Digital photo frames are inexpensive, but if you have a very outdated but serviceable laptop, you can make one out of it for free. Its advantage will be a large screen, its disadvantage will be high power consumption.
Instructions
Step 1
Whenever possible, use a laptop with as little power as possible. This is especially important if the photo frame will work frequently and for a long time. Keep in mind that modern laptop computers consume between 50 and 90 watts, while machines released in the mid-nineties consume about 30. But even this is more than a real digital photo frame (about 5 watts). Remove the battery from the computer - this will make it lighter and contribute to an additional reduction in power consumption.
Step 2
Install a DOS compatible operating system on your laptop, such as FreeDOS. This will provide an almost instant boot up after power on. Create a folder with any name on the C: drive. Place in it all the photos that you want to view on the photo frame. Since DOS does not support flash drives, you will either have to use a CD to transfer images (if you have a suitable drive in your laptop), or temporarily remove the hard drive from it and connect it with a USB-IDE adapter to a Linux or Windows computer. Remember that the IDE interface, unlike USB, does not allow hot plugging and plugging. All files must be in JPEG format.
Step 3
Use LxPic as a photo viewer. It is significantly more compact than the classic PV, SEA and QPEG. In addition, it is free, fast, and also supports almost all video adapters, from CGA to SVGA, and processors starting from 8086. However, for high-quality viewing of photos, a processor at least 80386 and a video card no worse than VGA are recommended. Download this program from the page below. Place the lxpic.com file from the archive in the same folder as the photos. And add the following lines to the end of the autoexec.bat file:
cd folder
lxpic *. * / Y
Here folder is the name of the folder with photos and the executable file of the LxPic program.
Step 4
The last preparations remained. With the laptop turned off, separate the covers from the display hinges. Remove the display from its hinges to hold it on the cable. Carefully without pulling on this cable, position the display against the back of the computer case. Fold a stable plexiglass stand on which the laptop and screen are tilted back slightly. This stand must necessarily have a side at the bottom to prevent the screen from sliding forward. If desired, the structure can be supplemented with a decorative frame of any desired shape. However, no matter how you design your homemade digital photo frame, be sure to ensure its stability and do not interfere with the cooling of the laptop.
