Apple IIgs LCD Retrofit

My proper IIgs monitor is dead. Very dead.
So from lemons, lets make lemonade!
In this video (after weeks of work) I'm finally ready to put a LCD panel into the original IIgs monitor shell.
3D Parts: www.thingiverse.com/thing:5390797
Post re: 800x600 Overscan resolution: stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=354308#p354308
Here is the LCD kit I used: www.ebay.com.au/itm/202855920962
Patreon: www.patreon.com/mrlurch
Discord: discord.gg/x7Avgpfj
Twitter: Mr_Lurch
Facebook: MrLurchsThings
Instagram: mr_lurchs_things
Merch: www.redbubble.com/people/MrLurch/shop

[@skjerk]

Wow. This is a masterpiece!. I can't begin to imagine the amount of hours going into this! For extra authenticity (and since there's a lot of space inside the case), a future "enhancement" could be to mount the powerbrick inside and use a standard IEC powerlead. Also the RGB2HDMI could be mounted inside, and then have a DB15 connector on the back. But then, it never ends..... :-) Great work!

[@juliedunken1150]

I would have done all of that straight away, this project is half an a$$ if you ask me

[@WesleyNixon]

The first time someone goes to move this monitor and forgets its weight has been somewhat reduced and yeets it into the air... Joking aside, what an awesome job!

[@MindFlareRetro]

Wow! You undoubtedly did not give yourself enough credit -- this was a brilliant job -- it looks fantastic. If you think you're not an expert, well, you certainly are from my perspective. This is an ingenious design modification to accommodate the LCD. Amazing work!

[@devttyUSB0]

That's a really nice build! The result is looking amazing. Yes, it's not the original monitor, but another Apple IIgs now lives on. Awesome!

[@sbrazenor2]

Don't feel bad about using simple tools. If they work for you, then there's no reason to apologize for not using something more complicated. I prefer simple software, despite having about 25 years of experience in computer science / tech. Simple works. 😁👍

[@lindoran]

I still use the cheapest stripper crimper available at home Depot for small breadboard jumpers I have an automatic one I like the old school one better

[@RisteSekuloski]

Great solution! It works, looks authentic enough and it serves as an inspiration! Having in mind that vintage technology is failing just from the entropy and is slowly becoming unreplaceable, this is a way to use that old apple without the stress of just turning it on and praying that the monitor will work this time ;-)

[@JVHShack]

Very inspirational, indeed! I have been looking for a matching monitor for my IIgs, but after watching this, I have decided that it's time to commit an act of heracy and basically do the same thing to my IBM 5151 monitor case. I found it with a broken CRT inside, but the case is still in decent shape. 😀

[@brennonr]

black was the right choice, no question. Looks great, you did good work here

[@richardc2380]

Absolutely amazing, such a great idea really well implemented. Well done!

[@CubicleNate]

Super cool project. Thank you for sharing and I think you did a FINE job of designing it. Sure, I might have done things a BIT differently but I wouldn't have even THOUGHT of using the buttons on the side of the monitor for adjustment so well done!

[@whatever000whenever]

What a FANTASTIC project!!!

[@KAPTKipper]

Nice work. I love the 3D parts. I just used black electrical tape to match the flat panel to the case of the Mac Classic II I turned into a MAME system with a Pi. 3D printing a template would be way better. I did the same, making sure the case was not modified. I made adapters from scrap plastic to put the HDMI and Ethernet jack on the SCSI and Floppy openings on the case.

[@ScottDuensing]

THIS is the way to modify old gear! No damage done, fantastic results! Gives me hope for continued use of my RGB display if the tube ever decides to visit Silicon Heaven.

[@ericw4279]

Great job! Your attention to detail even filling the old ports in the rear of the case is impressive. I’ve never owned a IIGS but used many of them over the years in grade school and have lots of fond memories. I remember asking my teacher how much these computers cost (I really wanted one) and he replied “oh they don’t make these anymore” 10 or 11 year old me was so disappointed! 😆

[@Mr.MinerAL]

Exactly my favorite kind of content!

[@fluxilla]

Fantastic! Thank you for sharing the STL files!

