Dear all,
I've been cracking my head for days trying to figure out how to connect couple of components in my HTPC which work separatelly, but can't be tied up together.
I have a regular HD44780 20x4 LCD for which I have created a board with Atmega8 AVR that does in-software translation from USB to 4bit LCD data transfer, using LCD2USB project (LCD2USB - LCD to USB converter).
That combo works like a charm using LCDPROC and lcd4linux on Linux, and also works lovely under windows using LCD Smartie and libusb-win32 driver.
But, to my great dissapointment, MP team decided to go with LCD Hype which has very little support (actually, none) for HD44780 compatible LCDs unless they are connected to a PARALLEL port and is quite old (out of date, can be said).
Now, in this day and time, LPT port is practically dead, and the same fate smiles upon serial (RS232) port - everything goes through USB. To make matters worse, converters you can buy are based on some stupid Prolific chip that uses USB Printing Class under windows and do not provide LPT port emulation - so you can not make LCD Hype use it.
Using PCI card is also cumbersome since I do not quite have enough place in my HTPC case, and even if I had, I might come in a situation to need that PCI slot, while on the other side I have at least 3 USB ports to spare (this is even impossible if using some small custom case/computer, like Shuttle makes).
Since I live in a country where obtaining even "normal" LCDs is hard, not to mention serial or something fancy, and I believe that is the case with many of you, I'm kind of furios that all the development has gone into supporting some fancy-shmancy Crystalthis and Matrixthat and iMon compatibles (which, as I suspect, can only be found in HTPC cases where they are charged at least double their price, not to mention that enormous number of cases do not usually have them/can use them)...
So, I've looked for some MP plugin that would allow me to use LCD Smartie or any other windows LCD software and I've found two from 2006. when they worked with some pre-1 versions of MP, but are totally unusable now.
One is LCD Smarte Plugin and the other is C.All (both can be found under INPUT plugins section).
Since not one of them was working, I started to get annoyed with the fact that MP has changed so much and/or these plugins have not kept up with MP that I even considered developing some driver for LCD Hype that would interconnect with LCD2USB interface.
I even downloaded LCD Hype's SDK but since I'm not windows programmer, I have no idea where to start, especially because I haven't found any simple examples for a beginner.
So, what can I do?
Does anybody have any info, suggestion or aything to help me out?
Maybe somebody is willing to develop further his/her programming skills and write a driver for me and anybody else that might come in this kind of a pickle? Or even rewrite/adjust C.all plugin since the source is given for it (not for Smartie plugin, unfortunatelly)?
Sorry for the long post, but I'm really starting to get crazy 'bout all of this...
I've been cracking my head for days trying to figure out how to connect couple of components in my HTPC which work separatelly, but can't be tied up together.
I have a regular HD44780 20x4 LCD for which I have created a board with Atmega8 AVR that does in-software translation from USB to 4bit LCD data transfer, using LCD2USB project (LCD2USB - LCD to USB converter).
That combo works like a charm using LCDPROC and lcd4linux on Linux, and also works lovely under windows using LCD Smartie and libusb-win32 driver.
But, to my great dissapointment, MP team decided to go with LCD Hype which has very little support (actually, none) for HD44780 compatible LCDs unless they are connected to a PARALLEL port and is quite old (out of date, can be said).
Now, in this day and time, LPT port is practically dead, and the same fate smiles upon serial (RS232) port - everything goes through USB. To make matters worse, converters you can buy are based on some stupid Prolific chip that uses USB Printing Class under windows and do not provide LPT port emulation - so you can not make LCD Hype use it.
Using PCI card is also cumbersome since I do not quite have enough place in my HTPC case, and even if I had, I might come in a situation to need that PCI slot, while on the other side I have at least 3 USB ports to spare (this is even impossible if using some small custom case/computer, like Shuttle makes).
Since I live in a country where obtaining even "normal" LCDs is hard, not to mention serial or something fancy, and I believe that is the case with many of you, I'm kind of furios that all the development has gone into supporting some fancy-shmancy Crystalthis and Matrixthat and iMon compatibles (which, as I suspect, can only be found in HTPC cases where they are charged at least double their price, not to mention that enormous number of cases do not usually have them/can use them)...
So, I've looked for some MP plugin that would allow me to use LCD Smartie or any other windows LCD software and I've found two from 2006. when they worked with some pre-1 versions of MP, but are totally unusable now.
One is LCD Smarte Plugin and the other is C.All (both can be found under INPUT plugins section).
Since not one of them was working, I started to get annoyed with the fact that MP has changed so much and/or these plugins have not kept up with MP that I even considered developing some driver for LCD Hype that would interconnect with LCD2USB interface.
I even downloaded LCD Hype's SDK but since I'm not windows programmer, I have no idea where to start, especially because I haven't found any simple examples for a beginner.
So, what can I do?
Does anybody have any info, suggestion or aything to help me out?
Maybe somebody is willing to develop further his/her programming skills and write a driver for me and anybody else that might come in this kind of a pickle? Or even rewrite/adjust C.all plugin since the source is given for it (not for Smartie plugin, unfortunatelly)?
Sorry for the long post, but I'm really starting to get crazy 'bout all of this...