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Programming Info for Toshiba LCD Module?

Posted by Cliff on from the one-needle,-many-haystacks dept.

Cheeze asks: "I found a odd piece of hardware that is a USB LCD Control Module made by Toshiba. There is no info on this device anywhere that I could find, and there are no FCC numbers on the device to look up. The device is an embedded lighted LCD with 1 silver button on the left side, 5 non-labeled black buttons on the top, one volume knob on the right side, and 6 buttons labeled 'internet' on the bottom. When plugged in under Windows 2000 Pro, it shows up as a Human Interface Device, installs some basic windows software, but doesn't actually control the hardware. If something like this is programmable, that would be REAL nice, but if I could find ANY control software for it for any operating system, I would be happy."

"The only descriptors on the back label are:

LCD Control Module
MODEL NO. PMD-C0014
D/M: S9728-3
KTC M/N: E03794004

I looked all over for those numbers and didn't find any info."

3 of 8 comments (clear)

  1. LCD for Linux by Snowfox · · Score: 4, Informative
    Something that's easier to work with, and more readily available for Joe Linux User is an LCD from Crystal Fontz. You can control these over a serial line with a pretty basic protocol. They even have one with a Linux name plate.

    I've been trying to stop myself from wasting money on one of these for a while now. Maybe posting a link to Slash means they'll sell out before I make the wasteful decision... neat toy, but so are the other 1,001 things sitting about which I haven't found time for!

  2. Linux HID Core by __aaahtg7394 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Under the 2.4 series kernels (and maybe 2.2 now..i don't really follow those), you can use USB Keyboards, Mice, and Joysticks (HID devices). My suggestion would be to get a 2.4 series kernel working with the HID stuff, add the vendor/product ID Magic Numbers to a table in one of the drivers, and see what it does. Linux will give you "Invalid scancode" when it sees invalid button presses, and hopefully that will give you a clue as to how to get the LCD panel to work.

    Of course, knowing the USB specs, this type of device probably has a very explicit protocol defined for it. You might be best served to send email around to the linux-usb (linux-usb.org) people to see if they have any clues.

    -josh, who likes to play with USB every so often, but really doesn't like it enough to actually work on it.

  3. Another sthing by __aaahtg7394 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Run this through google: Toshiba LCD USB -camera HID Infinia. If you remove the "Infinia" you get a lot more results, but they're a lot less pertinent.

    Included are directions to working with it under win9x; you could probably bug the linux guys about it based on that knowledge.

    Good luck, i'd like to know where to get my hands on one of these! =)