Project : XTC Retro Laptop

[x88x]

Well, if you screw up the keyboard you could always get a slim USB or PS2 one (I assume the laptop has a PS2 port), and the cables on those are easy to mess with.

You are correct on the monitor cables. The bundle of little wires on the left are the signal wires. The small circuit board on the right is the power inverter for the backlight, so the two wires coming out of it are carrying a pretty high voltage load. With that in mind, personally I would extend the wires leading to the inverter instead of the wires from the inverter to the backlight. If you do decide to extend the wires from the inverter to the backlight, I would recommend some high-temp solder and high-voltage wires. You can pick both up fairly cheap, you just have to know what you're looking for. Other than that, yes, normal twisted copper wire will work fine for everything. I would not recommend using solid-core wire or aluminum wire though.

[Munty]

So copper wire then? Does gauge matter particularly or should I just try and match what's already there as close as possible but not worry too much if I can't... And thanks for the advice on the backlight, that's the sort of stuff I need! I don't want to mess around with anything unnecessary so if it's easier to extend the smaller wires before it then I'll do that instead! The only reason I thought maybe the two wires would be easier is because there are 2 of them!!!

And yes as far as the keyboard goes I've considered a few options from right back when I started my hardware thread. As it's a gaming computer that will rarely utilise the keyboard at all I thought about a mini keyboard for mobiles, xbox whatever. I have USB and ps2 ports so either are fine as options. If I was to leave the lappy with no keyboard connected at all though would it still work as normal so long as I provided another means of input to replace it? I assumed it would go a bit psycho as a chunk of hardware is missing...

[x88x]

No, it should work fine with no keyboard attached. Desktops will usually default to halting on boot if no keyboard is detected (though you have set them to ignore such an error), but most laptops I've seen will work just fine if the onboard keyboard is disconnected.

As for wire, I would say 18AWG is a good, jack-of-all-trades size for most of the stuff you'll be dealing with. For the keyboard extensions I would try 28 or 30AWG first.

[AmEv]

Then again, a laptop keyboard is usually just the mesh, with the controller integrated. So, if you break the board, odds are, you need a whole new one.

[x88x]

Well, if he broke the MBB he would need a new one anyway...

[Munty]

Ok so been a few days since I finished taking everything apart so I now have a good idea of what I'm going to be doing with it all. Due to the apparent limitations with my hardware it'll mostly remain in it's original positions but the keyboard, monitor and touchpad will all be relocated.

I'm not sure where I'll put the touchpad yet but I'll decide once The rest of the external design is arranged. I'll be using a mouse for 90% of my games anyway so the touchpad will either have a sort of camo cover when not in use or it will be retracted inside the case itself and revealed only when needed. Either way it'll need some attention to detail as it currently has no case.

Keyboard is still a similar predicament but I'm not willing to cut anything on that just yet so most likely I'll try booting up the lappy with it d/c and with an alternate input device connected. If it works that way I'll probably just do away with the original completely and use a mini, concealable keyboard for the brief times when I'll need one.

The case is still looking to be about 30cm deep by about 40cm wide which isn't too bad and only adds about 10cm onto the width. The screen will be centralised by extending the wires but I'll be making up a new bracket to hold it, most likely on a pivot to allow easy manipulation. I'll be making a custom case for the screen at a later point in the project which shouldn't be as hard as expected due to the small size of the components there but we'll see!

Anyway I'm posting now because I'm taking a holiday tomorrow so won't be achieving anything now until next Sunday at the very earliest! As I said I've been working on the detailing and while nothing is finished yet I've made some good progress so here are some pics of what goodies were in those parcels I posted up and what I've done with them all so far!

First the long package which was actually 2 kitchen-roll tubes stuck together and had in it 6 meters of 3mmx1mm wood planking! My son promptly acquired these from my desk and turned them into more manageable 10-20cm pieces which was good of him... The image shows some of the pieces he made for me on the left and on the right is a bunch of pieces cut to 20mm strips. At the bottom of this image is some small scale corrugated roofing which I found from a metal materials website run by a great chap who was very helpful! They're intended for model railways and other such pursuits and happen to be perfect for my scale with about 5 ridges per cm!

