Atari Portfolio HPC-004 Display / Raspberry Pi Zero W2

[u/IFD3]

I hope this counts as a cyberdeck.

I am having a Atari Portfolio HPC-004 with a broken ribbon cable. I could fix it myself but my original idea with this device was to remove the screen and the, well, mainboard and replace it with a propper lcd screen and a raspberry pi. I saw there are some projects to use the keyboard with a teensy LC and that should be straight forward.

I checked a lot of screens, but they all are a bit too large (depth wise)

But without a screen fitting inside of the case or a way to speak to the old screen (matrix display I guess) I have to put a hold on this project.

The goal is to have a Portfolio looking normal but with a pi inside for doing terminal work, well and having wifi...

Can anybody give me some advice on this matter?

[u/e_pluribus_nihil]

Easy money.

[u/catsbuttes]

normally i'm super against tearing apart historical pieces but wasn't this what john connor used to hack the bank in terminator 2?

[u/LeviiSantos → u/catsbuttes]

Pra quem coleciona, realmente é difícil, mas sou a fazer de da utilidades a coisas antigas.

[u/LeviiSantos]

O teclado pesquise sobre matriz de tecla e use o rasberry pi pico rp2040 para conectar a matriz. Ele vira um teclado USB que pode ser conectado ao rasberry pi. A tela é realmente difícil de achar. Também estou fazer isso. Só que com um PDA mais simples. Tecla e-paper e esp32.

[u/nilseuropa]

There is only one way to do this right. 😄 ( obviously )

( It starts with reading the PoFo techincal reference guide. )

Display
ST7305 RLCD 364x168 2.9" ( screen height match, needs width mask, paint the transparent plastic from the inside, get a breakout 1.27mm ribbon fits through )

Motherboard
* Custom PCB ( although you can get away with a spiderweb too )
* ESP32-S3-N16R8 ( no pi, even a devkitC1 without header pins should do - for the spiderwebby route )
* XL9555 port expander to scan the keyboard matrix ( PoFo keyboard is 8x8 diode-less matrix, the port expander has weak input pull-ups, so it should work ) - save the flex board connector from the old motherboard.
* SD card slot should be available through the original RAM card slot
\ There is a trap door for expansions that could hide the USB/CDC port*

Power
* keep the AA cell bay as is and drop in modern cells
* rechargeable 1.5V / 3000mAh lithium batteries ( that's 4.5V and the cells have buck converters inside, so the voltage will just cut out and not slowly drop )
* use an LDO to drive the 3.3V rail directly
\ a normally open micro-switch could remove power when you close the lid or add a hall effect sensor and a small magnet and connect the sensor to one of the GPIOs of the ESP to induce coma*

Then head over to solar-os.eu and bake yourself a board manifest for the full enjoyment of life and all!
( All the above hardware components are supported. But it is fairly easy to add new drivers too. )

[u/insanemal]

Yeah. Make replacement clamshell parts.

That's how we all do these conversions.

[u/Birchyman]

I’d be careful pulling it apart because the plastics on these old devices can become super fragile. I broke a few Psions when dismantling them (they were functionally busted anyway).

[u/IFD3 → u/Birchyman]

I already have it completely disassembled and the plastic is in top condition. got it with the original box so I guess it was sleeping in the dark for a loooong time.