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Adding an LCD Status Screen to a PC
blankmange writes: "The Screensavers is running an interesting hack - add an LCD screen to your PC for just information. "The real estate on your screen is precious, and with your PC's vital stats, Winamp info, game stats, stock tickers, news tickers, sports scores, and more, it's easy to run out of space. How about adding a liquid crystal display (LCD) that can show this type of information?" Seems pretty straight-forward ... " Yes, but can you make one as as pretty as this one?
This thing can produce more lights, then my brothers bacon and egg stinker farts being lit up. I give this project my flaming stamp of approval!
Not a single non-troll comment had been posted as of five seconds ago, yet the linked 'as pretty as this one' page is already slow as a dog.
LCD + Serial Cable + Power = This.
/. worthy. All ScreenSavers do is watch the current trend in computer, wait 6 months, then claim it's new.
This is pretty weak when something the ScreenSavers is doing is
It'd have to be pretty big to show much data, and you'd have to write some specialized software for it. It's most useful application would be monitoring the system; anything beyond that looks like a convenience issue. What's a .sig?
The world can be wrong today for once.
Here are the specs:
21. Technical Specifications
Motherboard
VIA Epia Mini-ITX with embedded VIA C3-800mHz proccessor, intergrated AC'97 sound, SP/DIF, LAN, VGA, TV-Out, S-Video, 2xUSB, COM, LPT, 2x512Mb PC133 memory.
HDD
Hitachi model TX230A-40gB 2,5" notebook HDD connected throug a 3,5"---> 2,5" converter.
DVD/CD-R(w)
Slim-line Sony model CRX-800E.
Graphic LCD Display
Datavision DG24128-5-S1-FLBY 240x128Pxl Graphic Display, powered by software from Mr. ChronoM, with backlight and contrast control.
Internal RF receiver for Keyboard and Mouse
Trust Wireless Keyboard and Mouse 300KD, totally stripped and connected directly to the motherboard.
HDD activity indicator
20LED HDD activity indicator with fully adjustable sensitivity and brightness controll. Colours: green, orange, red, blue, red high-density.
Developed and build by Mr. Loepie
Power supply
220Vac Enchance Model SFX-1209F Micro ATX 90Watts powersupply, fully stripped and mounted into the base of the computer, cooling by 1 x 4cm fan.
Lights
1 x Black-Light 10cm CCFL behind the frontpanel.
1 x Green 10cm CCFL between the HDD and the DVD/ CD-R(w).
2 x Blue 10cm CCFL in base, switchable.2 x 20 Red High-density LEDs in the base, switchable.
Cables
Coolermaster rounded IDE cable.
Coolermaster rounded floppycable. cut in two for connection of the Graphic LCD display.
All power cables are custom-made by Bart_Banaan.
Casefans
Titan 8cm model TFD-8025M12B-2 ball bearing in top
of computer as circulation fan with BioHazard fingerguard.
Titan 4cm model TFD-4010M12B-2 ball bearing in the base of the computer for extraction of warm air.
It isn't the first time that this is suggested, and with the increase of case mods posts recently (and others sort of mods), this would make sense.
Personally, I would use two monitors.
You can use a crappy one just for this sort of stuff. It will have much more real state that an LCD and colors. And it's much simpler! just a second video card or a multihead one.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
.. the /. effect
If it was hard to write it should be hard to read.
isn't really a brand new idea.
The LCDproc ( site currently down) and lcd4linux and
some other projects have been around for quite some time now.
I have created an USB Interface for LCD modules that has some advantages over the usual serial or parallel port hack. I hope to release it soon.
-- www.linux-laser.org - Open Source Laser Show Software for Linux
Thank you for your insightful and on-topic post. Your post was a breath of fresh air - I'm sick and tired of reading off-topic rants and trolls.
is a 6" color VGA display run off of a PCI VGA card in the system. Maximum PC had such a system as one of their "Rig of the Month".
But I don't even if know if it's possible...
That is pretty much it. Anyone knows how to hack a Laptop screen and add a VGA connector? What about the power? Any site with this infotmation?
