What's the best way to go?

[DJRobX]

Hi everyone,

I've finally finished building my case and I'm now at the point where I'm getting ready to start programming my 4 line character VFD. I apologize in advance if I'm asking questions that are already asked or discussed.

Reading through the posts here, I see there are several "host" applications like LCDriver and LCDC. Using those things would make life pretty easy for interfacing with popular programs like WinAmp or a DVD player as a lot of people are using pre-written modules with those apps.

BUT - I really want to be able to fully utilize what my 4 line character VFD is capable of. I want to be able to do things like large lettering (with the custom "fonts") like the VFD demo. Do LCDC or LCDriver support those things?

I'm *VERY* comfortable interfacing directly to the serial port. Your API document is very well written and easy to understand. The concept of making special "tile" characters to make larger ones or other "Graphics" makes sense and I've done stuff like that before. Is there source code to the VFD demo available? I could the do same things with the custom characters on my own, of course, but I'd prefer not to re-invent the wheel if at all possible. I see that the BIOS has some built in support for large digits, but the VFD demo has some even nicer stuff that I'd like to tap into.

Or is this same sort of stuff already supported by one of these "host" applications?

Thanks in advance!
-- Rob

[Henry]

The VFD demo makes the large digits on the fly. It doesn't use our built in ones. It's a matter of sitting down and making the paterns... the problem with LCD apps is generaly you can only run one at a time. LCDriver 2.0 will have the ability for multiple apps at once, as well you can lok into using LCDC as the primary program and make a plugin for it.

I do not have the source for the VFD program, we didn't write it. But in this forum you will find tons of examples. If you require something specific some one will be able to help you out.


_________________
Henry J.
Technical Support
Matrix Orbital

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Henry on 2002-03-31 18:49 ]</font>

[DJRobX]

I see that most of the real dirty work of creating those fonts is available in the BIGDISPL.DAT file - It's just an ASCII file with the character position data for every leter in the character set. So it seems I can go that route pretty easily. I could also easily grab the custom VFD character definitions by looping the output of VFDTest to the PC and capturing the output when you click "Load".

I guess my main question with LCDriver/LCDC is, do those APIs give you enough control over the display such that you can write a plugin that defines custom characters? (Is there a pass through command, maybe?) Or should I just focus on writing my own app? I'm gonna do stuff like scroll large letters accross the display.

-- Rob