Not sure if this is the right area or not, but here I go.
I have a caller ID box (an Infoglobe) that I want to use as an LCD. Looking around, it would appear that LCDSmartie is my best bet. I know I can wire an RJ11 into my seriel port, and LCDCutie can communicate with that port, but then my questions start.
The display is a 1x35, and to controll it, you first have to get through the caller ID functions. I was hoping to fool the caller id portion by having LCDCutie send the messages to the device in the same format that CLID formats its info in. It moves at 1200 baud, so that's not a problem (I know the program can do that).
A standard CLID packets it's info like this:
Start Bit
Type of Message
Length of message
actual message
end bit
parity bit
Not I just need to figure out just how to do it.
Here's a link to what info I've found so far. http://www.linux-hacker.net/InfoGlobe/
Any idea if this is possible?
Our new official repo is on github
LCD Smartie version 5.6 is released!
Download it now: https://github.com/LCD-Smartie/LCDSmartie/releases
LCD Smartie version 5.6 is released!
Download it now: https://github.com/LCD-Smartie/LCDSmartie/releases
Caller ID Screen
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ReverseEngineered
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In order to do what you are suggesting, the computer serial port would have to be able to output the CLID format. However, even though the bitrate is the same as a regular COM port, the format is not. Regular serial looks like this:
- Start Bit
- 5-8 data bits
- (optional) parity bit
- 1, 1.5, or 2 stop bits
It is impossible to send any more than this at a time, and you definitely can't increase the number of bits between the start and stop bits beyond 9 (this is directly a hardware limitation). Also, I doubt that CLID uses the same -/+12V signal that RS232 uses. These are entirely different communication protocols.
Besides this problem, there's still the issue of the display format. Even if you did send it CLID messages, you would be very limited in what you could do with them. You would always have a short name portion, a time (which would have to be numeric-only), and they would pile up in the internal memory. You certainly couldn't send data at it--even in the right format--and expect it to behave like an LCD.
So, enough of the bad news. How about some good news.
Reading that "Hacking The Infoglobe" page you linked, it is quite possible to control the spinning display yourself. However, there are some limitations. It uses an IR interface to do this, which again does not match the serial formats coming out of the COM port. This means one would have to program a microcontroller to read from the COM port and send the information over IR in the format the display expects. Also, there are several important characters which is does not support (since it wasn't necessary for its original purpose). But nonetheless, it could be done. It's certainly a lot more work than you were hoping (and probably beyond the abilities of most hobbyists to throw together), but it is possible.
If you feel like undertaking a project like this, I can throw some information out that you would need. I have built my own learning IR remote control, and that required sending and receiving almost every IR language known to man. My code is all in assembly (and hard to follow), so reading it wouldn't help much, but I can give you pointers on where to find the parts you need and what they need to do.
Overall, I have two possible suggestions for you (other than, "Forget about it.") Firstly, you could grab a microcontroller, a MAX232, and an IR LED, and make a simple adapter that would read from the COM port and output the expected IR signals (bypassing the electronics which handle all the CLID stuff). This might be difficult, but is doable. If you do this, I recommend that you should program the micro to accept codes over serial that either emulate the Matrix Orbital or CrystalFontz LCDs. These are already supported by LCDSmartie, so emulating them would allow your new display to be used by LCDSmartie (or almost any other LCD program).
Secondly, there were several projects made years before the Infoglobe was conceived that involved actually building these rotating displays. Several people have given them the ability to receive display data over IR. I was working on one of these before, but have put it to the bottom of the pile due to lack of time and equipment. The advantage of this would be that you could make it whatever size and resolution you want, and you would be able to use your own character set which would completely support the entire character set normally used on LCD modules.
All in all, this is not an LCDSmartie problem, but rather a hardware interfacing problem. Simply connecting a COM port to the RJ11 connector won't work, regardless of what data you send to the COM port. Instead, some other means is necessary of converting the serial data from LCDSmartie and directly feeding this to the rotating display of the Infoglobe. Best of luck on that!
- Start Bit
- 5-8 data bits
- (optional) parity bit
- 1, 1.5, or 2 stop bits
It is impossible to send any more than this at a time, and you definitely can't increase the number of bits between the start and stop bits beyond 9 (this is directly a hardware limitation). Also, I doubt that CLID uses the same -/+12V signal that RS232 uses. These are entirely different communication protocols.
Besides this problem, there's still the issue of the display format. Even if you did send it CLID messages, you would be very limited in what you could do with them. You would always have a short name portion, a time (which would have to be numeric-only), and they would pile up in the internal memory. You certainly couldn't send data at it--even in the right format--and expect it to behave like an LCD.
So, enough of the bad news. How about some good news.
Reading that "Hacking The Infoglobe" page you linked, it is quite possible to control the spinning display yourself. However, there are some limitations. It uses an IR interface to do this, which again does not match the serial formats coming out of the COM port. This means one would have to program a microcontroller to read from the COM port and send the information over IR in the format the display expects. Also, there are several important characters which is does not support (since it wasn't necessary for its original purpose). But nonetheless, it could be done. It's certainly a lot more work than you were hoping (and probably beyond the abilities of most hobbyists to throw together), but it is possible.If you feel like undertaking a project like this, I can throw some information out that you would need. I have built my own learning IR remote control, and that required sending and receiving almost every IR language known to man.
My code is all in assembly (and hard to follow), so reading it wouldn't help much, but I can give you pointers on where to find the parts you need and what they need to do.Overall, I have two possible suggestions for you (other than, "Forget about it.") Firstly, you could grab a microcontroller, a MAX232, and an IR LED, and make a simple adapter that would read from the COM port and output the expected IR signals (bypassing the electronics which handle all the CLID stuff). This might be difficult, but is doable. If you do this, I recommend that you should program the micro to accept codes over serial that either emulate the Matrix Orbital or CrystalFontz LCDs. These are already supported by LCDSmartie, so emulating them would allow your new display to be used by LCDSmartie (or almost any other LCD program).
Secondly, there were several projects made years before the Infoglobe was conceived that involved actually building these rotating displays. Several people have given them the ability to receive display data over IR. I was working on one of these before, but have put it to the bottom of the pile due to lack of time and equipment. The advantage of this would be that you could make it whatever size and resolution you want, and you would be able to use your own character set which would completely support the entire character set normally used on LCD modules.
All in all, this is not an LCDSmartie problem, but rather a hardware interfacing problem. Simply connecting a COM port to the RJ11 connector won't work, regardless of what data you send to the COM port. Instead, some other means is necessary of converting the serial data from LCDSmartie and directly feeding this to the rotating display of the Infoglobe. Best of luck on that!