In the good old days, slashdot was about nerd stuff. These days it is becoming like ZDNET.
I am very disappointed. This will be the last time I browse slashdot
I'm not really into tweaking syslogd but,
/dev/lcd?
how much difiiculty will it be to route system messages (illegal logins / diskspace low etc) to
that would make the thing pretty usefull as the current software seems to be windows-only
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Such radical mods are silly, because of Moore's Law. I mean, what's the point in sweating blood for something that looks k001 that will be so much dragging it's feet in less than 6 months that you'll want to kick it everytime you boot the darn thing? Of course, one can plan ahead and make room for improvements, say, swapping the motherboard.
Ooooooo..... kinda like mood rings for computers?
Neato.
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
Both of those links were mentioned at the TechTV link.
JaLCDs or LCDSmartie for instance. There are WinAmp plugins and step-by-step instructions for the do-it-yourselfer (sorry, those are in German, there should be English ones out there, too).
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
It is possible, and I have seen it done. The brand I saw used was Beta Brite, and I think you could get them at Sam's. That was about 4 years ago, and you had to build a special serial interface cable because I think the signs have a cat 3 jack, or something. Then, you just send commands to the serial port, probably with some control characters to scrolling effects, etc.
My flatmate has been working on this system which shows any image you want. All you need to do is write a script which picks an image and then run a program to transmit it over the network to the display every few seconds. Things like weather, news or mail.
I wanted to link it with my camera robot and have a few buttons on the side to control it.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
My computer lives inside the desk, where its fans are muffled by the enclosure (with a large, low speed high volume QUIET fan ventilating the desk). I couldn't see an LCD on the computer.
How about an LCD panel on a USB, so that I could mount the LCD up where I could see it?
Or better still, how about just running more than one monitor - and having screen real estate I can use for ANYTHING?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Of course, status displays have been around a long time. You've seen the panel of blinking lights on 1960's computers -- those showed contents of CPU registers, I/O channel activity, etc. Just looking at the pattern you could see the status. Some machines also had summary displays on the panel -- so you could look at the "IDLE" light instead of recognizing the pattern of the Idle Loop addresses on the instruction address register lights.
I always wondered what he did with the thing after the novelty of playing the game wore off.
at least he could salvage the screen for something like this
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Virtual Desktops.
>
uh this has been happening for a while now.
This isnt exactly breaking news.
Must be a slow news day...
already... Bummer.
I notice from the screenshots that it appears to be running on a Win2K box...
VFDs are the displays on cash registers etc. You can program one quite easily via the serial port. You can see one implementation here.
is a seperate lcd screen that had winamp, my instant messengers, and other small background apps. Just to get them off my screen. This would be extra cool because I could play counterstrike on one screen and have AIM on another. Thus preventing CS from fudging if I get an IM.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
No more posts from the Anonymous Coward?!?! WOOT!
Carpe Canem - Seize the Dog
Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.
Engage!
"The real estate on your screen is precious, and with your PC's vital stats,
Winamp info, game stats, stock tickers, news tickers, sports scores, and
more, it's easy to run out of space...."
Use WindowMaker (or similar wm) and you'll never again worry about lack of
screen real estate. You can have as many screens as you need or want and
move between them fast and easy. The number of programs you can
run/display is only limited by RAM/swap.
I prefer WindowMaker and have three machines all displaying on one monitor
with one keyboard controllng them (all connected via OpenSSH.) Then there
are additional VCs. Lack of screen real estate has never been an
issue.
Perhaps this mod has "blinky light" value, but the screen real estate issue
is a non issue for Linux users.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
I went dumpster diving for over 20 portable dumb terminals. 9" screens with a carrying handle molded into the case. The keyboards fold up and clip on in front of the screen. I had one hooked up to the serial port on my firewall and would also tail -f /var/log/messages. Once you get live ipchains and snort reports, you tend not to want to go back.
