Use A Laptop LCD To Extend Your Desktop Display


I get an email asking for this almost monthly, and [PUNiSH3R]’s take on this covers everything pretty well. He uses some interesting tricks with WINE to get enough performance to play a DVD on the remote display. Yes, the cheapest way is to turn it into a remote desktop display over a network. Personally, I use synergy2 to share my keyboard and mouse, run multiple OS’s and keep my sanity.

16 thoughts on “Use A Laptop LCD To Extend Your Desktop Display

  1. #1, that looks like a reproduction of an old DEC program called x2x from ages ago. Personally I’m not sure how I could have lived without it for the last, oh… decade.

    I’m surprised that people would find something like that so unbelievable that they’d need a video…

  2. I think the title is misleading and should instead simply read ‘extend your desktop display’… while it is a clever repackaging, this is nothing more than a networked display that could be accomplished with any type of pc.

  3. Wow. There’s absolutely no way just to cheaply reuse the screen itself? That’s unfortunate, because using a 1.2GHz processor to power a 14.1 inch auxiliary display seems rather like overkill…

  4. Of course you can reuse just the display; but the WiFi is a nice feature. You could use minimal circuitry to feed a second (third…) DMI or SVGA or HDMI cable off your PC in and thus get a second display, but cables require so much high-grade plastic it is a serious waste. Adding a CPU at least capable of full-resolution h.264 playback and otherwise managing a limited wireless data rate gets you some pretty nice independent functionality.
    1.2GHz is not a lot of power in itself (not bad for 4 64bit cores, but 1.2GHz P-IIIs seem stingy), but if you can use a DSP or a video-specific chip of course you can save power and battery bulk.
    Better yet, doll up the case nicely, add some touchscreen and 3-axis accelerometer (or gravity sensor chip) components plus compact mics and speakers, and claim to have the Ghetto iPhone with XBASS. “Dates to Steve Jobs’ Breakdancing Days,” you’ll say sagely….

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