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When everything has been soldered together or plugged-in and the nervs
have not been ruined so far you could
first of all test the display by the help of this
little Freeware Tool.
You could access the tool after unpacking it with the following command
in the DOS prompt area:
lcdprint 378 20 4 lcd.txt
The 378 is indicating the address of LTP 1 Port and can vary, depending
on the BIOS or PC configuration.
You can also look up the address in the hardware manager under
"connections -> LPT X -> properties-> ressources -> E/A area"
and can be changed within the row if necessary.
When everything has done so far the text entered into the lcd.txt will
be shown on the display
and remains on it until the next action is taken.
This program together with the parameters has been copied by me as a linkage
in the autostart menu so that
everytime when the MP3 Player
(german) is activated the start-text will be shown on the display ;-)
By the help of a small batch file you could also deposit additional text.
Concerning the capacity of the display of course there is more to it
than that.
As a main application I use the display for the information on title
length, title name, interpreter etc.
with Winamp Player
plugins in my J-Box
(german).
After dozens of plugins I decided to use 2 somewhat older versions which
are working reliable and are
also very convenient to configure.
The first plugin is called LCDisplayer and is already available in several
versions.
Here you could download the small LCDisplayer
0.59 Plugin, whereby I prefer the version 0.59 towards
the version 1.0.
And after successful adaptation of the LCDisplayer.ini you could display
e.g. the following picture:
You can change the appearance at your will.
The Readme will explain the most important steps easily and you can also
find most of the installations already
explained and prepared in the LCDisplayer.ini.
My second favourite is Lorty’s MP3 Car Plugin which you can download
here as a demo version.
The demo is able to display nearly everything but it is requesting you
in between to register yourself.
To whom it may not disturb is receiving after a short configuration a
multi-rowed graphic equalizer with title and
some other goodies.
You could e.g. configure the Lorty’s MP3 Car Plugin as follows:
The picture looks a little bit blurry because the spectrum is moving
and the music title in the upper row
is scrolling back and forth.
As a little addition for all mainboards with Winbond Chip the display
of CPU-temperature, Vcore and fan speed is
integrated in this tool so that these lucky-ones don’t need any further
programs.
There are also sufficient plugins for the mainboard monitor (MBM in
the download section) in order to display
the temperature, fan speed, velocity or something similar.
I can hardly recommend the following LCDriver
page as there you can find all important driver for MBM and
even for the Windows Mediaplayer, offered free.
Furthermore you will also find Source Codes and VB examples for own programming
of the activation :-)
And the one who would like to build up his LCD display as a real multi
media center should take a view onto the LCDcenter
page as with this program you can find all driver and plugins
reconciled and convenient to configure.
Important !!!
The one who is using Windows 95 or a NT based operating system (e.g. Windows
2000 or Windows XP) needs
the Port95NT driver in order to enable the programs to access to the parallel
port !
There you can also find a very recommandable program called Smartie
where you can display system information,
time and date, mailbox condition and much more :-)
For a first display test it's sufficient to use a DOS boot disk where
you can install the above mentioned test
program and you can start it with the listed parameters in the
prompt area/DOS box.
I wish you much fun and success during installing and reconstructing.
Interesting Casemods with LCD display will of course be welcomed to be
integrated into the Casemod
Gallery !
All pictures and articles are subject to the Copyright 2002 - 2005 of
www.ocinside.de
It is not allowed to use pictures for any purpose without prior written
permission of the webmaster
To my opinion the offered software is freeware/shareware!
If not, the developers or licensees should not hesitate to contact me
by their authorised E-Mail and I will
remove the software immediately from the web pages.
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