Looking for something but no idea what

[wilykat]

I am trying to customize my large computer and I wanted to put a small panel on the front. I wanted something that would display the current time and count down timer similar to the one used in the movie War Games. Here's a page that has the picture: http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/23/movi ... -wargames/

I could get a 4*20 display but the ones I can find are all the wrong color (such as dark blue back with white front). I think I need one that is EL backlighted with black front. Oh why don't anyone make 8*20 when there are 4*40?

A VFD would also work if it had solid light-blue background but all the ones I've seen aren't like this. They always had gap between character block and wouldn't be capable of all solid lighted back.

So any idea what to get? Maximum display width would be 5" as it'd need to fit in an existing CD drive bay. Also assuming I do find a suitable display, how would I set it up with the moving square block on top and bottom like the movie? Getting the clock displayed should be easy with LCDSmartie.

TIA for any help you can offer.

[wilykat]

Alternative: a small LCD display (such as an old portable TV) would work if I can find mono display and change the background light to blue. But how to drive the display? Modern computer don't have anything lower than HDMI for TV, and small LCD often only have composite input

[gorlik]

what about something like this?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/84x48-Nokia-511 ... 27ba71cd8c

I don't think it's currently supported by lcdsmartie but should not be too difficult to write a lpt driver for it.