL'ed output, I'm not too familar with the inner workings of WineX to know if this would work or not (and it certinaly wouldnt let you play new games, as they all but dont work on WineX (Project Codega))
Click to expand...

Where did you find the information on what RDC displays?
 
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