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riddler

Member

Registered: 2004-10-07

Posts: 28

LCD-Display support on parallel-port

Hi there!
Yesterday I built an LCD-Display, that means I solded (? is that right) alle the wires and stuff.
I got it right on the parallel-port and it gets its power from one usb slot. But I dont know what is the device name of the parallel-port, so I can't use it. So if somebody knows?

It would be very nice if also somebody could tell me which driver to use for my default noname 20x4 display, would be nice.

And please excuse my terrible english, it's kind of good, but not if I have to speak about something technical

i3839

Member

Registered: 2004-02-04

Posts: 1,185

Re: LCD-Display support on parallel-port

After loading the parport_pc, parport and lp modules, you should be able to use /dev/lp0. At least, for printers and stuff, no idea if your lcd will work or not. In the worst case you need to write your own driver (if after googling you didn't find one).

riddler

Member

Registered: 2004-10-07

Posts: 28

Re: LCD-Display support on parallel-port

Ok thank you very much, works fine now.

Some little How To for people with the same problem:

first build that whole thing and put it on you computer (that should be obvious).
after that download a copy of lcdproc ( http://lcdproc.sourceforge.net ) and compile it (you don't have to do make install, if you want to start it from the  directory you compiled it in). if did make install, so I had a file /etc/LCDd.conf

If you have some default display, which is not supported by a seperate driver , you should use the HD44780. you have to uncomment the line "#Driver=HD44780" in the [server]-section. now scroll down to the [HD44780]-section and configure everything as you like it, but make sure that you set "ConnectionType" to "winamp" (yes, winamp ).
after you did this save the changes and close that file.
now you're able to use your display. I prepared two scripts for easier use.

first that script for starting the lcdproc-server (you maybe have to change the paths). I also added all the modules you need to load.

modprobe parport
modprobe parport_pc
modprobe lp
cd /home/riddler/src/lcdproc-0.4.5;
./server/LCDd -c /etc/LCDd.conf &

the task should be started and you can cancel the program output by pressing ctrl+c. at last we will start the client, so that we can see something interesting on our display. here another script:

cd /usr/local/bin;
./lcdproc C M U O A &

the C M U O A are speacial parameters of the client, just do ./lcdproc -h to see what they mean.

I hope I could help.

@i3839: thank you btw.