Visual output device for project?

[cubera]

I want to build an electronic slot machine since now i have good understanding of micro controllers and circuit boards and some programming *C++, Java, C. However im not sure how the process would quite work.

Is it possible to have a circuit board connected to an output visual device that displays a gui interface created by java or some language? Such as a lcd screen or something like that? or are there any open source devices that i could find on ebay which i could reprogram to display my source code? I dont really want my laptop connected to an lcd screen then i just run the code i prefer a separate device that can read the source code then visually output the gui interface.

I know theres digital output devices such as digital clocks and etc.. but for a slot machine it wouldn't quite work out. Does anyone have any suggestions on what i could use? Maybe a lcd screen connected to some device like a micro-controller?

[mirhagk]

Here is a touchscreen meant for arduino, which is a microcontroller prototyping board. That could be useful for your application (and arduino stuff will also be compatible with rasberry pi with an adapter).

Another choice is something like this which is an LCD screen that has it's own onboard graphics processor. That could be extremely useful if you are using a microprocessor(which likely couldn't process the graphics of an LCD screen very well).

[cubera]

mirhagk @ Wed May 30, 2012 6:57 pm wrote:

Here is a touchscreen meant for arduino, which is a microcontroller prototyping board. That could be useful for your application (and arduino stuff will also be compatible with rasberry pi with an adapter).

Another choice is something like this which is an LCD screen that has it's own onboard graphics processor. That could be extremely useful if you are using a microprocessor(which likely couldn't process the graphics of an LCD screen very well).

yes thanks alot this is what im looking for, however it doesnt have to be touch screen, just a screen that displays the source code. also the issue with the TFT color lcd you showed is its 2.5 inchs im looking for something on the larger scale but not touch screen more like a flat screen monitor, do you have any suggestions for something like that?

[mirhagk]

What are you talking about with source code lol? You just want to create a GUI display on a screen right?

The thing is that most microcontrollers will not be fast enough, and won't have enough memory, to actually draw to a whole screen. The non-touchscreen LCD I showed you is great in that it has it's own built in graphics card, so if you plan on using anything not built like that (ie any decent sized screen) you'll need a graphics card in order to interface with it. I'd suggest looking at something like the rasberry pi.

[cubera]

mirhagk @ Thu May 31, 2012 8:24 am wrote:

What are you talking about with source code lol? You just want to create a GUI display on a screen right?

The thing is that most microcontrollers will not be fast enough, and won't have enough memory, to actually draw to a whole screen. The non-touchscreen LCD I showed you is great in that it has it's own built in graphics card, so if you plan on using anything not built like that (ie any decent sized screen) you'll need a graphics card in order to interface with it. I'd suggest looking at something like the rasberry pi.

sorry i wasn't quite clear, yes i just want to create a gui display on the screen as soon as the device starts up. This is what i was looking for something like this *see the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBXiZpuncg&feature=fvwrel

but instead a interface with actual colour and a screen with the similar size in the video. I understand micro-controllers are probably not strong enough, so ill look into the raspberry pi it might just be what im looking for, once again thanks

[mirhagk]

That video you posted is probably the best you'd get with microcontrollers alone (without a video card). The rasberry pi is probably perfectly suited for this, however it is on a very limited supply, so ordering now will probably get you one in a year.

[cubera]

mirhagk @ Thu May 31, 2012 10:55 am wrote:

That video you posted is probably the best you'd get with microcontrollers alone (without a video card). The rasberry pi is probably perfectly suited for this, however it is on a very limited supply, so ordering now will probably get you one in a year.

aw thats kind of depressing, is there any other ways besides the micro-controller? as in tutorials or videos that demonstrate another method of transferring my gui interface to a monitor or visual display?


I dont need a touch screen display (although it looks very cool) but just a semi-large monitor that is able to run my gui interface, is there any way i could find something like that? if not with micro-controllers, is there anything else?

I have never really understood how video cards work because im still a newbie, do you have any links to any guides on how this process could work? i would like to learn how.

[mirhagk]

Basically video cards are a 2nd processor that are specifically optimized to do a short computation for a large number of inputs/ouputs (once for every pixel). They are very good for very unique circumstances, displaying something is obviously the most common one. The CPU sends the graphics card some code to use to draw something, some parameters, and the neccassary images/models and then the Graphics card processes everything that it needs to to draw the picture on the screen.

The reason a microcontroller couldn't do it is that an HD screen is made up of 1920x1080 pixels, which is over 2 million pixels. The screen needs to receive this potentially 60 times a second, which means that you'd have to be sending 120 million pixels a second. So you'd need a dedicated microcontroller with a clock rate of hundreds of Mhz in order to just send the pixels, never mind calculate and store them (needing 2 mb of ram). Even doing a lower definition screen would still be difficult.