s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
With the popularity of pen based computing the desktop interface we have come to know and use for the past 20 years is going to change. How it's going to change? I don't know but it looks like some of these researchers think they do know. Take a look at these videos on youtube and also the screenshots of looking glass.
s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
Well I finally put up a new poll. Nobody has posted anything on the forum in quite a while. I wanted to get some feedback on what visitors to the site would want to see more of. It only takes a second to vote, please do, it will make me happy and when I'm happy I post more stuff, thus the number of votes is almost directly proportional to the number and frequency of posts. Or you can not...
That's it, more stuff to come this weekend, I promise
Update: Sept 3rd.
I was wondering why there were no votes on the poll as it is the main way I determine the traffic and direction of the site. I was testing things and found that the vote script wasn't even there...oops. It's fixed now. :-)
s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
ZeWrestler passed on the link to the LCD overhead article to a friend of his. Seems like his friend is quite a big DIY home theater person and is building a projector from http://lumenlab.com/ . Lumenlab is a small business providing parts and information for those looking to build a home theater projector. If you want to build a quality projector you should take some time to check out this site. What makes the overhead LCD projector work is the light source, the lens on the overhead body and the lens on the arm. If you are going to make one of these yourself you are going to need to collect all these parts. Some surplus stores either real or online might be a source of some cheap parts, but for the real quality lenses and stuff, take a look at lumenlab.com
s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
Have a old LCD? Can you get your hands on an overhead projector? Graft them together and make a LCD projector on the cheap!
From the main article: "LCD:
The donor LCD was a 15inch Sony LCD native resolution of 1024x768. The unit worked fine when I got it, which is what got me thinking of doing this.
Overhead:
The overhead is a $10 bargain I picked up today from the University surplus store."
s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
What do you get with a friend's old LCD, a $10 overhead from a surplus store and a little time? An LCD projector of course!
I've been patiently awaiting the day when I acquired an LCD and found a cheap enough overhead to make one of these. Hack247 ( http://www.hack247.co.uk ) has a bunch of LCD projectors people have hacked together in their spare time. Finally I can say I have one too.
LCD:
The donor LCD was a 15inch Sony LCD native resolution of 1024x768. The unit worked fine when I got it, which is what got me thinking of doing this.
Overhead:
The overhead is a $10 bargain I picked up today from the University surplus store. It was marked at $40 but I wasn't going to pay that. This is where it doesn't hurt to talk to the people working there. I asked the guy at the desk if they had any broken overheads since the vertical arm has most of the important stuff anyway (Lens, Mirror, focus, etc). After the guy looked at me like "Why in the hell would you want a broken one?" he took a look around, didn't find anything, pointed to one of the oldest ones and said "10 bucks, it's yours". When dealing with non-technical people who don't know what they have, always act like it's just something trivial, like a stage prop or something. If you walk in and say "Ooooo, oooooo, how much, how much" before you can say "how much" again it will be $50.
This is getting long, I will make another post about how it goes together. Later!
Note: I am not claiming that I was the first to do this. My inspiration came from years of seeing these pop up on hardware site across the net, and more reciently Hack247 http://hack247.co.uk . I am also not going to claim I have the best projector...I don't...not by a long shot. The one thing I do claim is that for $10 I can watch movies on the wall of my apartment, which is enough for me, lol.
s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
Well I took and uploaded some pictures of the CPLD the traffic controller is loaded onto. The main board is the Xilinx CoolRunnerII development board. This development board also has the XC9500XL low power chip from Xilinx on it...two chips for the price of one...cool.
The board attached at the bottom of the development board is the Digilent DIO1 board. Digilent ( http://www.digilentinc.com ) makes boards and cards for a number of companies including Xilinx. The DIO1 board connects all the pins for the 7-segment displays, buttons, LEDs and switches directly to the edge pin connector, Xilinx's pin mapping tool allows you to connect the outputs from the CoolRunner to the desired pins. It's a cool setup and fun to program.
I know, it took a while but here is some more information on the implementation of the traffic light controller on the CPLD. First, check out the video from youtube. I will add more pictures and details later (sooner than the last 'later').
s1axter posted on Tue. January 30th 2007 at 12:36 PM PST
I know, it took a while but here is some more information on the implementation of the traffic light controller on the CPLD. First, check out the video from youtube. I will add more pictures and details later (sooner than the last 'later').
New GUI videos...a glimpse of the future?
S1axter's Tech Log of Crazy Stuff
With the popularity of pen based computing the desktop interface we have come to know and use for the past 20 years is going to change. How it's going to change? I don't know but it looks like some of these researchers think they do know. Take a look at these videos on youtube and also the screenshots of looking glass.
Have a old LCD? Can you get your hands on an overhead projector? Graft them together and make a LCD projector on the cheap!