Here are my bricks next, sourced from another great supplier who specialises in real materials cut to size for dolls houses! Was hard to find a small scale and in fact the correct size would've set me back £90 just for my red bricks so instead I went to a slightly larger size for a third of the price. I got 4 bags of these for a total of 1000 bricks! And also the stone crazy paving which is shown in the next picture. The supplier was also kind enough to provide some free samples of some other products they have. All were very tiny and very cool!!!

For comparison here is a shot of the red bricks I'm using next to a handful of sample I was also sent. This is the scale of brick I wanted to use but I'm very glad I didn't!!! (difference of 4x1x2mm and 2x1x0.5mm!!!)

I haven't done much playing with this stuff yet but the following pic shows the rest of my metal goodies from the guy who did me the roofing. This is 0.4mm Nickel Steel and was a real bargain. Got a sheet of it cut 600x800 and he chopped it into handy quarters for me so it could be sent via standard mail nice and cheap!

Now onto what I've done with it all so far! First up is the crazy paving although in reality that's the last job I did and have only just finished it now! This stuff is far too large a scale for my project (intended for 1:12,1:16 and I'm working in 15mm scale which is around 1:107 I believe) This is the tedious process of turning the original pieces into smaller more irregular pieces. Most of these pieces were reshaped further as I prgoressed though as I'm picky like that...

This is the first floor I paved and it took about 2 hours from start to finish! I'm pretty chuffed with it for a first try! The lines are where there will be walls as this is the floor of a small building. In actual fact I'd already assembled the walls before this point but that's besides the point. These slabs are about 2-3mm deep so when the walls are actually in place I lose a lot of height, I'll need to fix that which I'm planning to do by adding a further piece of 3x1mm planking to the bottom of the walls prior to fitting.

Following is an image of the walls for the above structure (taken before I'd even started the floor!) It's constructed from the strips shown in a previous image and braced by three cross-beams to maintain it's shape and also allow the laying of roof later.

Naff picture but this shows the added realism created by shaping the floor around the walls rather than building the walls on top of a rectangle of slabs. This is me being picky again and it's unfortunate that most of this detail will later be hidden when the roof goes on!

Coincidentally if anyone recognises this building it'll help you greatly in figuring out exactly what I'm doing as I'm not going to spill the beans before I go away! The next building will be a handy reminder too but remember it's an old game so it's possible noone here will know it!

Onto the second larger building now and I started by laying some foundation bricks to accomodate the extra depth of the stone flooring. The lines marked in the centre are where walls and the stairs will later go.

Got stuck at this point last night so packed it in and went to bed! The red bricks in the centre are laid on their edge to provide a level almost flush with the top of the flooring. In this way I hope to build the wooden partitions directly on top of these bricks and maintain the full internal height of 20mm. The outside walls of the lower storey of this building will be brick while interior are wooden. The upper storey will be entirely of wooden construction although in the game it's actually all brick external walls. The decision to change it is mainly financial but partly due to having not played the game so long I forgot this myself!!!

And here is a picture I just took as I've only just finished laying the last pieces of flooring in the large building (I say large, it's 90mmsq) The stairs will be built on top of the flooring but before I go any further I need to seal the gaps between the stones and for this I'm going to be looking for a simple soil simulant. Anything from a railway shop will do and I need simulated grass and foliage too so will be keeping my eyes open this week on my hols!

And that's pretty much the extent of what I've been able to get done so far. I have another 700 bricks to lay before the first storey of the large building is finished so I won't be steaming ahead any time soon!!! I also need to get hold of a suitable paint, stain or varnish for the exposed wood as it must match the game sprites.

