On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:07:52 GMT, "John S"
wrote:

Jim, I like some of the PDA based nav software (TeleType, Control Vision),
but can't live with the tiny little screens on a PDA. And a nice little
subnotebook computer--even used--is outrageously expensive.

J.C. Whitney sells a Pyramid 7" TFT/LCD monitor for DVD or Videocassette
players (System: NTSC. Video input: composition video signal.) $150.
Will this kind of monitor work with a cheap laptop computer?

You will need an SVGA to NTSC converter to solve this problem. I am
not sure of the cost of commercial solutions, nor the chipsets to roll
your own. There may be issues with losing portions of the screen.
Ie, you may lose the bottom and right portions of the screen in this
setup.

Before you jump into building this LCD + laptop setup, I relate my
story as I went through the same hoops you are trying to get through.

Background: I run moving map software as a secondary navigational
tool in my Cherokee 180. The computing platform has always been a
Windows based PC.

I started off using a laptop in the cockpit, and got my first
realization of how much the cables are a pain in the cockpit. Worse,
the display is dim, washed out by the smallest amount of daylight. It
also did not have a contrast/brightness control, which made it
overwhelming at night. As well, the only place to put it in a single
is on the passenger seat. Fine if you are solo. Bad if you have
passengers.

So I moved the laptop to the backseat and bought a touchscreen VGA
monitor with approx 8" diagonal viewing area. This unit was about
$300 used on eBay. Again, brightness was my enemy. You don't realize
how much of a greenhouse the aircraft cabin is until you try do some
computing up there... It takes a LOT of nits to give a good display
in the daylight. Also, this setup brought to light another issue.
What do you do when the touchscreen isn't enough. Ie, when the
inevitable Ctrl-Alt-Del comes along or a full system reboot. Turning
on the autopilot and reaching into the backseat did not seem like a
safe solution, so eventually I abandoned it completely.

I ended up purchasing a Fujitsu ST4121 tablet PC. This tablet PC has
a transflective display, which allows sunlight to pass through the
LCD, hit the reflector behind the display, and then act as a backlight
for the LCD. The end result, it is sunlight readable. The colors wash
out a bit, ie, the particular shades of colors blend together, but
the base colors are distinguishable. You would not mistake red for
blue for green for black... The PC is NOT touchscreen, it has a
stylus as input, but my moving map software only rarely requires
keyboard input, so that is not as big an issue for me as perhaps
others...

Anyway, I'm really happy with the ST4121, and I would encourage anyone
else to give it a go. The ST4121 is also a very capable PC (933MHz +
512MB + 60G HDD), so I use it outside of the plane as well. If you
want to have a look at my setup and are in the Chicago area, I'm sure
we can arrange for a breakfast at Morris, Clow, or elsewhere.

-Nathan