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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.
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!
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