Stupid question, I'm sure it's in a FAQ but I can't find it.

NotANick · Post by **NotANick** » Fri Aug 17, 2001 11:43 pm

Ok, lloks like I get to post the message here, I'm so excited...

I have a LCD4041 acording to the specs it can have 8 custom characters an a custom startup message. Now I'm not a coder so telling me to use c++ won't help. How does one load those custom chars and startup into the LCD.

Post by **Aniso** » Sat Aug 18, 2001 3:07 pm

Well, there are 4 sets of custom characters that you can load semi-automatically by initializing large digits or bargraphs of different types. These are defined internally in the unit. You could do that initialization with any program that makes use of these functions.

As for other custom characters or your own design, I know of no program that allows you to do this. Even if there were, though, I can't see it being very effective.

It IS possible to create a binary file and redirect it to a comm port under Win9x. I am not sure that the unit would keep up to a full download of all custom caharacters all at once, but it would be close. Maybe split it into two parts with a small delay between them. Basically, this would allow you to have files that you could upload into the LCD with a .bat file.

If you know how to use a hex editor, this would be fairly simple. If you want to try it, I might be able to help.

NotANick · Post by **NotANick** » Sun Aug 19, 2001 7:43 am

Please, sounds like what I'd need.
I only need 1 custom char. So that should make it a bit faster I think..
hmm sounds like you could swapout custom chars depending on the app running.
Sounds interesting.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: NotANick on 2001-08-19 07:45 ]</font>

Post by **Aniso** » Sun Aug 19, 2001 1:39 pm

OK. You are going to have to find yourself 2 people, or be them. 1 who knows how to use a hex editor, and 1 who knows how to set up the MODE command under DOS (I forgot years ago).

Make the hex (AKA binary) file with all the command codes and data you want to send (look in the LCD manual). From the command line, or from a batch file, use a command that looks like "copy myfile.hex >com1" (not sure of the sytax). Before you do that, though, you will need to use MODE to set the comm port to the right baud rate and format (N81). You should also be able to include this in the batch file.

I did this with our modules a couple years back, but I don't remember the details and I sure don't have any docs anymore. Back when DOS had a help command, you could look it up there.

I don't think this will work under NT or W2K.

I hope you can make sense of this and that it helps

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Aniso on 2001-08-19 13:40 ]</font>

NotANick · Post by **NotANick** » Mon Aug 20, 2001 11:02 pm

actually I still use DOS at times, not just MSDos but DRDos as well

That makes a lot of sense to me. thanks.

Post by **Aniso** » Mon Aug 20, 2001 11:51 pm

Great!

DrDOS eh? I had that on a machine about 9 years ago. My first "big" machine. Seems to me it was a 486 40Mhz. Cost something like 5K Canadian... Times sure have changed. I sure do miss stability...

NotANick · Post by **NotANick** » Tue Aug 21, 2001 2:45 pm

Yeah, thats something I'd like to see in Windows. A bit more stability, no more eye candy just make it stable. I seem to remember having my 'old' 486 running DRDos 24/7 for a cpl of months straight and not even a memory leak, seems these days in win98 I'm lucky to get a cpl of days straight then I gotta reboot cause of memory loss or BSOD. *sigh* I guess thats why Unix/Linux still have a very large following

Post by **Henry** » Tue Aug 21, 2001 7:00 pm

On 2001-08-21 14:45, NotANick wrote:
Yeah, thats something I'd like to see in Windows. A bit more stability, no more eye candy just make it stable. I seem to remember having my 'old' 486 running DRDos 24/7 for a cpl of months straight and not even a memory leak, seems these days in win98 I'm lucky to get a cpl of days straight then I gotta reboot cause of memory loss or BSOD. *sigh* I guess thats why Unix/Linux still have a very large following

DAYS, you're a lucky man, I think hours is good

But we do have a server here with close to 1000h of up time...

Post by **linear** » Fri Aug 24, 2001 12:17 pm

That's why FreeBSD is my favorite OS. I had a name server running FreeBSD 2.2 that had over 650 days of uptime. I finally had to take it down to move it to another building, or it would very likely still be up.

My box at my desk has 78days: screenshot