U-Disp - The Digg (tm) display (Open Source)

Step 3 The prototype

I'll start with briefly describing the prototype for the u-disp and the steps taken.

Timeline
Sep 01 - Started thinking about making an USB display
Sep 06 - Bought the domain name u-disp.com
Oct 07 - Started planning the pc software
Oct 10 - Wrote the display emulator
Oct 11 - Started writing the pc software
Nov 05 - Made schematics & preliminary layout in Eagle
Nov 12 - Ordered components from Mouser.
Nov 18 - Got the components.
Started building prototype. Displays with driver transistors freeformed, uC on proto board.
Charlieplexing firmware for testing display.
Nov 22 - Finalized layout for PCB
Nov 23 - Ordered PCB from Gold Phoenix
Nov 30 - PCB shipped from China
Dec 05 - PCBs arrives
Built the first real display
Dec 06 - Built a second display and chained them

As you can see from the the timeline above it took quite a while to finish this project. And to be honest - it's still not really finished. There's a lot of things that needs to be fixed and improved in the PC software, but it kinda works at least...

From November 5 to December 6 - that's one month. Most of the time was just waiting and more waiting. If I lived in the US instead of Middle East I'd probably been done in under 10 days. But I'm really not in a rush here, it's just a hobby.