A book reader with Prop ?

solarprism

I have an idea about a book reader with Prop.
First we use a LCD TV or LCD monitor with VGA or TV port as display( from 7 to 12 or may be 14 inch)
Pros : they are cheaper than TFT LCD module,which from 2,5 to 7 inch, and have a larger view.
Cons : heavier ( may use as a muscle training tool if you read for long time )

Battery: Lion cells from laptop battery.The charger and the pack are ready,we may use one cog of Prop to measure and warning when the battery is low.The battery are for display module and Prop circuit.At least 4 cells,3 for display and 1 for Prop.
Pros: good performance/weight ratio,recycle your wearing laptop battery.
Cons: need a charger

Prop circuit: Read txt file from a SD card and display through VGA port,change pages buttons,a GUI for select txt files.Maybe read image (for example .bmp image) ,display them so that we can read manga,comic books,or some university text book with many figures (convert these books from .pdf file to images ),if the Prop stile has some room, integrated a MP3 player so that we can listen to music while reading
Pros : sound interesting and the text part seems in the reach.
Cons: the image part still no clear ideal,"RGB burger" seems to be promising but it is canceled.

I have done the charger for the Li-on cells and it work fine,auto shutdown when full.
I still learn the SPIN and can do some thing with the text.
I welcome all the suggestions,advice,etc.(especially in image part,i really want that function )
Thank you all for reading

Heater.

This is clearly impossible.

There, I said it. Now, given that many supposedly impossible things have been achieved with the Prop, from software defined radio to USB host controller, you have a very good chance of making it work in some fashion:)

MagIO2

Why not ... here are my 2 cents:
* I'd look for a display which has it's own RAM. There are 3,5" displays out there which are not to expensive. I have one with resistive touch screen running. There also exist 7" systems but these are more expensive.
* Plan B, build a display system by yourself. RAM could directly drive the digital input lines of a display (the RGB lines), the rest is done by propeller. As the access to this RAM is sequential you don't need a lot of propeller PINs when you use a counter which loops through RAM.
Having 2 of these sub-systems you can switch between filling RAM with content from SD and displaying the content.
* MP3 is doable with a dedicated MP3 decoder-chip.

This would be a fun project, as you could achieve this goal much cheaper by buying an Android device, for example the Archos 7 which is available in a slightly older version for ~ $150.

Dr_Acula

Good points MagIO2. I have an Android device on order - $115. But more fun if you build it yourself. Wordstar can display text files off an sd card, so we can certainly read text. Graphics are harder. I like your ram idea. Fast sram seems expensive for what it does, but dram might be better anyway as it uses row/column addressing so has less pins. I found a 4 megabyte dram with 16 lines - that could give you 5 bit RGB. For a book reader you need a good quality display. I saw an Iphone yesterday, screen only a couple of inches and with a scanned A4 page of text in 10 point font that was readable without zooming. I needed my glasses though. Display must have a lot of dots per inch - I couldn't even see the pixels. My wish list for Santa this year is going to be a full 24 bit color display with inbuilt memory, at least 640x480 and a reasonable price eg $30.

solarprism

MagIO2 wrote: »

Why not ... here are my 2 cents:
* I'd look for a display which has it's own RAM. There are 3,5" displays out there which are not to expensive. I have one with resistive touch screen running. There also exist 7" systems but these are more expensive.
* Plan B, build a display system by yourself. RAM could directly drive the digital input lines of a display (the RGB lines), the rest is done by propeller. As the access to this RAM is sequential you don't need a lot of propeller PINs when you use a counter which loops through RAM.
Having 2 of these sub-systems you can switch between filling RAM with content from SD and displaying the content.
* MP3 is doable with a dedicated MP3 decoder-chip.

This would be a fun project, as you could achieve this goal much cheaper by buying an Android device, for example the Archos 7 which is available in a slightly older version for ~ $150.

Dr_Acula wrote: »

Good points MagIO2. I have an Android device on order - $115. But more fun if you build it yourself. Wordstar can display text files off an sd card, so we can certainly read text. Graphics are harder. I like your ram idea. Fast sram seems expensive for what it does, but dram might be better anyway as it uses row/column addressing so has less pins. I found a 4 megabyte dram with 16 lines - that could give you 5 bit RGB. For a book reader you need a good quality display. I saw an Iphone yesterday, screen only a couple of inches and with a scanned A4 page of text in 10 point font that was readable without zooming. I needed my glasses though. Display must have a lot of dots per inch - I couldn't even see the pixels. My wish list for Santa this year is going to be a full 24 bit color display with inbuilt memory, at least 640x480 and a reasonable price eg $30.

