Many embedded systems operate in a “headless” manner — that is, they don't include a video monitor and keyboard for user input/output access. However, many such systems can take advantage of small, low power, and inexpensive character or dot-matrix LCD displays to display simple system information. In this article at linuxfocus.org, Guido Socher, shows how to interface an embedded Linux system with a serially accessed LCD display such BLC2021 PC-Bay Insert from Matrix Orbital. Socher writes . . .

“With some hobby building skills you can use you can use your old PC to build an MP3 player for your living room or to control the central heating in the house or just use it as an intranet server. The [applications] are probably manifold. In all of these cases it would be nice to have the computer inside a small metal box without a big monitor and keyboard around. Instead you would like to have a small LCD display which shows the title of the current song on the MP3 player, the temperature for your heating control system or the status of your server.”

“The LCD displays form matrix-orbital are ideal for such applications.”

“LCDs and computer electronic in general are rather sensitive things. Connecting an LCD display backward to power supplies or to too high voltage can easily destroy the display. We present in this article the BLC2021 serial line PC bay insert because it is very easy to install and comes with all the cables needed to plug it into your computer. All you need to install the BLC2021 is a small screw driver. With the ready made cables and connectors that come with the BLC2021 there is not much that can go wrong.”

Read full story

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.