[Lcd4linux-devel] Re: lcd4linux Noritake GUI128X32-311 - I got it working !

[Julien A. <ja...@ni...>]

Hello, 

I just want to tell you that I finally got my Noritake 
GU128x32-311 working ! 

It is used as a text-mode display by now, even if it's a graphical
display (The display itself has 2 modes: one text and one graphic).
The problem with the graphic mode are, first, I'm worried about the
bandwidth needed on the parallel port to refresh all the display,
and also, the microcontroller uses a very very weird way to pack the
data, and I could not find (yet) an efficient way to do it in C.

Also, I did not put the "bars" widget support on this version, I will do
it quickly through.

There is still a few bugs on this version, because my test computer is a
network appliance. It has the following problems : 

- The power supply is weak, so the voltage of the lines are not stable
(I take the power fro the computer, and the display use ~1Amp fully
lighted)

- There is no TSC inside the MediaGX processor : Linux rely on a less
accurate timer, and it is sensitive to the load of the machine. 
(I measured that with an oscilloscope)

The consequences is that, sometime, some characters are wrong, misplaced
or not present. I plan to correct that.

Anyway, I'm ready for inclusion into the CVS, as a beta version.

The only think that make me hesitate is that I don't know how to
*exactly* modify these #%!$#!@ autoconf/automake files in the CVS, to
avoid messing up everything. 
On my own repository I have made some scripts and stuff to not use them,
but for inclusion it will become necessary.

Michael, would it be possible for you to update the README.driver to
explain that as much as you can ? I don't want to mess up the
repository. Thanks ! 

Anybody that have such a display, and the cable from this schematics:
http://liquid-mp3.schijf.org/schematics/noritake_gu128x32-311.gif
is welcome to try and send feedbacks.


Next projects in the pipeline : 
- A driver for a SED1335 on USB display
  [ a so-called cPad on a Toshiba laptop, see 
http://www.janerob.com/rob/ts5100/cPad/index.shtml ]
- A driver for a framebuffer display, because I want to map any
graphical display on a framebuffer, if the bandwidth to the display is 
sufficent.

Cheers ! 

OB




On Sat, 2005-04-23 at 21:18, fr...@gu... wrote:
> > > I'll start the tests in windows as soon as I can, and if/when I get it
> > > to work there I'll get back to you ....
> > but, at least, it was useful to verify that the wiring was correct and
> > the display answered.
> 
> It works like a charm, I grabbed the latest alpha and simply renamed the corresponding noritake311 xml file to liquid-mp3.xml and got it to work instantly.
>  
> > I have much more time now to work on the driver for the noritake, count
> > 1 or 2 weeks at most before I can push a beta to the CVS.
> 
> No rush here, I still have to figure out to make this thing fit my HTPC box, in worst case I'll have to unsolder all the 198 connectors between the PCB and the VFD, to attach extra cables in between :D
> 
> > Do you have any programming experience ?
> 
> None really worth mentioning, I've been working with C, but I've never really done any advanced programming in it, and when it comes to C++ I'm totally lost :D
> 
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