Heater. wrote: »

This is clearly impossible.

There, I said it. Now, given that many supposedly impossible things have been achieved with the Prop, from software defined radio to USB host controller, you have a very good chance of making it work in some fashion:)

Thank you all
The Android or other system is hard to find in my country and its price after tax,shiping is about 180-200$.For student and high school student,one need them most that is almost out of reach.and of course it is fun if we DIY
@MagIO2 :The small display like 2,5' or 3,5' with memory display are available but this is too small when we read comic book and textbook,as eg. "Machine design" of Norton.
The PlanB is what i am researching now,i have seen some ways like RGB burger or CPLD display,even a AVR VGA system of AtomicZombie from AVR freaks,but these projects are either canceled or not wanted resolution.
@Dr_Acula: For text i think 2 colors are enough because the books with figures,images i will consider as images.The displays i choosed are the 2hd LCD monitors that i can have with around 30$.The smaller like 3,5' or 5' are equal or more expensive(in my country).I thought we will wish together so that Santa will activate a mass production of display in North Pole so that its price will reduce to 30$
@Heater. Thank you for cheering me , even though it is heart attack at first
http://tinyvga.com/avr-sdram-vga.This is the project i found on net from last year,the resolution seem good and the image seem clear enough for reading.
The schematic misses two components,but i suggest these are a RAMDAC and a delay line.
Any way i will star with the text first and then add image later.

Dr_Acula

That vga schematic looks very interesting. I'm going to study that some more. Like you say, I think the ramdac is the chip driving the vga. Can this go higher than 256 color if you have more ram chips, or a different ram chip?

Of course if you only want text in two color, the propeller can do that now.

solarprism

Dr_Acula wrote: »

That vga schematic looks very interesting. I'm going to study that some more. Like you say, I think the ramdac is the chip driving the vga. Can this go higher than 256 color if you have more ram chips, or a different ram chip?

Of course if you only want text in two color, the propeller can do that now.

The RAMDAC according to what i have found can be 24bit color,they range from 6bit to 24bit
The text is for some classical books like books of June Verne,Alexander Duma,etc so i thought they only need black character on white background.Others like Make magazines,i thought can be display as images,that is better for viewing.
http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/S34.html
here is a list of RAMDAC,i found another list that has more and has description but lost the link somewhere :P
http://www.lucidscience.com/pro-vga%20video%20generator-1.aspx
here is the link of Atoniczombie AVR video generator

Heater.

sloarprism,

Sorry to frighten you.

It is something of a tradition here on the Prop forum that proposals are made for Propeller projects and immediately a dozen posts will point out that whatever it is impossible on the Prop and that there are better chips to do it with. "The Prop" is too slow or "the Prop does not have enough memory", "better to use an ARM" etc etc.

Then someone turns up an with a Prop implementation. The impossible becomes possible:) Like the USB nost controller for example.

Often it requires rethinking what it is you are actually trying to do. Accepting lesser speed or features than one would normally expect. Or just being damn clever:)

I'm sure if you create the video system you have in mind many people would be very happy. E-book reader or not:)

solarprism

Heater. wrote: »

sloarprism,

Sorry to frighten you.

It is something of a tradition here on the Prop forum that proposals are made for Propeller projects and immediately a dozen posts will point out that whatever it is impossible on the Prop and that there are better chips to do it with. "The Prop" is too slow or "the Prop does not have enough memory", "better to use an ARM" etc etc.

Then someone turns up an with a Prop implementation. The impossible becomes possible:) Like the USB nost controller for example.


Often it requires rethinking what it is you are actually trying to do. Accepting lesser speed or features than one would normally expect. Or just being damn clever:)

I'm sure if you create the video system you have in mind many people would be very happy. E-book reader or not:)

thank you, i will try "deny the destiny" ( from a manga i read )

solarprism

I have found a PIC24FJ256DA210,10$ 16bit chip with built-in Graphics controller,support 640x480@60Hz 8bpp.We can use this as a VGA generator with the Propeller.I thought we can create a communication bus between this PIC and Prop.Do anyone have experiance about that?