EIGHT P.M. EXACTLY
ONE PAST EIGHT P.M.
…
TEN PAST EIGHT P.M.
EIGHT ELEVEN P.M.
…
EIGHT FOURTEEN P.M.
QUARTER PAST EIGHT P.M.
EIGHT SIXTEEN P.M.
…
EIGHT TWENTY-NINE P.M.
HALF PAST EIGHT P.M.
EIGHT THIRTY-ONE P.M.
…
EIGHT FIFTY-NINE P.M.
NINE P.M. EXACTLY

The clock will display ASCII text directly. Using escape codes, the computer can display text, return to clock mode, set the clock, read the clock setting, change the brightness, read the brightness, select centered or left-aligned mode, and display custom characters.

The display is 6X multiplexed, lighting four characters at a time. It is driven by a 64-bit shift register connected to the SPI port of the microcontroller, and six transistors to select the active digits. The Timer0 overflow interrupt provides the display refresh, and the Timer0 CompA register controls the duty cycle to vary the brightness. The clock requires 3.5 – 5 volts at up to 200 ma depending on brightness. I used a cell phone charger for power.

The clock requires an ATMEGA48 or larger MCU (88P/168P/328P), an 8 MHz crystal, eight 74AC164E shift registers, 60 LED resistors (I use 220 ohm SIP resistor packs), six power transistors (ZTX790A), and six resistors to drive the transistors. There are also some capacitors and three pushbuttons.

The displays are Mouser 604-PDA54-11SRWA 0.54 inch red two-character modules, and you need twelve of them. This display is about 12 inches long. Most common-cathode or common-anode 14-segment displays could be used instead. The program size is 2KB, and 96 bytes of RAM are used.

Mike mounted the driver ICs and SIP resistors on the backs of the display modules. This approach requires several hundred point to point connections. To make more than a few of these clocks will require a PC board.

Source code is at http://www.opengpstracker.org/vclock.asm

Pro

• Prezzo accessibile €199,00 Iva inclusa.
• Facilmente trasportabile.
• Decoder digitale terrestre.
• Possibilità di acquistare video on-demand.
• Lettore SD Card.
• Ethernet 10/100 BASE-T.
• Connessione Wireless 802.11 b/g/n.
• Bluetooth.
• Ricevitore IR integrato.
• Telecomando CuboVision.

Contro

• Attualmente non è possibile navigare su internet con un browser.
• L’altezza di 15 cm non permette di inserirlo nei classici vani sotto la televisione.
• Non ha un lettore interno Blue-Ray/Dvd/Cd opzionale (è solo possibile connetterlo via usb).
• 2 porte Usb potrebbero essere poche.

Domande

• È possibile scaricare contenuti .torrent?
• Il codice del software è open source?

Main features

• eInk Vizplex 6″ display at 600×800 pixels
• 151mm x 131mm x 12mm, 300g
• Freescale ARM11 CPU 532MHz
• capacitive slider interface
• next generation Epson display controller
• Linux kernel
• integrated 3D accelerometer for automatic orientation detection
• full integration with txtr online community platform

Power

• eInk-optimized power management system
• Li-Ion battery
• charged via USB

Memory

• 64MB SDRAM onboard
• MicroSD memory card slot
• 8GB MicroSD card included