[Lcdproc] Newbie Questions

[Ethan Dicks]

On 8/18/07, Peter Marschall <peter@adpm.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wednesday, 15. August 2007 22:03, Jim Dearden wrote:
> > I have a couple of questions regarding my lcdproc setup. I'm using a
> > Matrix Orbital X-Board, (http://www.matrixorbital.ca/products/xboard/) a
> > serial to HD44780 converter. This is hooked up to a 4x20 HD44780 display.

I've seen the X-Board, but don't happen to have one.  My Matrix
Orbital display is a now-ancient 4x20 VFD with keyboard option (which
all works great under recent CVS versions of LCDproc).

> > Under Windows, using LCD Smartie, the board works fine. I'm having
> > problems with it under Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn, on the same system. The
> > symptoms are a lot of flickering on the display, with LCDd running, even
> > before lcdproc is started. It appears that the cursor homing is not
> > working quite right, sometimes the first line is mirrored on the second
> > line.

That sounds a little like the symptoms I was seeing with the Matrix
Orbital driver before I tracked down a minor issue with a single
incorrect command byte sent from LCDd.

> It might as well be that there are subtle differences in the command
> set that make this type of converter differ from the others.

Entirely possible.  When I was tracking down things a few months ago,
I found a variety of brightness, contrast, and backlight commands.
They came in two or three general varieties, at least.

> Unfortunately MO has such an awful lot of display types/series with
> sometimes slightly differing command sets (and even with differing
> command sets between different revisions in a series).

True, unfortunately.

> This makes finding the correct commands for all situations a real chore.

All too true, unfortunately.

> It might be worth trying the current CVS version.
> It contains fixes to the MtxOrb driver for some display types.

Yes.  That was going to be my recommendation, since that's what did it
for my VKD204 display.

If the latest CVS snapshot doesn't do it, I can see about picking up
an X-Board and assembling it.  I have a variety of displays and don't
mind having one more.  At the moment, my two favorite displays are
that Matrix Orbital VKD204 I mentioned, and a 4x40 LCD with a lcd2usb
"backpack" interface.  I've recently switched from a Linux laptop to a
MacBook Pro, so I still need to get a working USB-serial dongle to be
able to go back and use my VKD204.  The lcd2usb is working fine
(through a USB hub) so I don't anticipate a problem trying out an
X-Board.

-ethan