Inexpensive USB LCD With Linux Drivers For LCDproc 121
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."
Homebrew angle. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [shopeio.com]
Instructable on doing a character lcd [instructables.com]
and for the lazy among you,
Google search for "character lcd hd44780" [google.com]
Grab your soldering irons and have some homebrew fun! It isn't that hard at all!
What Linux Device? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Zero-click information retrieval (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Electronics kits for the digital generation! Microcontroller, LCD, gcc compiler, and more. [nerdkits.com]
Re:Zero-click information retrieval (Score:4, Interesting)
I just wish we'd go back to a bios-based LCD, for when the screen won't work, the ram won't load in, or something similar. A way to indicate a crash without using beeps... Some environments are so noisy it's just not possible to distiguish some combinations.
Logitech G15 anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:!cheap (Score:3, Interesting)
What I wanted to say as well, $50 at this date for something that shitty is expensive as hell, you get a replacement touchscreen LCD for the DS for like 3.5 dollar or something, and that one is 18 bit 256x192. Who cares about text on LCDs of today? You can probably get that Logitech keyboard with display for that price and use that instead ...
Re:!cheap (Score:2, Interesting)
This LCD has 4x20x8x5 = 3200 pixels
That's over $15 per 1k pixels
Standard color LCD 1024*800 = 819200 pixels
That's less than $0.1 per 1k pixels
So you pay x150 more for those pixels without color just to have a few buttons ?
Not cheap enough for sure !