stryd_one Posted June 25, 2006 Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 Hi guys... I'm not sure about where you guys live, but I'm finding that 2x40 LCD's are not nearly as widely available and that 2x20's are cheaper, more popular, and so there are more different types available (like the PLED displays wilba posted). eBay is a good example - 2x16, 2x20 and 4x20 LCDs are cheap and widespread and varied... But 2x40's are slim pickings.It should be possible to alter the driver and use the core J5 pins on the LCD WE lines, so that we could use 4 2x20 LCD's in place of 2 2x40's. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Maybe for SEQv3? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilba Posted June 25, 2006 Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 I think this was already proposed by someone and TK said it was a lot of programming effort.MIOS can handle two displays nicely (just add 0x80 to cursor position to write to second display), but more than two involves a lot of MIOS_LCD_TypeSet calls sprinkled everywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK. Posted June 25, 2006 Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 See this answer http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=7006.msg45321#msg45321For somebody with programming experiences, it should be very easy to setup a compatible custom driver for 4 2x20 LCDs within 1 hour... but it can only be programmed by somebody who has build the appr. hardware...Best Regards, Thorsten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted June 25, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 Thanks TK, I think I might do this when the hardware is all ready :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docbrown Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 but I'm finding that 2x40 LCD's are not nearly as widely availableI hear you brotha.. I am in the same situation just like you. The only thing that I can find is from B.G. Micro, which requires a negative voltage. The rest is either to expensive ($30 each) or low quality.docbrown.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted June 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 I'm glad it's not just me then :)Honestly I wonder why this hasn't been suggested earlier... As you say, 4x20's are expensive or junk but rarely cheap and nice looking... I thought I would make this post and heaps of people would come back and say "great idea!!"......Guess not ;)Well, it might be some time before I have the hardware built up to a stage where I can test this, but if you want to do it, then I will write the driver for you, if you are willing to do the testing for me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docbrown Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 I thought I would make this post and heaps of people would come back and say "great idea!!"......Guess not ;)Actually, I think its a great idea, but it depends if it is compatible with MBSEQv3? Any thoughts TK?thanks.. docbrown.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted June 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 The idea I was thinking of would be to make the driver transparent to the system, so the application would not have any difference in addressing a 4x40 or 2x 2x20. Basically it would take a 2x40's addressing, which would be out of range, and shift the addressing to be within range of a 2x20, and switch the enable lines, before sending the data.This shouldn't be a problem unless the seq is directly driving the display pins in it's code, although TK is obviously not planning on building support for optional displays into the firmware, so it may take some modifications for eg to seq_lcd.inc. Of course this is all an assumption and may be wrong, because v3 is still Top Secret :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK. Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 You only need to create a new app_lcd.inc (custom LCD driver) file, and you need to select this display type from USER_Init. Other changes are not required, and the app_lcd.inc will be compatible to all MIOS based applications (even to C based applications)The statement, that it is difficult to adapt an existing software, is not true for applications which already provide exactly the number of characters and lines (e.g. for MBSEQ: 2 * 80 characters) you are trying to partitionate over multiple displays (e.g. 2 * 2x40 or 4 * 2x20 LCDs)It's difficult for applications which only provide a specific display layout (e.g. 2x16 or like MBSEQ V3: 2x80), since you have to plan new display pages, you have to understand how and where to modify the display routines, you need to know where the firmware stores the informations, etc... don't mix these requirements...Hope that it's now clear enough.Best Regards, Thorsten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK. Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 Here another preview from the MBSEQ V3 display layout - the track direction page:In comparison to the old 2x16 display layout:the new one allows to select the track direction mode directly with the general purpose buttons, which is much better when you want to select a different direction during live playing. The drawback is of course, that I had to change the menu code in a way, which makes it incompatible to smaller displays... however, no problem for all MBSEQ V2 builders I know so far, because all of them have used two 2x40 LCDsBest Regards, Thorsten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryd_one Posted June 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2006 :o :D ;D :P :-* :-* :-* Oh TK you are such a tease!!!!!! ;DProgression parameters?... The mind boggles :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.