My morphos powerbook A1138 has a horizontal line across the screen.
It had doubled in size lately.
Can I hook up a tft screen to see if it is the screen?
Can I still buy screens new?
Is it a big project?

[ Edited by Kronos 06.09.2015 - 11:51 ]

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yes. Afaik the external DVI port mirrors the laptop display. Give it a try, it won't go kaboom. :)

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replacements new and old are available on eBay at least.
There are some Mac resellers/refurb type places out there that still deal with PPC hardware too.

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Subjective. See ifixit for detailed guides: no soldering involved, but many screws and small fiddly fittings.

Small correction:

The analog part of the DVI connector mirrors the laptop's screen.

If you connect a digital only monitor you will see nothing.

Edith:
Finding a new PB screen might proove difficult these days and replacing ain't for the faint hearted.

Better buy an otherwise broken PowerBook and replace the complete lid (still some work, but much easier and also much lower chance of total f###up).

[ Edited by Kronos 06.09.2015 - 11:54 ]

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DVI->VGA adapter and connected to a VGA port on monitor should work at least, if monitor supports what resolution it gives.

In fact, there is a trick to run the powerbook from an external display with a digital link and the internal panel switched off.
You need to close the lid while (re)booting the powerbook (before OF setup stage) and the display will "move" to the external monitor at its native resolution. Once you get some sync on the external monitor, you can open the lid again.
Agreed, this is a sort of hacky solution but it seems to work good enough as a workaround.

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This is what I have been doing with my powerbook. You turn it on and close the lid at the chime. I have a DVI to HDMI adapter and get a perfect picture on my Samsung 27" using this method.