[lcd4linux] Support for QNAP NAS LCD?

[Nathan L. <nt...@po...>]

Greetings,

I have a QNAP TS-439 Pro II+ NAS appliance[1] which sports a
white-on-blue 16x2 character LCD with two buttons ("enter" and
"select").  I haven't been able to determine the manufacturer or
model, but it can be manipulated by writing strings to /dev/ttyS1.
QNAP ships with their firmware some proprietary utilities that drive the
LCD, but I'm running a stock Linux distribution on the system, and I'm
hoping that lcd4linux either supports it or could be made to support it.

Any suggestions for drivers/settings to try?  I've attempted several
drivers (MilfordInstruments MI216, CrystalFontz 626/632/633) without
success.

Clues:
* Running strings(1) on the QNAP binaries shows references to "A78"
  e.g.
  A78_Send_Command(%d)
  A78_Turn_Off_Back_Light()
  A78_Turn_On_Back_Light()
* It's attached to ttyS1 (second serial port) and folks on the QNAP
  forums[2] have reported that the port must be set to 1200 baud and
  it accepts the following commands:
  * Turn on:  echo -e "M^\x1" > /dev/ttyS1
  * Turn off: echo -e "M^\x0" > /dev/ttyS1
  * Write a message to the first line:
    echo -e "M\f\x0 HELLO WORLD 1234" > /dev/ttyS1
  * Write a message to the second line:
    echo -e "M\f\x1 HELLO WORLD 1234" > /dev/ttyS1
* I took a photo of the back of the LCD and posted it here:
  http://i.imgur.com/5lmbl.jpg
* Here is a large (3.5MB) photo of the front of the unit:
  http://files.qnap.com/news/pressresource/product/TS-439ProII+09.png


Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Nathan


[1] http://qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=179
[2] http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=147&t=41752