A story on Slashdot explains how James Roos converted an old PowerBook Duo 280c into a cool digital picture frame.
Since an attractive and inexpensive digital picture frame has yet to hit the market, I decided to build my own using a PowerBook Duo 280c and the frame of my choosing. Not a new idea, but the 270c and 280c are the ideal platform for a digital picture frame. Consider the following:
- Active matrix display featuring 1000s of colors
- Ultra compact design can easily be mounted into a picture frame
- Relatively small display is the perfect size. Others have mounted 12″ laptop displays into picture frames. Frankly, the results are disappointing. These “frame” look more like laptops on a stick. The LCD on the 270c and 280c is about the same size as a 5×7″ print. Larger than all of the commercially available digital frames, but not so large as to look goofy.
- Easy to find and inexpensive. 280c’s are always up for auction on eBay and regularly sell for less than $100.
The PowerPage has a perfectly functional Duo 270c with DuoDock available for sale if anyone wants to give this a shot. Get in touch. -Ed
