BinaryWolf

Hang an old laptop in the kitchen or hallway to create a touchscreen Web panel and message center.

1. Find an old laptop: Any PC or Mac will do. We used a five-year-old IBM ThinkPad.

2. Enclose it: We welded a frame out of perfor­ated steel, but you could use plastic, wood or even cardboard.

3. Add a touchscreen: The MagicTouch overlay plugs into a USB port and costs $160 at touch screens.com, but you can find similar models on eBay for as little as $40 (some require a stylus). Be sure to get one made for a laptop (not a full-size monitor) and matches your screen size.

4. Give it Wi-Fi: Use a PC-card adapter, because it leaves your USB ports free for the touchscreen and keyboard.

5. Plug in a keyboard: Instead of trying to type on the vertical laptop, we added a Logitech PlayStation keyboard to the flip-down panel, which is activated by a lever and stops at 90 degrees for easy typing.

From Popular Science Magazine’s wall mounted pc.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at and is filed under hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.