Apple multimedia projector (code named "Starfish")
The Apple multimedia projector is a video projector for multimedia and computer display applications. This projector was to be an Apple-branded version of a standard Epson LCD video projector. Apple and Epson formed a partnership to jointly develop this projector. After the production of working prototypes, Apple cancelled its portion of the projector development for business reasons, while Epson continued to develop the projector. Epson later produced and marketed the projector as the ELP-3500 Multimedia Projector.
Company
Design Engineer
Product Design and Development Areas
User interface circuit
Designed an on-screen display controller, a keypad interface, and a status indicator interface.
IR remote control interface circuit
Designed a circuit that received IR commands from an IR remote control, and passed the commands to the internal projector embedded controller and to the external attached computer. The IR remote control interface was capable of receiving commands from across a large room at a high data rate. This allowed real-time cursor movement from the IR remote control.
Computer interface circuit
Designed an RS-232 PC serial interface, an RS-422 Apple LocalTalk serial interface, and an Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) interface.
System embedded control circuit
Designed an embedded control circuit for controlling the projector display and interface functions. It included a Motorola M68HC05 microcontroller and associated components.
Audio circuit
Designed the analog audio inputs, an analog audio controller, and an internal loudspeaker and loudspeaker power amplifier.
Video circuit
Designed the analog RGB video inputs and a clock phase detector for recovering the phase of the computer's pixel clock signal from the analog video signals. This enabled automatic projector pixel clock phase synchronization using only the analog video signals for clock phase synchronization.
References
- "EPSON ELP-3500 Multimedia Projector," EPSON, November 1996.