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Inexpensive USB LCD With Linux Drivers For LCDproc
An anonymous reader writes "The Windows Vista SideShow technology shows some promise. But what about Linux devices that can present snippets of information independent of the main display? Here's a review of the picoLCD-4x20, a relatively inexpensive USB device ($50) that supports both SideShow on Vista and LCDproc on Linux."
If you are interested in doing this yourself, look into "character LCDs" using the "HD44780" microcontroller. These are easily attached via the serial port...
Some example character lcd's and pricing
Instructable on doing a character lcd
and for the lazy among you,
Google search for "character lcd hd44780"
Grab your soldering irons and have some homebrew fun! It isn't that hard at all!
What about them? How is this a Linux "device"? It doesn't run Linux, it comes with drivers that make it compatible with LCDproc.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're going to set the bar that low I'm going to go out and tell my friends that my Microsoft mouse is a "Linux device" because there's driver support for it on that platform.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
It may seem a bit "retro" to be using a character LCD for information display, but from a user interface perspective, there's lots of data that is still textual (e-mail subjects, news, etc) that is nice to have outside of the main work area of our primary monitor displays. Even as resolutions have increased particularly for desktop monitors, the idea that there's a separate device dedicated for a separate stream of information can be a useful notion because it's a "zero-click" way of getting to that knowledge, without dedicating primary monitor real estate there or making annoying popups.
There's really just a lot of information streams that don't deserve sexy RGB pixels on one's display, and the mental association of looking at a specific gadget to get a specific stream of information is a strong one. Until we have ultra-cheap projectors everywhere and make better use of display surfaces, this is a step in that direction.
--
Electronics kits for the digital generation! Microcontroller, LCD, gcc compiler, and more.
According to the article you posted, support for *nix is patchy:
Furthermore, using an entire monitor defeats the entire purpose of these devices. These are small, compact devices that are meant to show some vital information at all times with minimum power drain. Running a monitorless server? Put the server load onto one of these things. The server's a spam filter? Put the number of rejected emails per hour on it.
It doesn't serve as a substitute for performance alerts, but for $40 it's not bad for real-time monitoring when you don't have a monitor or terminal available
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
$50 for a 4x20 Text LCD is not cheap!
While I'm sure that a very small number of people will buy into this, I find it very disappointing and very limited, and pretty damn expensive for what you get. I compare this to my Logictech G15 LCD graphic display device. I paid $60 for mine a little over a year ago, it runs on USB, has similar input buttons near the display, but it does full graphics, and a number of nice aplets are already written for it (although far too few). Oh yea, it also happens to include a full illuminated keyboard, multimedia volume knob and mute button, and 18 user definable macro keys (expandable to 54 or more using the 3 "bank" buttons - but unfortnately the newer version of the Logitech G15 reduces this to just 6 user definable buttons). And they throw in a few extra USB ports too. While some people might not want to use a keyboard with their computer, I kind of suspect that most do, and that mounting a full graphic capable similar sized LCD on a Luminated keyboard is a far better way to go for the vast majority of users, and that a $50 price for just an alpha-numeric display is a bit expensive. Too bad they didn't make it Logitech G15 compatible and put it out at a lower price, but I don't see a likely broad use for this gimic when the G15 is still available, even with it's reduced number of fumction keys in the new version.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
it's easy enough to spy on the USB port and get the protocol
Your definition of easy isn't the same as mine!
Amnesty International
I would probably have gone with USBspy because I'm not afraid of commercial software, I just prefer the other kind. I'm sure Sourceforge has something to solve the problem but I'm not actively seeking an answer today so it's better if the grandparent does the rest of this work himself.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
...4x20 was the screensize of your LAPTOP!
I got a working one of those kicking about in my shed, any ideas what I could do with it? besides trying to find replacement rechargable batteries.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
For that price, just buy a Logitech G15. I have one and there are drivers and a variety of software.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Because you could do the same job with a 320x200 USB photo frame for $50, and do it with color images?
Was that not the answer you were looking for?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
In USB parlance, "full speed" means that the device supports 12Mbps transactions. It has no bearing on the throughput the device must sustain. And the 2.0 part is just marketing fluff: any full speed device is compatible with the 2.0 spec by way of legacy support for 1.1. For the record, "high speed" is the official term for 480Mbps USB, not 2.0.
Standards organizations are weird.
I hope this has been helpful.
So helpful was your advice that I travelled back in time and availed myself of Google to make this post.
If you had bothered to Google this you would have seen that cheap, platform independent and real time frames do not exist. They are not real time, they are not platform independent and they are not in the $50 price range.
Do not make a recommendation for a platform independent, real time, $50 USB frame when they do not exist
Then again, the only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself, so I guess it's forgivable that you did not know that real time, platform independent, $50 USB frames do not exist, right?
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Or you could hack a digital picture frame :
http://picframe.spritesserver.nl/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Now *that* could be nice. Full color, tiny screen on the front of the device. Now make a touchscreen out of it and ...