[@MrLurchsThings]

No worries. Like I said, use/improve/whatever. Hopefully there is atleast somethng in there people can use.

[@TradieTrev]

This is so nice mate! I love hearing your thoughts on the design process.

[@mark12358]

What a great project here! Really a nice job.

[@jimcabezola3051]

A beautiful design beautifully executed! Well done!

[@domramsey]

That looks fantastic. Great work!

[@MichaelEhling]

That is gorgeous! And clever. Love the detail of the side buttons.

[@mgarnett02]

Really great job!

[@GarthBeagle]

Very well done! Looks great

[@KolliRail]

Turned out great!

[@esra_erimez]

This project is simply brilliant. Well done!

[@parrottm76262]

Fantastic! Love it. Thanks for sharing the journey of the entire design.

[@TheducksOrg]

This is great! Well done

[@JimsRetroStuff]

Fantastic job!!!

[@gregcoons7308]

Very neat and tidy. Well done!

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Fantastic idea and job!! Thanks for sharing

[@BollingHolt]

Dude! That’s amazing! Also, after this video and the other IIgs Videos I have seen this week, I went upstairs and grabbed mine and snipped the battery ticking time bomb of death while I was watching your video lol. It was long overdue.

[@angelgrig72]

Very impressive work!!!Respect!!!

[@soundguydon]

Excellent work !!! I love this project :-)

[@wimwiddershins]

Great stuff mate! I like that it's completely reversible.

[@philippeastier7657]

BRILLIANT. Honestly, your attention to details, and the way you manage to keep most of the appearance and not modify the existing parts is just outstanding.

[@ToddsNerdCave]

Great video! It’s an awesome idea to reuse the original monitor but without modifying it. Nice job.

[@mglmouser]

Pretty well done.

[@JamesPotts]

Fantastic job!

[@Frank_2023]

Good job mate, end product looks great, well done :)

[@RobReynolds]

That’s brilliant!

[@xyzconceptsYT]

This is epic! Gives me inspiration to do a 1084s monitor for my Amiga!

[@OldAussieAds]

I know I wouldn’t have been happy with anything less than perfect. And you seem to have done a mighty fine job. Would love to do this to my old crappy Commodore monitor one day.

[@starsundsternchen802]

Super cool done.

[@esseferio]

Loved this video !

[@iC3-wARM]

Very tidy retrofit especially with no case modifications. Good job.

[@bobtherieau6086]

Marvelous. I know I'm late to this, but this is wonderful and I learned a lot. Thank you for your effort.

[@Adam-McG]

I use a Sony GDM LCD with RGB inputs that’s already beige (actually platinum) and just works.

[@zero0ryn]

Really nice job :)

[@CommodoreFan64]

Awesome work, and as much as I love a good CRT having a big old 27in Panasonic CRT in my game room, I say personally as long as this works, then I would not bother restoring the CRT as the LCD in this monitor looks awesome!

[@lindoran]

Love this.

[@brianv2871]

Okay, this is completely awesome. I'm not sure there's much reason to worry about being able to reverse it since finding a replacement CRT will get harder over time and even if you do, it'll just die and you'll be putting the LCD back. Will be cool if people take your work and find ways to improve upon it for those of us who aren't so skilled at the sanding and painting 😃

[@honkybear666]

Love you videos they are great warts and all. 😁 As an ex-pat from Melbourne living in Massachusetts these days I can not get enough. Well done.

[@galamoonretrogaming]

Bravo ! very nice

[@PaulinesPastimes]

It's a fantastic job and it looks great. The side buttons and rear blanks are such a clever idea. I can't imagine how fiddly it must have been to design and maybe there is some perfecting to do but that always happens when you invent something new. I'm sure the swearing helped too 😄

Wow, that's crazy! I mean (... almost) everybody can come up with "some" (ugly) solution, but the details in this project ... Very well done!!

[@falksweden]

Amazing project, Jason! Well done! You just inspired me to do all sorts of crazy things here at home... By the way, the curvature of CRT:s is measured in inches, and is available on the data sheet of the particular CRT. It's basically like putting a rectangle on a sphere with that radius, and possible to measure in cad. Now I have to find that dead 1084S...