So far I'm really pleased with the way everything looks and while I'm taking a little artistic license regarding the finer points of design everything I'm doing matches up 90% to the in-game representations so I think when I'm finished it would take an idiot to not recognise the origins! (providing of course they know the game that is!)

Still to come I need to fill the stone floor, extend the walls of the small shed, stain the wood, build my brickwork and stairs, fit the interior walls and lay the first floor on the large building, construct the 46cm of wooden walls for the second storey then stick both the roofs on!

And that'll be approximately 30% of the design complete :p No more buildings after that but there are still plenty of fiddly bits to do. I think my current plan is going to remain focussed on the buildings for now and then concentrate on the actual construction of the new case once they're done. Get everything nice and secure and enclosed then I can move onto the detailing of the case itself using the buildings and templates to represent the missing items. Then I need to construct said missing items, complete detailing and make a new support and trim for the screen!

Still some way to go but I'm pleased with the progress I've made so far and at least the bricklaying will be more straight-forward than custom shaping dozens of stone slabd for the flooring!!! Wooden walls are easy too but boooring!

Here's a final image of what's been done so far (but one piece has been left out for now!) It shows both the floors and also the completed shed in the background. The small pile of bits to the left are the pre-made walls for the interior of the large buildings ground floor. Can't fit them until the floor is sealed though so they'll wait a while yet.

Hope you enjoyed these pics a bit more than the connectors! And let me know if anyone recognises these buildings, can birng the project out of the closet and into the light then! I didn't want to say it before I made some progress though as I feel like I'm taking on quite a responsibility by trying to honour this game with a casemod! Only time (and you guys) can tell if I made the right choice

[AmEv]

Whoa.
Like where this is headed.
+R.

[Munty]

Wow thanks, my very first Will be back onto this next monday but will obviously need some time to have anything to show off so bear with me while I let my back recover!

No guesses at the game yet then!?

[x88x]

Nicely done on the floor. +rep (Holy crap, that added a box! I've never added a box to someone before!)

As for the game...idk. I'm assuming it was before my time. Given the age of the hardware and the ease with which it plays it, I'm assuming it's from the early or mid 90's? I'm guessing it's either an RPG or action/adventure game. More likely an RPG since as you say, you can easily spend hours on end playing it. Most likely a western title, given the use of brick in the building construction. It doesn't use the keyboard, so it's probably not a 3D or real-time game. Hmmm. IDK, the only games that came to mind were Arena, Daggerfall, and Monkey Island. My gaming experience from that era is rather limited.

[Munty]

Wahey 2 boxes now! I had none yesterday so I'm guessing the first few are quick to earn. Hopefully I'll deserve a few more before the end! For now though I'm away from home but I did pop to the model shop as planned and saw way too many different materials to come to any decisions!!!

I want to try and get everything else I'll need from this place so I'm trying to piece together the rest of the design kind of on the fly! I really wish I had a shop like this nearer to home as I'm currently about 200 miles away so I really have to get this right first time!

I need something fairly sturdy to form the base of the case then another lighter material to form the rest of the case. I'll use styrene sheet to form the new screen trim so am thinking about using that for the top parts of the case too but unfortunately it's the only thing this shop doesn't have on the shelf!!!

Then I'm going to be after the rest of the detailing items which will mostly be terrain. I need something to simulate soil and grass which will form the majority of the display but the rolls of grass-sheet you get for wargames and railways doesn't really satisfy me as it's not as convincing when compared to the brick by brick construction and real material used in the buildings. Will keep looking and thinking about possible alternatives. Also thinking about an orchard as used in the game but it's a tricky scale so may be tricky.

I have one more piece to build after the 2 structures are finished and I'll be detailing that quite heavily so might get myself some metal bar, rod, pipe, whatever for that. My model of this piece will be far more detailed than the game ever was so I can use my imagination a bit which is nice! Don't want to go ott though so will be thinking about that as well.

In the meantime thanks for the rep and the comments. It'll be a boring week now but don't forget to stop by next week to see what I got from the model shop!!!