But now I'm more interested in finding a good 9-10" X term suitable for keeping Big Brother up 24x7.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Synaptics has a new touchpad for notebooks called the cPad. It has a B&W LCD under a (mostly) clear touchpad that can be used as a secondary display. It has it's own API, and looks pretty neat - it saves valuable screen space and I hope I could move the task bar down there. I've only seen it on the Toshiba Satellite 5100 series, but I'm sure Synaptics is agressively marketing it to other laptop manufacturers.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
...buy another screen. Half decent 2D PCI graphics cards are under £20 and monitors can be had for next to nothing if you get them from companies that are upgrading their systems. I've found it slightly tricky to get multiple monitors working under Mandrake 8 (yes, I'm sure I should upgrade), but Windows 98 and XP handle it fine.
What my system looks like.
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
The Toshiba 5105 uses the Synaptics cPad, a touch sensitive LCD screen as a touchpad mouse. I haven't been able to find any information needed to create an open source device driver, though Synaptics web site does document the Windows API. I've wanted to use this device for various information displays in Linux (like Gkrellm, but so far requests to Toshiba and Syntaptics have been fruitless. :-(
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Carpe Canum? Wouldn't that mean 'the dog is having a siezure'? :)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
What I'd like is a TCP port spectrum analyser - just plug it in to your server, and see the traffic going in and out of each port.
:-)
If a virus or a worm starts "calling home" on a high port, it'd be immediately obvious
Crystal Fontz sells LCD modules for fair prices. I just received the 632 module myself and am pleased with it.
I am using an LCD since past month. It's a 16x2 one, controlled by a Hitachi HD7780. Since I'm not in USA, importing a CristalFontz or Matrix Orbital one were impo$$ible.
:)
:(
I've found this on a electronics junkyard for US$5, got an old printer cable and soldered everything as found on LCDProc's (search freshmeat for it) man page.
A picture of it can be found here:
lcd_no_painel.png
LCDProc runs on *nix, is damn easy to configure and to write a "plugin". Since it's networked, just a few lines of Perl code and you can write something that flashes the backlight and display some important syslog line...
There are some modifications you can do it, such as inverting (removing a plastic thing inside it and putting it back there, flipp'd 180 degrees) the colors, so the back'll be black and the letters'll be green. I'm about to do this next week (when I get time).
Some guys also changed the backlight LEDs (blue ones everyone?), but it's difficult to find SMD things here
Several months ago there was an article on /. about the BriQ, a powerful Linux/PowerPC box squeezed into the size of a CDROM drive. The only connectivity of the unit is an ethernet jack, a serial port, and the front panel. A couple weeks ago I was given a project at work to develop a menu system/UI that would run on the front panel of a BriQ to be used as a demonstration unit. The BriQ's front panel consists of a 20x2 VFD display, a tri-color (red, green, yellow) LED, and 2 buttons.
Control of the panel is simple: writing to /dev/lcd displays characters on the VFD (or changes the LED color w/ control characters), and reading from /dev/lcd gets the state of the buttons. I was able to develop a UI (in Perl) that used those buttons and the display to not only display status messages, but perform basic system tasks like rebooting and setting manual network configuration settings.
Unfortunately none of the displays that I've seen online have included anything in the way of input on the same serial connection, which would increase the usefulness of these status displays immensely. C'mon, don't tell me X (especially w/ proprietary drivers like nVidia or Matrox) has never frozen on you, leaving you to find some other machine to ssh in from and fix things. With a simple secondary I/O system like the one on the BriQ, one could not only have a really cool gadget, but also provide a needed backup interface for those computers that do double-duty as workstations and servers. Or even to get monitorless servers started up on strange networks w/out DHCP.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Anyone written something like this to drive a Palm device sitting in a cradle ? I have a pretty handspring Prism at the end of a USB link that would be ideal if there was software...
This article is just bad. The author doesn't have any pictures to go with the instructions. There's no shot of the "final product" etc. How does he expect people to be drawn into the mod without SHOWING what the mod looks like? sheesh, lame.
-- DuckWing
These guys:
Massworks
Have a LCD touch-panel that plugs in via USB to your PC. Not an incredibly high refresh rate, but it appears to work quite well.
