Pico LCD

steve holmes's picture

I came across these today http://www.mini-box.com/PicoLCD-4X20-Sideshow and would love to utilize these in a couple of installations I am running. So the question I have is if there are no drivers for the device but there are Linux drivers, now complicated is it to port this to OS X. If this is a stupid question that is similar to "how long is a piece of string" question then I apologies but I love these displays and the hot keys.

Cheers Steve

cwright's picture
Re: Pico LCD

porting could be very difficult, or very easy -- I'm not familiar with the USB-side of IOKit (if that even exists -- Bluetooth stuff can have user-land drivers, maybe USB can too?)

If you've got a test device and a reasonable budget, we can try to port this and get you up and running (ideally, after april, since we're likely double-booked for the next 6 weeks...)

andygui's picture
Re: Pico LCD

I have created a kext for the PicoLCD 4x20 device so that libusb-based applications can talk to it under OSX 10.5 (I also submitted the patches to get this device working on FreeBSD). You can find my work on this at http://bling.properkernel.com/picolcd/ . Simply follow the instructions to get the kext installed then fire up a copy of lcdproc and you'll get immediate results.

Have a great day! :)

steve holmes's picture
Re: Pico LCD

This is great news Andy, I have just a quick question what would I need to do to make this work in quartz composer as the buttons and the LCD would be really useful. Cheers Steve

andygui's picture
Re: Pico LCD

From the interface that my kernel extension provides, a software connector that is libusb-aware, knows the LCD's native protocol and can call QC APIs is required. Luckily, there are open-source projects that have support for the PicoLCD 4X20 and their code can be used as the basis of any endeavors. LCDproc is GPL'ed so you may think twice before using it for anything more than understanding the device's protocol (Unless you wish to release your project under the GPL too, that is). I would offer to help you with the integration, but I have never programmed for QC. If there's enough interest, I may just opt to learn QC... :) Cheers, Andy

steve holmes's picture
Re: Pico LCD

Thanks for that Andy I will have to get one of these and start experimenting. Cheers for the help. Steve