Display messages from twitter on the small screen

This prototype uses an embedded system and colour LCD screen to display messages from twitter.com. It was a fun way to learn Ruby programming, as well programming against this little LCD.

Twitter is a place to post brief updates on what's going on in your world. At a conference I recently attended, a LCD TV was used to "broadcast" updates from the organizers and attendees. This got me thinking...what about twitter for a (much) smaller screen?

And what's the point of all this? I'm not 100% sure. Who reads them? Why would people post their mundane daily doings, and why display them....there's no logical answer but for some reason it's addictive!

Step 1 The hardware

The screen is the 'uLCD-128' from 4D Systems. I bought mine online from a company called Dontronics. This version has an extra 1MB of flash memory onboard, but it's not used in this prototype. The LCD has a serial interface and a well documented API, which makes interfacing quite easy.

The brains is a "system on module" called the TS-7400 from Technologic Systems. For less than $100 this little marvel runs Debian Linux and has a multitude of connectivity options: USB, ethernet, DAC, GPIO.

This project made use of one of the onboard serial UARTs. Both the TS-7400 and the uLCD have serial ports at logic (3.3v) levels. This makes wiring the two together a breeze as no interfacing circuitry is required.

Comments

[abadfart]

can i use a cell phone screen or a pda screen with this to read Ebooks?

[mrbob1000]

that is awesome... i would definately buy one of these if it was low price and displayed on an old pc screen or a tv.

[Lawrence Zhang]

we have the board to save messenges and pictures,and cartons ,can be connected to LCD screen or LCD TV to display.

[Lawrence Zhang]

Good work! It is just like the LCD Advertising Displayers!. I have saw just the same things, a board connected to the LCD　TV ,and The LCD TV will show the pictures or flashs automaticlly.

[TheBestJohn]

Could these screens be adapted to receive an RCA input?

[adunn]

No I don't think so - at least not easily. Out of the box the screens have a serial interface and don't accept a video signal. It is possible to load static images and have the screen 'animate' them but I'd guess thats not what you have in mind.

[AndriusKulikauskas]

We have a name and a website now for our USB Flash Drive Editor: Includer: http://www.includer.org

[AndriusKulikauskas]

Adunn, this is helpful and relevant for my own dream to build a USB Flash Drive Editor for use especially in Africa so that people could work with emails offline and at home rather than at an Internet Cafe. http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?FlashDriveEditor What would you recommend if we wanted to do this with a less expensive and larger monochrome display? And the TS-7400 is great to know about but I wonder if there is a less expensive approach? Although this is a great start. Even a $300 flash drive editor would be more useful in electricity-poor Africa than a $200 laptop, I think. But it would be great if we could get the price down to $100 or ultimately $30 for a display plus USB ports to which we could plug in flash drives and a keyboard. I invite anybody interested to please join us at our Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt laboratory's working group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mendenyo/ led by Samwel Kongere of Rusinga Island, Kenya. Andrius Kulikauskas, [e-mail]

[randofo]

I don't get twitter. It seems like the type of thing that would want to make a person give up on life. If I wanted to know what my friend was doing every 5 minutes, I would go spend the day with them.

[rgbphil]

These little uLCD modules are pretty good. Dontronics also have uOLED modules which look even better, although they have a bit of flicker. FYI Dontronics/4d systems also have something called a uVGA module, which apparently gives a VGA interface to a uController....though I haven't tried one out.