I'm thinking about mounting one in my car hooked into a custom PC stowed away in the trunk. Would make a nice MP3 player and probably could view DiVXs and such through it.
A bit expensive, but not too bad. Only two cables needed - USB & Power.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
I don't know about you, but I have more space than I know what to do with. Hell, 4 of my 10 desktops are empty.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
The Toshiba Infinia came with an LCD display and control box that sits below the monitor. It had a volume control, a full set of stop/start/pause/fwd/rwd buttons, five programmable LED buttons, a message light, a sleep button, and an IR receiver for the remote. The remote also has a keypad that can be used to dial the speaker phone, and a semi-usable thumb pad for moving the pointer. The display plugged into the USB.
If you really want to see some great pc modding, you should look here. This guy buys a small tv screen and puts it into his case. Other mods include water-cooling and window modding.
Screen real estate is extremely valuable, but the way to recover it is certainly not to move things onto a miniature secondary screen. Virtual desktops are a much better solution. Most Linux UIs support them, and if you use Litestep, so can Windows. The concept is simple: have several "virtual" screens and switch between them. That way, you can put all your "overhead" windows (ICQ, Winamp/XMMS, tickers, file manager) on one screen, Mozilla on another, etc, and switch between them with a mouse click. You can also gain space by getting rid of the stuff that wastes it, like adware, or by keeping it minimized.
Of course, you can also gain more screen real estate by investing in hardware, but if you're going to do that it makes far more sense to get a bigger or second monitor than a black+white LCD screen.
You could use it for /. headlines too. [grin]
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
PicPuter is a free basic interpretor for a Micochip PIC microcontroller. It has an LCD port that could be printed to via a 56K serial port serial port. In addition you get eight 12 bit Analog to Digital converters if you want to put in a bunch of temperature sensors. It also has a bunch of digital I/O ports to drive leds, or whatever you can dream up. Its a lot more economical than buying a 50 dollar serial LCD and alot more capabilities.
There website is at http://PicPuter.com
Puhleeez. Desktop Real Estate is a phrase they use in PC Magazine for Pete's Sake! Am I the only one who, when seeing this phrase, immediately assumes that the author is a fucktard?
I say we immediately begin abusing anyone who uses this phrase.
Thank you for your attention to this matter
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Great idea! Anyone??
http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_diy_lcd
About 19 months ago, I decided to get an LCD display for my monitorless 486... its primary job is NAT (previously using a 56k modem w/PPP, now using the cable modem w/ethernet). Matrix Orbital displays connect to the serial port and have a really simple interface (it displays a character for every character you send, commands are prefixed by 0xFE, then a code for the command).
I went looking around, and it seems there aren't too many places to get the displays from in Canada. I ordered from HVW Technologies, which even has a student discount if you provide a scanned image of your student card. Their displays section includes units both with and without drive bay mounting kits. Their prices are reasonable, and their response time was great. I've got a picture of my (custom-written) uptime program here.
When I wrote the software, LCDproc was about the only program that was any good, and it kept flickering because it'd send a "clear screen" code before every update. I have no idea if that's been fixed in the interim, but I took the opportunity to write my API for a Grade 11 project (got 100%!).
I'd rather just add a second monitor...
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I got this cheap 5.5" B/W TV when my parents bought something and got it as a gift. Would anyone happen to know any programs i could use for the same effect ? - Using gForece 2 MX for the output...
The Crystalfontz 633 may be exactly what you are looking for. I just received one in the mail a couple of days ago, and I'm using it for my car MP3 player interface. I haven't done much with it yet, but so far, it is *very* cool.
Have fun, and play safe.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
‹shameless self promotion› in university. Actually, I got to do it in class with the Cyberman himself, Steve Mann. :)
Dr.Mann liked it enough to put it on his website
http://wearcam.org/dusting/ece385fame2001/lcd/
‹/shamless self promotion›
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
Unfortunately none of the displays that I've seen online have included anything in the way of input on the same serial connection, which would increase the usefulness of these status displays immensely.
