[lcd4linux] Keyboard with built-in LCD, or similar

[Phil E. <spa...@ch...>]

Dear LCD Experts,

I've recently bought myself a Linksys NSLU2, which is a tiny cheap box 
with an ARM processor, ethernet port and two USB ports, running Linux. 
There are lots of geeky things that they can be used for (see 
http://nslu2-linux.org); mine is currently being a print server.

Not having a display is a bit of a problem sometimes.  For example it 
would be useful to display the print queue or any error messages.  For 
this application, one of those drive-bay-size displays with up/down 
buttons would be good, especially if it had a self-contained enclosure 
and the software already existed.  Has anyone done anything like this? 
Can you recommend any particular (cheap) display with a USB interface, 
available in the UK?

I was also thinking of a more general-purpose solution - a compact 
keyboard with a built-in LCD display, maybe 4x40 characters or so. 
Ideally it would have a USB interface that appears like a serial 
terminal with VT100 emulation.  I can imagine such a thing being useful 
for other situations too, for example maintaining rack-mount systems 
without the expense of one of those drawer-mounted LCD panels.  The only 
thing that Google finds is a Logitech gamers' keyboard (the G15) which 
has an LCD to display scores on.  It's not exactly what I had in mind.

I'm sure some of you have thought about this sort of thing before - any 
suggestions?

Cheers,

--Phil.