[@ncot_tech]

“When it’s right in your face it’s gonna stick out like dogs balls” 😆 between you and Dave from EEVBlog I’ve learnt a lot of interesting Australian phrases. I have a non functional Mac Classic. Might investigate how hard putting an LCD into that is, if I can’t fix it.

[@MrLurchsThings]

I think someone actually did that. Lemme see if I can find the designs

[@MrLurchsThings]

www.thingiverse.com/thing:3551263

[@minombredepila1580]

Amazing job. Please don't go so hard on yourself: you just came up with a way to do it.

[@HelixNRG]

Really great solution - especially given the fate of all IIGS CRTs seems inevitable to die given a certain amount of use. The overscan mode saves the size of the monitor and adds borders that are pretty much matching to the IIGS CRT border, which a lot of people complain about if they didn't get used to it with the IIGS back in the day. Would love to see more IIGS specific software (games mostly) to be viewed with the monitor.

[@marklechman2225]

Brilliant 👍

[@UpLateGeek]

I was thinking an easy way to get the right shape would be a contour gauge, but that might be tricky since it's curved in two dimensions. 3D scanning would definitely work, but seems a little overkill. Anyway, the job you've done is totally good enough from here. The picture on the LCD looks great, which is the main thing.

[@richardbrobeck2384]

I had that original monitor I used it on my Apple 2C it was a great monitor I wish would not have done away with it !

[@geoffcollins6601]

Fantastic video - Definitely not at the Play School level. Thanks

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Also do one with the old Apple 12” Monochrome display. It had a really cool small case.

[@MicheleDiPaola]

going to do the same sooner or later

[@timrb]

Nice one. I'm hoping to do something similar with an empty Mac Classic II case.

[@CheshireNoir]

Makes me want to crack out my IIgs and have a bit of a play. (I'll use mine with a Commodore 1081, as it's the best fit monitor I currently own)

[@esseel7896]

awesome

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Cool!

[@GrantMeStrength]

I've done something similar with the Apple IIc 9" mono display. Very satisfying. That said, I did not go to these lengths - this monitor looks fantastic. I bet little pieces of metal could be bent and squeezed in to push the buttons back out, if you really need it. Hello, Seattle mug!

[@MrLurchsThings]

I’d like to do a colour 9” IIc swap at some point.

[@brianv2871]

Yeah, I've been wanting to do the whole lcd mod for a IIc to make it into a portable computer. Especially since i already made a USB-C to din power connector for my 2c, which could technically run off a power bank, no reason the monitor couldn't also.

[@cathrynm]

@@MrLurchsThings This would be cute. (Not sure if you ever did this, you have a lot of videos.)

[@Octamed]

Now you've got me thinking how we could recreate the curved front, short of oleds coming in a sphere shape (they could). Maybe clear perspex gently melted into a sphere edge, with a phosphorus coating and a mini projector at the back? Talk about over engineered!

[@hisham_hm]

a curved sheet of acrylic in front of the monitor would already provide the effect, I think!

[@snarfusmaximus]

You did a great job. I'm too lazy and am just using an Extron RGB to HDMI scaler I scavenged from e-waste at work.

[@BigCar2]

I knocked your likes from evil '666' to '667'. You're welcome!

[@divarin1]

You could get a spring underneath your glued on buttons by twisting them on, sort of like how you get a key onto/off-of a keyring but with more rotations.

[@MrLurchsThings]

After I finished shooting, I managed to get one under the top power button, but not so on the menu button which is stuck in the middle, not the two up/down buttons because it’s so tight in there. As I thought tho, the spring helped a lot on the power button.

[@Lee_Adamson_OCF]

Nice work bro. I'm going to do something similar to a gutted TRS-80 Model 4 at some point, but I am afraid I'm not good enough at CAD to make the parts. :P I am sure that mine won't be nearly as pretty as yours!!

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Maybe you could use the og monitor plastic to make a mold that you can made and sell your own replicas that you can modify on your own like. Great video and great project. I wish the kit were cheaper.

[@dirkfrohling7948]

Very, very nice. Thank you! You just forgot to put in a brick to take the original weight into account... 😉

[@rockyhill3]

Beautiful build! You shouldn't have edited out the swearing and the swearing and the swearing. lol!

