PlayStation Touch Screen for Your Linux Box

hebertrich writes to tell us that IBM DeveloperWorks has an interesting article about how to modify a PlayStation LCD for use as a touch screen panel for your Linux box. From the article: "Historically, the lack of friendly interfaces has been an obstacle to making Linux® a commercially viable product for end users, but with available GUIs, that's yesterday's news. What's the next step in creating an easy-to-use Linux-based product for consumers? Imagine adding a user-oriented LCD touchscreen. A touchscreen facade can make back-end Linux applications very usable in such devices as custom digital media centers (either in the home or in automobiles), DVRs and PVRs, and even control interfaces for household robots."

Comments

Not much of a connection...

[Funakoshi]

to Linux really.

While the article has a point that touch-activated LCDs would indeed increase the usability of custom aps, Im not sure how it implies "...easy-to-use Linux-based product for consumers..." that would be a benefit solely to Linux. The operating system is really irrelevant, it's the LCDs that are the key technology.

Nifty project if you have the time on your hands I suppose.

Re:Obstacle to making Linux commercially viable

[jacobcaz]

If lack of a touchscreen was holding linux back, a procedure that requires cracking something else open, cabling and soldering will not be winning you new converts or my grandmother.

Ding, ding, ding. I fail to see how adding a kludged together touch-screen would be the tipping-point in making Linux have a friendly interface. Is it cool? Yes. Is it the holy grail to making an interface user-friendly? No. That task is still up to application designers.

or just buy a 7" touchscreen

[Anonymous Coward]

its not like they are expensive (150$), plus you get to choose between resistive or capacitance touch and get the benefits of modern TFT manufacturing and a warranty, seems like a no brainer really, or of course you can trash a PS1

Interfaces are still inadequate

[The OPTiCIAN]

"Historically, the lack of friendly interfaces has been an obstacle to making Linux a commercially viable product for end users, but with available GUIs, that's yesterday's news"

It might be yesterday's news, but that isn't to say that it's less current today. Try making sense of the clipboard in apps on the linux platform:

First test:
- copy text containing 'Windows characters' (eg: stupid quotation marks - 'long' dash)
- try to paste into gnome-terminal
-> does nothing, which would be even worse for people who don't understand the issues around Windows characters (why can't it just filter the characters?)

Second test:
- copy text in gnome-terminal or gedit
- close the window
- try pasting somewhere
-> doesn't work (the clipboard data has disappeared)

They're just off-the-cuff examples of usability problems in a linux platform, and they are neither user- nor idiot-friendly. I'm on my gentoo workstation at work at the moment but am pretty sure Badger suffers identical problems.

Re:Obstacle to making Linux commercially viable

[plantman-the-womb-st]

Things like this were best summed up by Rasterman (author of enlightenment) when he was asked if he felt linux would be "ready for the desktop". He said something to the effect of, "No, the desktop battle is over, linux didn't win. Don't waste your time trying to fight the desktop battle. Instead, put linux on people's cell phones, their toasters, on their PDAs. The future is in embedded systems. That's where linux can win." He's right. I think IBM understands this too. What things like this article do is, instead of helping a company sell something, they help a developer build something. That developer can then take a working prototype to potential investors without having to go to the trouble of finding parts distributor's and whatnot before testing their idea. They can just buy a PS1 at a junk store and strip it for parts. Once the investors give them an investment, thanks to the help of the working prototype, they can drop the big cash on custom components if need be and even buy in bulk.

So yes, this is a huge help. Developers don't just write office software after all.

You know it's sad

[Andy Dodd]

When the original poster doesn't even bother to RTFA.

If you actually read the article, it becomes painfully clear that there is no "PSOne touchscreen" - The PSOne display is simply a cheap small display that he is placing behind a touchscreen that didn't come built in to a display. He does not make a SINGLE mention as to exactly what model of touchscreen he used, nor where to get it, and there is nothing preventing you from getting a touchscreen large enough to put on a normal LCD monitor (or a CRT for that matter), other than possibly cost. (He does mention the brand indirectly, apparently the touchscreens are made by eGalax, although looking at eGalax's website gives me the impression that they only make controller ICs for touch screens, not complete touchscreen units. They also do not have any U.S. based distributors listed.)

Re:Cool

[ozmanjusri]

I, for one, welcome our new PlayStation LCD touch screen-controlled robot overlords?

I don't. The single biggest problem with this project is that it requires a Sony product, and I aint gonna buy Sony products no more. I'll be doing my best to discourage others from buying them too.