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Date:      Tue, 7 Nov 2000 01:49:32 +0800
From:      Shaun Dwyer <sldwyer@bigpond.com>
To:        freebsd-hardware@FREEBSD.ORG
Subject:   Parallel LCD support
Message-ID:  <00110701501104.01538@neptune.ctnet.org.au>

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Hi everyone...

First of all, as I am not subscribed to the mailing lists, please email me
directly (sldwyer@bigpond.com)

Right.. down to business...

I have just put together an mp3 playing machine to stick in the boot of my car.

Presently, it runs Linux, but I would love to 'upgrade' to FreeBSD :-)

Really, the only thing stopping me is the lack of a driver for a HD44780 
LCD display (runs off a parallel port) similar to Michael Selivanov's driver.
(available from: http://www4.infi.net/~cpinkham/cajun/code/lcd-0.2c.tar.gz).

The software used for control is Cajun (http://cajun.sourceforge.net).
It is all written in perl, so i'm sure even I could get it running on FreeBSD.

Michael's Driver emulates a Matrix-Orbital LCD display (an overly expensive
serial LCD display), and provides a /dev/lcd which Cajun can talk to quite
easily.


I had a look in /usr/src/share/examples/ppi/ppilcd.c
It appears to be something capable of talking to a HD44780 display, however, I
was unable to compile it. make generated a pile of errors and bombed out.


I would be most greatful if some one would port Michael's Driver, or provide
some form of 'driver' that works that I can use. Unfortunately, I am unable to
code in C, otherwise I would do it myself. I want to learn some C in the near
future... but time is against me. I'll have to wait untill the TEE is over (in
Australia thats the final High-school exams).


One of the _many_ reasons I want to use FreeBSD over linux for this is because
I am having stability problems with Linux. Its not as though I'm running cheap
hardware either. Asus P55T2P4 motherboard, P200, Adaptec 1542CF (yes, slow ISA
scsi card... but its stable under FreeBSD and works well), Vibra16 soundcard,
Dec Tulip chipset nic, etc etc.

another reason is i know FreeBSD like the back of my hand. I can do just about
anything in it, where as Linux is a hell of a lot harder. Its much more
dificult to set up, and the kernel... I want to throttle some one every time I
have to rebuild one.

Any way, I'm rambling on a bit now... so I think I will stop :-)

Thanks in advance to any one who wants to help.


Shaun



-- 
----------------------
Shaun Dwyer
sldwyer@bigpond.com
Zeus@quakeclan.net
----------------------


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