[Lcdproc] Re: Cobalt Raq 3 and 4 LCD Garbage text usually but occasionally clear.

[David W Studeman]

David W Studeman wrote:

> David W Studeman wrote:
> 
>>  Hello folks. As I mentioned in a previous post. I am working on a
>>  project
>> that uses the IPCop firewall distribution to convert old Raq3 and 4i and
>> r models to a firewall rather than a server. The Axent Velociraptors
>> which later became Symantec Velociraptors at least up through model 1100
>> were also based on this hardware platform we call Raq Gen III. As some of
>> you know,these units have a HD44780 compatible KS0066U chip feeding a
>> 16x2 character lcd display with 5x8 dots per character.
>>  I searched the web and did find a hd44780-cobalt lcdproc driver written
>>  by
>> Duncan Laurie back in 2004 and a patch to patch with. Duncan was one of
>> the original Cobalt LCD and utility folks, programmer or developer, I'm
>> not sure. I did get it to compile after running autogen after patching
>> it. The only error I had originally was in hd44780-cobalt.c where no
>> argument was given at common_init(p); I later changed that to
>> common_init(p, IF_8BIT); and it compiled. It is on line 63. Anyway, it
>> compiles and it loads using the cobalt option rather than winamp etc. It
>> doesn't clear the garbage though. I've delayed the multi all the way up
>> to 125 where it paints it so slow it fades in and also played with other
>> parameters. I have had occasional clearness of text but not this weekend
>> yet.
>>  IPCop is based on LFS and the encoding is unicode as near as I can tell.
>> Patching the kernel to run IPCop on the Raq units was the easy part. And
>> for lcdproc I simply do not compile the embedded cobalt lcd driver into
>> the kernel itself as all the cobalt drivers are there and then it frees
>> the parallel port for lcdproc. I made a developer version of IPCop by
>> compiling it myself and leaving the build environment intact so I can
>> compile and install in the raq unit itself and uninstall, build again and
>> so forth with ease.
>>  I'm curious as to why this was heavily discussed 4 years ago or so and
>>  then
>> it got quiet with almost no mention of lcdproc on a cobalt raq since.
>> Duncan gpl'ed what he had and luckily a mirror of his old iceblink.org
>> still exists so I have the code. They are attached here, the diff is
>> obviously outdated although I did hack it a bit. There's really only
>> three files that need editing anyway plus dropping the two driver sources
>> in /server/drivers.
>>  Sorry my posts are so freaking long, Thanks for your time!
>> 
>> Dave
> 
> I also found that the actual lcd assembly itself is a Goldentek GC-1602
> unit in these Gen III Cobalt Raq units. This is the closest datasheet I
> could find.
>
http://www.goldentek.com/english/pdf/Dongguan/GC1602A0/GC1602A0SBL1B%20.pdf
> 
>  Dave

I have the module in my hand and it only uses 14 of the 16 possible pins on
the connector pad with these units.

Dave