Interfacing with a old laptop display

[mtraven]

I got this screen years ago from a surplus shop, cost me $2...I figured if was part of a custom embedded system & thus driving it would be impossible, but for 2 bucks, what the hell?. Having a need for a screen of about this size, I recently pulled it back out & did some searching, turns out its an old laptop display. came out of (or was a replacement for) a mid 90's toshiba. I also recently learned about interfacing with vga displays, that got me wondering, what protocol was used to drive displays in the mid 90's? I think there's at least a fair chance, vga was one of the methods.

so here is the display (toshiba lm641485):
it has a 3 lead connector (presumably power/back light) & then its got a 16 pin ribbon cable, which is the first hiccup. vga has 15 leads & I think a few of them aren't even used. If ya'll need more info, like chip numbers, let me know, I'll try to decipher what's there.

So what do ya'll think? Is it possibly vga? Can I drive this with an arduino? Where would you start testing?

Thanks for the help!

[jremington]

It is very, very unlikely that you will be able to find the documentation required to make an interface for that. And, it may not even be functional.

[mtraven]

yah, I figured...but I like puzzles & I like to tinker. and you're right, I dont even know if it works...though it was packaged quite well, makes me think it was a replacement screen...still no guarantee.

I'd like to play with it until it works, or I destroy it. For my uses, a very basic 3 bit vga would be plenty..I figure I'll give it some power first, see if the backlight comes on & then start probing/ tracing pins...was hoping to get some guidance on that...

[gilshultz]

I would be surprised if it used a vga signal. I would expect a parallel type of interface from what I can see from your photos.