How about a little box with an Ethernet interface, 40x2 VFD, IR control, and audio output to boot?
The SliMP3 has an open control protocol which makes it easy to put things up on the display, capture IR key presses, and stream audio to the device. There is also an HTTP API if you don't want to roll everything yourself, and just want automated mail notifications etc.
I would love to have some sort of vga lcd screen, miniature (maybe 4x5" or so), that just runs a console off serial. Theoretically this should be cheaper than a full-blown 1024x768 LCD monitor, but economies of scale, etc.. i guess. Anyone see anything like this? I think it would be sweet to put that on the side of a box and stand it on a desk. Instant server.
Another one of those stupid, useless stuff thought of by a bunch of computer science geeks who can't get laid and have way too much time on their hands.. and trying to prove some shit to feed their ego.
Of course, Yoshi did not add an LCD screen to the system, he added a VCD. But they why should I start expecting technical accuraccy from The ScreenSavers at this point?
:)
Could have been worse: Leo LaPorte could have been there, and the segment would have run long because he wouldn't shut up.
I don't know why exactly this was such a big story, it's little more than a plug-and-play upgrade with all the software that's available. I had such a display connected to a Tand CoCo 3 via serial port back in the 1980s. Nice to see the Wintel and GNU/Linux worlds catching up.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I purchased a 10.4" LCD panel w/ an Elo touchscreen from http://www.allelec.com/ and mounted it in the side of an AT case for my linux box. It makes a great little closet machine, and I don't have to lug a monitor over to it when I need to use the console. The touchscreen seems to be only accurate within a small area (at least in X), but that's okay since I didn't pay the extra $200 for it. Unexpected goodies are cool.
this would be pretty cool if it were a touch screen, and you could alter the stats shown, and the view/layout from the touch screen. heck, i'd buy one if it did that. fully customizable, multi-view, touch-screen operated system monitor? screw it, i'm gunna stick with watching syslog on the spare monitor...
Hi
l t. asp
Try this link to one of the ITX sites. There current waht to do with a iTX MB uses a ton of led and one hugh LCD pannel.
http://www.miniitx.com/projects/spacecase/defau
Comment removed based on user account deletion
so much for the funny moderation today...hehehe
("I" found it funny..hehehe)
; )
Carpe Canem - Seize the Dog
I've been working on a similar kind of thing in my (extremely limited) spare time for a while.
I used a small 128x32 graphical LCD module from Optrex. Yes, fully graphical so you aren't stuck with fixed-width fonts.
Details at http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/lcd/
It still needs quite a bit of work and I will be going to a much cheaper 128x64 module soon...
Dave
Ok maybe it's just me, but what's the freaking point of this?? We buy bigger and bigger monitors so we can fit more stuff on it, and then we buy a tiny LCD screen and cram a bunch of crap on so we don't have it on the monitor? So, what's the point of buying a big monitor anymore??
Most the information I see on these things are useless or already taken care of. Do I really need to see the name of the mp3 playing at all times? Um, no, I don't, I just leave Winamp sit in the systray while playing. MBM already displays the temperature down there, so why do I need a extra LCD to show me the temperature to0? Some other uses were hard drive space; I check my hard drive space maybe every couple weeks, not every minute or two. Ram usage? Why, so I can stop using ram? Besides there's programs for the systray that monitor that too.
I'm sorry, but I don't see the point of this. I'm a avid case modder (have a water-cooled cpu in a dual case with swinging plexiglass doors) but I don't see how this is something I really need, much less want.
ooooooooooooooooooold.....
they're mostly used by case modders and the like for aesthtics, not for practicallity.
and you can make them so they stand on your desk, quite a few people have done this, and with excellent results.
It looks like the SpaceCase guy made a standalone LCD display too, and it looks pretty easy to make (perhaps 3 or 4 hours with all the components ready?). His looks a (bit) like a mini Apple Cinema Display! If I can find the panel I think I'll have a go... ;-)
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/spacepanel/