Portable Screens you CAN and CANNOT use.

So I have a couple of large boxes of broken game consoles, accessories and computer components.  And every once in a while I fish through them with the intent to create.  I've always wondered which portable screens to toss and which ones to salvage.  Turns out I'm not the only one.  The Michael Jordan of Console modding, Ben Heck and one of his moderators named bicostp went ahead and posted a general outline.

Due to a number of threads in recent memory asking about this subject, I feel it necessary to make this post. 

These screens WILL NOT work:
You cannot use these screens so stop asking.

Game Gear
Sega Nomad
iPod / MP3 player
MP4 player
JuiceBox
Digital Camera
CD Player
The New York Stock Exchange building
Game Boy
Nintendo DS
Watch
Game and Watch
VideoNOW Player
Laptop LCDs
Clocks
The majority of portable DVD players
GP2X (about the one thing it doesn't do)
Printer
Any other integrated device I forgot.

These screens WILL work:

Pocket TV with video input
PSone screen
Hip Gear controller
Most stand-alone car rearview camera LCDs
Any other screen that was designed to accept analog video signals

Special Cases
These will work, but need simple supporting hardware.

Game Boy Advance - video input cartridge, but you need to leave the entire game boy intact
Game Gear - Needs the TV tuner. Only works with some systems.
Sega Nomad - Accepts analog RGB, most older game consoles output RGB.
Nintendo DS - You need the GBA video input cart. The entire DS must be together.
PSP: The PSP screen can be hacked to accept RGB, but you may need a board to decode composite or s-video to that point.

Why you cannot use these screens
These screens use digital signals to produce the image. That's why it's pixel-perfect. Video game systems output analog signals, like composite video, that your TV understands. Game system LCDs have the right hardware to decode the video and make it the digital signals the LCD understands. It's cheaper and smaller to make the motherboard talk directly to the screen than it is to use encoding and decoding hardware, but analog signals are more compatable (as you would need for a home console). Since the companies don't expect you to take those things apart and use the screens, they don't see a need for analog video signals. You could build a decoder board, but this is far out of most peoples' capabilities. (Decoder boards are complicated.)

Long story short: Unless your screen came with all the hardware necessary to take composite, component, or S-Video signals, don't bother.-kaokensho