Modding an old portable terminal station (237K in pics)

J

jmroberts70

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 15, 2002
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Just won this baby from eBay a couple of days ago and got it in the mail. Here are a couple of pics from the auction. I don't have my digital camera with me to take any shots of the inside but I think you get the idea...

terminal01.jpg

terminal02.jpg

terminal03.jpg

terminal04.jpg


The keyboard has an awesome feel to it and I'm hoping I can rig it to work via USB or something. I'd hate to have to carve it out for a modern (aka "sucky") set of keys. There's plenty of room in the monitor housing hopefully for a 14" LCD. I'm lookin' to put a microATX mobo in the back of this case and turn it into my own little portable "full strength" PC for LAN parties and the like.

Any thoughts, inspiration, or ideas?...
 
Great idea for a mod, I can't wait to see the results. I would love to see someone bring a system like that to a lan party.
 
jmroberts70 said:
I'm with 'ya -but what color?...I don't have any idea what color to chose!
Click to expand...
Heh. Anything that doesn't look yellowed from age. You can't go wrong with grey/silver. People might think it's a bomb if you painted it black. And white is just boring.


Well actually, people might think it's a bomb no matter what color you paint it.
 
Id leave it that color, and maybe find a way that you can hid the mouce inside of it, so you only have to cary the one thing (or put it in your pocket)

Id think mounting a slot loading optical drive verticaly so the opening is to the top of the case would work well, unless you can fit it around the moniter so when its closed up you dont see it at all.


find a friend with a digital camera, so we can see how it looks as you work with it.

good luck and happy modding.
 
I think you should make it a "sleeper" case, as in preserve the original look as much as humanly possible. Like add your 14" LCD, but put it behind that bowl shaped monitor panel. With the rear ports, try to not disturb them as much as possible, or maybe even use the same connectors, but rewire them so that they take the place of USB, PS/2, serial, parallel, etc. and just make your own dongles that connect to the ports and have the actual connectors on the dongles.
 
Those are some great ideas so far. Thanks everyone for helping get my creative juices flowing! I don't think I'll need to mess with the external connectors since pretty much all the things that would normally attach to this will be inside except for the mouse -as mentioned above- and an ethernet connector. As you can see from the second to last pic, I already may have the spot for ethernet with what look like two phone connectors that I may be able to replace with network connectors. I have yet to crack this case open and see the guts. I'll be sure to take some measurements for 'yall shortly...
 
Id say for the rj-45 female...

take a wall plate and cut it down a little, put a jack in it, and whire it up, then give yourself enouph wire to run from the female jack (that you can now bolt or glue beind the back pannle, so you just have to cut those holes a little bigger) down to where ever you plug in on your pc (nic or onbaord) so you dont have to relay move anything around or try to match things up, and if you have to pull it apart all you have to do is unclip it from your pc instead of pulling wires out.

again, kick ass find and it looks like its gonna be a great mod, maybe you can just put a usb port on the front under the moniter for the mouce, so no one will see it untill you upen it up and plug your mouce into it.

good luck and happy modding
 
I'd paint it bright yellow ( somewhere near orange even ... that would give it a nice psychedelic look - you know that 70's craze ) + a nice microATX P4/AMD mobo + 14" LCD would rock :)

Oh and I'd definately would stealth it, and reroute the ports in the front where hidden by the keyboard :)

damn, mashie was faster than me :D ( and I think a microATX - or even flexATX - motherboard would fit )
 
You could always look for a blade or SBC computer, i've seen those done before, and some of them even have decent chipsets
 
Well...now that I have my old camera back for a couple of days...here's the pics of the inside:

terminal08.jpg

Looks like I'm going to be using a 12" LCD screen and not a 14". I hope they make half decent ones...

Some dimension shots:
terminal09.jpg

terminal10.jpg

terminal11.jpg


Motherboard fit check (lllllike a glove!!!):
terminal05.jpg

terminal06.jpg

terminal07.jpg

No matter how I slice it, the mobo fits in there just fine! Looks like one problem is solved and a few more are discovered! BTW, the mobo is a Soyo SY-K7VME. I got it for another project that is still on the backburner. Main thing is that I don't want to use anything but a full-strength mobo and PSU on this rig.

Here's my dashed hopes of turning that keyboard into a wireless rig quickly. Although the pic makes it look like it actually WILL fit -it won't. I still have yet to take the keyboard apart but I am REALLY hoping I can keep the original keys. They have such an awesome feel to them.
terminal12.jpg


More to come...
 
