Electronics Help with LCD required. - *more* Pics added (revived)

I was going to sell this, but now want to see if anyone (new) can help me use it. If you can please let me know (PM/email/whatever).

Hi everyone, (sorry, I know everyone asks for help with LCDs)
I've recently won this LCD with controller. (eBay) edit: no longer available

(note the size: 60x230mm display!)The guy who sold it to me also included what he called "the backplane and cpu card that go with the controller" and tbh, I don't know what they do or if they're useful.

I have mailed the manufacturers http://www.consultronics.com to ask if they have data-sheets, but as it's from ~1992, I'm not expecting too much.

If anyone can give me any more information I'd be very grateful.

product numbers and [serials]:
LCM-557-13E 8605 [none visible]
&
PCB 400242-1 Rev.0 (Ass'y 110242-1 Rev.D) [027965]
with attached:
PCB 400214-2 Rev.B (Ass'y 110214-2 Rev.E) [none visible]

backplane/cpu card numbers on request...

 

how's this for unlikely?: just got a phone call from someone at consultronics asking for more information, and photos, so they can try and help a little more!
will post those pics here in a bit...

 

it looks to me like a PCMCIA card, thats just a guess but u may need a PCMCIA PCI card to plug that into

this is just a guess though so dont quote me

 

well it's not - did they even exist back in 1992?

photos: (clicky)

 

First: These are the LCD questions we want to see. Its laptop LCDs we are tired of.

Second: The LCD is probably controllerless, and the PCB would be an LCD controller evaluation board. Look at what appears to be the PCB that connects directly to the LCD first, and give us the IC numbers from that. Its most likely an Epson SED133X/S1D133XX IC, or Toshiba T6963 IC. Either way, give us the IC numbers of each of the boards. We can help from there.

I googled the boards and didnt really find anything yet.

 

ICs are the chips right?
it's "midnight-thirty" (as they seem to call it on TV) so I better wait until tomorrow to get those numbers.
thanks for the interest.

 

they look to be built on EuroCards
These are cards that can go in a blade type formation, and they died out by '95 (in most things).

The specification for this is well documented, but it might not help much as each one can have its own bespoke protocol.

 

I think they may well be EuroCards, but not sure.

have taken a picture of it all 'plugged in', and noticed as I was doing so that the pins on the back of the LCD fit into a row of holes on the controls-board (as i'm calling it):
-->
it's not a tight fit, they won't hold themselves there, but it must be right because the buttons line up (with the screen), and there's even slight scratches on the LCD board where the (now missing) brightness/contrast dial was.

so the whole lot:

the cards plugged into the big card are labelled 'display' and 'cpu' respectively.

sorry i don't know much about these things - am just having difficulty finding anything online...

so - the big question - can i use these parts?
if so, how?

 

The card that mates to the LCD via the prongs should be a voltage generator/IO interface card. The card that the ribbon cablw goes to (labeled display), we need the numbers off of the ICs that are on it.

 

okay - here's that board:

top three chips: motorola logo, MC74HC244AN FFBV9021; (unknown logo) AD, P9024G MM74HC374N; and (unknown logo) AP, P9118 MM74HC245AN

middle three: (unknown, but recognised, logo), OM1 3 HD61830B00 (Japan) (two of); and sticker just says: 02420321

bottom two: NCR, 26C64AL-10 609-0390010 T9114 (Korea)


I guess the two squarish chips are the important ones - is that right?
thanks again for your help.

 

Do you have an EEPROM reader, if so might be worth while checking the CPU card.

 

err- no. i don't have anything like that.

I didn't actually read the auction properly when i bought it - if i'd seen the size of this i may have questioned it a little more carefully. (the screen is about a foot (~30cm) long!)

i'm still hopeful that i can eventually get this to work since i have so many pieces - i just need your help...

 

Okay on the controller board there will be some memory these chips will be SRAM (start googling combiniations of the model numbers until u get luckyt).

The center ones are likely to be the controller(s), i am guessing they will be hitachi by the logo, OMI and Hitachi seam to be the same.

Just pure guess work from looking at the size of these chips it might help thou, the top ones will be helping the bus interface (look for AND gates, intervtors and tri-state latches).

The middle ones the controllers

the bottom ones the memory (SRAM).

 

i've found a datasheet to the controller chips here (pdf).

i've also been told by my contact at the company that made the boards that they're happy to send me the "circuits etc" since the product is now obsolete!

so what now?
am i going to be able to just do some soldering and plug it in?
(i really doubt it's that simple!)

 

well once the circuits arive, what i would do, is scavenge a eurocard-connector socket, and wire it up to the lpt port, i will have a looksie over this PDF for ya, and C if i can't nock up some code

 

Okay just finished reading the datasheet, well skim reading, looks fairly straight forward, on the eurocard, you will have to work out where D0-D7 for the controller are, getting the CS pin will be harder, because its probably get an address, as it would guess it would be memory mapped. Well thats a lie, its not proper memory mapping, but what i am trying to say is the CS pin probably is connected to a 16pin address bus, and one address will set it on, easyest way is to look at where the CS pin (15 on the controller) is connected too, and trace back (their schematic should make this a peice of cake, thank them !).

Once you have that, the other "control" pins should be easy to find.

Bad news about the controller, it only has 2 modes, TEXT or GRAPHIC, you can't do layers like in the SED133x. But that just makes the code slightly harder, and from what i remeber of sunday school that should make the reward better .

 

as you can just see in the photo above, not all the legs on the controller chips are connected to anything - will that matter?
and when I eventually use the LCD, will I have to use the entire display board?
is there any chance I could get a different controller board? just wondering if a different one could be more helpful in the long run - usuability with existing programs etc...

TheAnimus - thank you for your interest in this 'project' of mine, and for the help you're giving...

 

yeh controller board would be needed.

Yes you could use another controller, but first i would get it working on with the controller board you have first. Also i can't see y you would want to use a differn't board, most of the LCD software that is out there, isn't difficult to write/modify something to do whatever you want. Most of the LCD software i've seen tends to be poorly written and like to take a lot of CPU time to do very little.

 

I would suggest just replacing the aging Hitachi controller with something more recent (SED13xx design is the most popular). Reason being:

1. You have no idea if this whole unit even works.
2. It would actually be *easier* interfacing this to a new controller than it would be attempting to re-write most of the software out there to handle the commands, re-wire the controller board for a different port layout (serial/parallel) and design the proper interface circuitry to match.

The other thing you haven't determined yet is if it is an EL or LED backlight. If it's EL, you will need an inverter to create the high-voltage. I don't see one in any of the pictures, unless it's that one chunk of electronics hanging off the side. The other thing you may want to keep in mind is that EL's have a limited life. After a certain # of hours (usually 3-4000) they drop to about half-brightness, making the display useless. You should determine if the panel is using EL, and possibly replace it, or convert it to LED instead.

I just purchased some of the newer SED13xxx chips and they are wonderful. The new chips include everything in one package, 32k SRAM, interface, clock, and what not. All you have to really do is mount the chip, supply power, and interface it to your devices.

You may find that route to be a bit easier than trying to salvage the Hitachi, and working around any other possible quirks/customizations that the mfg put into the interface line to add buttons etc.

 

In the pic you can see the inverter for the EL backlight.

As for driving it, its actually a simpler command system than the SED133x series, but is less powerful (no layered screens etc.)

Writing your own would be a simple matter once u've taken into account the reverse engie skills needed to use the board.

To hook an SED133x upto the serial port you would need considerably more than a MAX232.

(Also serial GFX lcds tend to look naff if you try to animate.)