Beginners guide to C# and .NET Micro Framework - LCD reference

The 128x128 LCD on page 98 and the carrier board on page 99 refer to products that SparkFun does not currenly offer. This may change in future if they find a supplier.

May be the manual can be updated to point to another LCD ?

We are discussing providing an LCD option for FEZ Domino/Mini. We are seeing a lot of interest in displays on those small devices. With the understanding that the display will be small and not color, something that fits the small FEZ’s applications.

Sweet.

How was the performance of the 128x128 LED with USBizi ?

Was not satisfying enough. The display was not a good choice for FEZ domino/mini so we need the right display for the job. Note that a color display will defiantly work but GHI doesn’t officially support a feature if it is not “professional/commercial grade”…FEZ maybe used by hobbyists but the goal is to provide a top notch support (unlike the many poor devices out there:) )
This is why we want GHI (the experts) to look into good options for users and provide optimized drivers to give best possible performance.

This is just “talks” as of now so we are not sure where this may go.

This may sound like an over kill but :

What if the display was managed by a slave USBizi chip ? Put all the graphics functions, (geometry, bitmap, fonts, icons) on that and communicate with the FEZ over SPI.

A “FEZ GPU” if you will. It sure will drive the cost but provide a way for some really rich miniature applications.

Look at the 4D Systems, Picaso for ideas :slight_smile:

Another USBizi probably wouldn’t be a good chip to use for this, I’m sure there is a chip specifically designed for this sort of use. Would probably reduce the cost of the device, too.

Chris

Please do point me at something that would be the best fit. I have an idea that needs something like that.

TIA.

-Rajesh

A bad idea! Look at the price of the 4D displays you pointed out. For that price you can use a 4.3" color TFT display with cobra, which is a million times better than 4D.
This is the result of trying to force making things work in the wrong place.

Small systems (FEZ Domino/Mini) should use black and white and low resolution (maybe 128x64) displays. For larger color displays, there are system that are made to handle the graphics needs, like FEZ Cobra.

There are no chips out there to handle displays and if there is then I do not recommend you even try them!

It is very simple, for large color TFT displays, use FEZ Cobra. If cost is an issue then use FEZ Domino/Mini with displays like this one http://www.newhavendisplay.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3_114&products_id=660

What about this type of display?

Also use SPI and have their own display ram, so no refresh is needed

http://www.shop-en.display3000.com/color-tft-only-no-c/21-tft-only/21-color-tft-with-displaycontroller-and-booster.html

It is SPI so you can transfer data fast to it but the catch is the need for video buffer.
176x132 = 23KB of RAM. Do you really want to lose over half your available memory to use a VERY small 2.1" display?

EMX has 16000KB of RAM and this is why EMX (FEZ Cobra) is the right option for graphics if you are using color displays