Okay, why can't you just keep the original keyboard, electronics and all?
 
awww its so cute :D

i so want 1...... i envy you

"mommy buy me one"
~lmao~

anyway thats gonna be a sweet mod when your done with it, are you going to paint it?
it needs some windows and ccls :D pimp it in purple
 
if you want to save the shell of the keyboard, try popping off the buttons and cutting your new keyboard up to make it fit, then replace the buttons with the vintage ones and paint the back plate of the keyboard...... not in that order obviously :D
 
xonik said:
Okay, why can't you just keep the original keyboard, electronics and all?
Click to expand...

Well actually I don't know. Haven't tried anything just yet. I don't know if the signals are the same with newer models that use USB or PS/2. My guess is yes but I just don't know.
 
That's true, but PS/2 goes way back, and chances aren't bad that you will find it to be compatible.
 
I can't wait to see your finished mod. Looks like it has great potential as a project.

I do have two possible suggestions involving the keyboard. You could keep the stock keyboard the way it is just for a cover for the LCD, and install a wireless keyboard, and mount the wireless reciever inside the case, so it is permanently there and stealth. That way you just have to carry a keyboard and mouse in your bag. No wires or wireless antenna to keep track of. Second suggestion would be to gut the stock keyboard and keep the key layout and outer appearance stock, but make the underneath a hidden compartment for storage of cd's or what not. You could attach the keys to a piece of plexi mounted inside, but pull out all the electronics to give you the storage space.

Don't know if you like either of the ideas, but those are just two things I thought of off the top of my head.
 
jmroberts70 said:
Well...now that I have my old camera back for a couple of days...here's the pics of the inside:

terminal08.jpg

Looks like I'm going to be using a 12" LCD screen and not a 14". I hope they make half decent ones...
Click to expand...
I'm afraid the display will be the detail that breaks this mod. Most smaller LCD's really suck for gaming. I had a 12.1" LCD and it's native resolution was 800x600, with a really high response time (25ms?). I hope I'm wrong, but I seriously doubt you'll find a LCD that small that doesn't make you want to puke when playing games.
 
definetly has big potential. keep us posted. i want to seee how this one turns out.
 
WOW! how state of the art!!!,No wait .....Thats a POS.Hey if it aint Broke Mod It
 
I disagree with everyone (well nearly anyways, at least the ones I read)

A great Idea occured to me, the theme would be yellow black and aluminum. On the sides you would have yellow and black industrial stripe. Then make a new front and back from aluminum plate with the monitor hole cut out of the front and a hinged panel (with the hinge hidden) for cd (if it'll fit) and so on... Then on the back have another aluminum plate with a hinged panel stealthing the back panel stuff.

The idea is to go COMPLETELY cordless if possible. Get a wireless mouse and maybe even rig the kb up wireless (not necesary cause the kb comes attached to the front), and of course wifi. The real kicker is to have a coupla gel cell batteries inside with a charger circuit and a dc-dc power supply.

You couldnt run it for long but man would it be cool!

Yes, My ideas usually come complete. :p

Use any of it you like or ignore I ever posted, that's just what I would do with it.

Great Find btw, really wish I could get something like that.
 
I love your ideas braidman! That's some good inspiration for me. I especially like the "industrial" look and the battery power inside. I'm sure there's enough room for it if I was clever about it (although I'm not sure I'll actually follow through with that one). Due to the fact that it looks like I'm stuck with a 12.1" screen max, I don't know if I'll be gaming on this rig so it may simply work as a self-contained server with built-in router/hub or something. Maybe even a portable MP3 player with kewl display (although I already own a MP3 player that works just fine (as does my laptop) so that purpose may not work either. Maybe 800x600 gaming won't be as bad as I think -considering the looks I'll get at the LAN parties...

Found several used 12.1" LCD's at around $150-250. Not bad considering I'll be ripping them apart moments after testing to see if they work...
 
use it as an integrated server/router, that would definately be worth the ride ! :)
 
the original keyboard has a conector like a phone coard right? we had keyboards that were like that at my school and they are ps2. maybe you could hack the cable and put a new plug on it.
 
Its a pity that some of the smaller LCD screens out there that are good quality still cost so damn much.

Something like this one would be nice, if there was a way to get drivers for it...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3698&item=5119677542&rd=1

It looks like a nice screen at 800x600 though, even if WinXP doesnt know what it is.

If you have some wiring skill, getting a bare screen like this might be doable, but the 50MS response time kinda blows on this one.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3698&item=5120224875&rd=1

Even better would be a 12 inch LCD touch screen like this one....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3698&item=5120586575&rd=1

Whatever you end up with though, good luck with it! I look forward to seeing the results!!
 
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Well, lately I've been thinking of a DUAL-SCREEN setup. I could just bring along a normal external display to game off of if need be. I think that'll be the way I go...
 
Old terminal modded to a server? Do it! There's some irony there, for sure :D
 
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