[@christophelambert8478]

Ok… you did my day…. I’m looking for this for ages!!! I know I can do a part but not all as I don’t have all resources etc…. A way to order a fully assembled one? I would need 2 of them….

[@JessicaFEREM]

I wonder, you could probably shove some pc speakers into the back if the HDMI input has an audio output, or you could stick something like an RPI or mac mini in there and have a self-contained computer.

[@Fezzler61]

Well done. Looking for CGA-to-VGA/HDMI board myself.

[@MrLurchsThings]

The RGB2HDMI is brilliant.

[@MicheleDiPaola]

@@MrLurchsThings can you share more about how you did build / setup the RGB2HDMI? I would like to do the same conversion (amazing work, BTW! thanks a lot!), but I am already stuck at which model of RGB2HDMI I should look at... :D

[@MrLurchsThings]

@@MicheleDiPaola kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmjaZ6Ggd9p8jM0

[@ropersonline]

I'd be interested in hearing how you decided on and where you sourced not just the panel but more importantly the driver board. (Imagine someone having a given panel and looking for a driver board.) If you really can scan the monitor case at work, and if there is that dearth of IIgs monitors, maybe it might be possible to scan the whole monitor and put that data out there - assuming there are no unresolvable "IP" issues with that.

[@MrLurchsThings]

Oh, yeah. Probably should have mentioned that. The panel and board simply came as a kit from AliExpress. If I can find it again, I’ll put a link in the description.

[@ropersonline]

@@MrLurchsThings Thank you. :)

[@rager1969]

It looks cool. You said you were good at color matching the beige, so it would've been simpler to just paint a 4:3 LCD monitor. Though it wouldn't have the correct period look, it would probably look fine. Then again, you had a non-working monitor, so why not re-use the case like you did.

[@PG-gs5vb]

Perhaps you forgot to put some screws in your coffee?

[@MrLurchsThings]

Har Har 😛

[@aaroncheah2088]

Nice. Can do the same for Atari ST?🤔

[@MrLurchsThings]

Luckily my Atari monitor is working fine (touch wood), so the chances are slime. But I suspect the theory would be the same if someone wanted to do it.

[@PonderLust]

I love it. Looks like a lot of wasted space though. What could go in there?

[@MrLurchsThings]

Speakers maybe?

[@GeirSandstad]

Retropi, maybe?

[@MicheleDiPaola]

Probably RGB2HDMI could fit. That I would try.

[@tigheklory]

Are you sure that the original monitor is actually dead? Is neck on the tube broken?

[@tigheklory]

I would like to add you did a great job!

[@nathenzuber4021]

I would keep the mod in the monitor. Rather than trying to restore the original CRT based components. What do you thing?

[@svenbenglen7599]

why?

[@rgrimble]

I could help out with 3D model making.

[@juliedunken1150]

To much use of glue…..

[@MrLurchsThings]

In what way?

[@juliedunken1150]

@@MrLurchsThings glue ruins the plastic, cheapens the project. Kids use glue, don’t be a kid. The Apple IIGS is a beautiful machine, your idea a good one.. the glue not so much.

[@MrLurchsThings]

@@juliedunken1150 the only things glued are printed part to printed part. Nothing is glued to the original monitor parts.

[@juliedunken1150]

@@MrLurchsThings then you have truly created a work of IIGS art.

[@luminousfractal420]

That's a crime. And I even hate apple so no fanboyism. The only retro appeal that thing has is in the glass tube. Now it's meh.

[@ste76539]

"Whatever corner it ends up in..." Why don't KZbinrs seem to know where their links to other videos will be onscreen still? It's been standardised for literally years now. Top right corner EVERY time, no ambiguity whatsoever, it's just not that hard.

[@MrLurchsThings]

How’s your channel going?

[@ste76539]

I don't have a channel, but that's totally irrelevant anyway. Your content is superb and I really enjoy watching, I'm just baffled why all youtubers can't locate the pop up links despite them always being in the same place, it's odd.

[@MrLurchsThings]

@@ste76539 usually because we’re trying to concentrate on so many other things at the same time. When you’re doing it all solo, there’s a lot to think about concurrently.