I've written sophisticated dumb terminal managers in the past, minicomputer days (serial comms, escape codes etc).

Imagine devices you can send commands and data to, like set cursor position, write chars, set background color et.

We needed to display rapidly changing stock price data to like fifty such screens and it was absolutely not an option to just redraw the pages every time a 6 changed to a 1 for example.

The design was two buffers, representing the screens current state and the next state, we were able to compute a delta string, which was the command and data bytes needed to make the change in appearance. It worked extremely well, just a few bytes sent to each screen per second and numbers changing as you'd expect.

I recall a soak test for it, ran for 24 hours non-stop at 10x the change rate we needed, it was magic to watch those screens.

I wonder if such a design has merits with these displays?

I used DEC VT320 terminal with screen builder using (VAX-C) .
It used a database of the semiconductors equipment status listing on the VAX computers to create a VT320 graphics display of the fab with equipment number blocks you could cursor to, press a key to display the current tools status. Equipment is a down status would blink BOLD until the a tech logged on to repair, the it would just blink normal until the status change to back online. I also write a version for their fab in Japan.
I built this system for Fujitsu America when I worked for them 20+ years ago.

I think a donated my last color VT terminal a few years ago.

My computer rack is from that old VAX system. Old disc array cabinet.


https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/and-now-for-something-weird.124706/post-1124878
Old picture.

You might also recognize the Pizza Box Sun workstation on the floor.

 

I used DEC VT320 terminal with screen builder using (VAX-C) .
It used a database of the semiconductors equipment status listing on the VAX computers to create a VT320 graphics display of the fab with equipment number blocks you could cursor to, press a key to display the current tools status. Equipment is a down status would blink BOLD until the a tech logged on to repair, the it would just blink normal until the status change to back online. I also write a version for their fab in Japan.
I built this system for Fujitsu America when I worked for them 20+ years ago.

I think a donated my last color VT terminal a few years ago.

My computer rack is from that old VAX system. Old disc array cabinet.
View attachment 348636
View attachment 348637
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/and-now-for-something-weird.124706/post-1124878
Old picture.
View attachment 348634
You might also recognize the Pizza Box Sun workstation on the floor.

That last picture is excellent, I'm jealous !

 

If you look at the display specs, it says which controller IC they use. The display I use has a LT7683, which allows you to write text anywhere on the screen, in any colour in 9 different sizes. That means you can just update items that has changed and avoid redrawing the rest.
Some displays with SSD controllers are nowhere near as flexible.

 

If you look at the display specs, it says which controller IC they use. The display I use has a LT7683, which allows you to write text anywhere on the screen, in any colour in 9 different sizes. That means you can just update items that has changed and avoid redrawing the rest.
Some displays with SSD controllers are nowhere near as flexible.

A real 4-wire SPI interface and real HW graphics capabilities instead of a dumb frame buffer, that's a big plus if you have a working driver.

 

View attachment 348644
A real 4-wire SPI interface and real HW graphics capabilities instead of a dumb frame buffer, that's a big plus if you have a working driver.

That’s how I use it, with an EEPROM and an SD card on the same SPI bus. Works nicely.

 

I'm working on a new Linux SPI protocol driver for my DAQ board design. Linux SPI is a complex API at the low level. Device Trees and kernel driver design is an demanding mistress.

 

That last picture is excellent, I'm jealous !

https://vintagetek.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/4205Brochure_Sept1986.pdf

 

View attachment 348876
https://vintagetek.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/4205Brochure_Sept1986.pdf

They knew how to build keyboards back in the day.