In article <1187716636.149447.211110@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, howy
says...
> OK, I guess was some what mis-informed from the beginning. I asked
> the original question half assuming someone would say, "sure you can
> do it that way, but here is the way every one else is doing it...".
>
> I remember seeing an ad for a LCD touch screen that had a GUI
> scripting language built into it. Maybe I will see if they are still
> in business. Otherwise I might have to roll my own (or pay someone
> else to do it for me).
OK, I guess was some what mis-informed from the beginning. I asked
the original question half assuming someone would say, "sure you can
do it that way, but here is the way every one else is doing it...".
I remember seeing an ad for a LCD touch screen that had a GUI
scripting language built into it. Maybe I will see if they are still
in business. Otherwise I might have to roll my own (or pay someone
else to do it for me).
Thanks for you help everyone,
-howy
Reply by msg●August 21, 20072007-08-21
howy wrote:
>>You're probably thinking of Display Postscript, not X.
>>Still, it sounds like you need something more like syslog than X or..
>
>
> OK, thanks I will look into that.
>
> I was hoping there was a standard terminal emulator protocol (like a
> graphical version of a VT100 terminal) that would allow me to place a
> few buttons, graphs, and text windows on the PC's screen and maybe
> even accept user input commands like button press events and keyboard
> input - over a low bitrate serial stream.
>
I use AT&T's FMLI (the source is now available in OpenSolaris) on a
variety of projects to build curses-based GUIs -- graphs are only
possible using characters from the extended set but it would do what
you suggest. I have a demo "ascii oscilloscope" program written
in C for the i8096 on my site and also a GUI running on the 'zipit'
based on FMLI if your interested.
Regards,
Michael
Reply by ●August 21, 20072007-08-21
howy wrote:
> Back in the late 1980's to early 1990's when Unix work stations
> transitionsed from text-based to graphical interfaces (at least thats
> when I saw it happening in college), I was under the impression that
> the graphical user interface was based on a stream of ASCII commands
> similar to PostScript.
I guess those were actually TEK terminal graphics command streams or
similar.
But serious confusion of terms is reigning here. There are various
different things called "terminals". So I guess it's time for a little
excursion to history.
First, there were relatively dumb keyboard+screen devices that served as
mere human interfaces devices to a central multi-user computer,
typically on a point-to-point serial line. Since they were at the
endpoint of a long-ish cable, it was only fitting that they ended up
being called "terminals". The canonical example is DEC's VT100. Some
of these terminals were enhanced with graphical vector-drawing
capabilities as a separate mode of operation (e.g. the TEK4010). I've
never seen it done, but some people certainly must have used this to
implement early GUIs, although it poses quite an amount of stress on the
host computer.
Then came the next major step: The X Window System, a.k.a. X11. The key
differences are that more intelligence was shifted to the terminal end
of the chain to reduce load on the host, and the point-to-point
connection was replaced by general-purpose networking. Thus the "X
terminal" was born: a special-purpose user-interface computer running
the "X Server". X11-enabled "client" programs can be started on any
computer and have their user interface on any X server on the network.
The X terminal also implements protocols to start such client sessions
on remote machines. When you hear buzzwords like "thin client" or
"network computer", it helps to think "X Terminal"
Gradually the roles of X terminal and "main computer" merged, and the
result was the Unix/X11 workstation, most of which these days are Linux PCs.
Now, just about the most important X11 client programs is XTerm, the "X
Windows Terminal emulator". Now hold on to your hat for the explanation
of what it does: XTerm emulates an old-style dumb terminal in an X11
window to show up on an X Terminal. In other words, it's a virtual
VT100 that runs on a "real" computer, and provides the user interface to
a command-line program inside a window. In particular, it's not an
emulator of an X terminal, but a terminal emulator that is an X client.
And then of course there's the kind of "terminal program" you're really
looking for: a serial communications program. That's the kind of
program you would run to connect to a RS232 device and display its
output. The canonical one used to be Kermit, with minicom a close second.
Reply by John Devereux●August 21, 20072007-08-21
howy <howyhowy@gmail.com> writes:
> In all my embedded DSP based products I use an RS232 port (driven with
> printf) as a means of seeing whats going on inside a CPU or DSP.
>
> I am looking for a way to increase the flexability of the displayed
> data since there is often data from differnt processes all competing
> for my attention before it scrolls off the screen.
>
> I was considering using an X Windows terminal emulator program (which
> I know very little about at this point) as a means for interacting
> with my embedded projects. It would be great if I could fire up an
> Xwindows terminal emulator program on my Windows PC, choose COM2,
> 19200 8N1 and BAM! display graphical data from a small embedded
> device. Since the available memory left over for debug-related code
> tends to be on the order of a few kbytes, the embedded device would
> only be sending printfs containing the most basic of Xwindows
> commands.
>
> Has anyone done something similar to this? Is there a better way to
> get a tiny embedded device to control a standardized graphical debug
> interface?
Web server?
Not done it myself, but there are several projects implementing
cut-down "tiny" web servers on small micros (even PICs). In your case
you could use SLIP over RS232.
--
John Devereux
Reply by Antonio Pasini●August 21, 20072007-08-21
Il 21/08/2007 0.48, howy ha scritto:
> I was hoping there was a standard terminal emulator protocol (like a
> graphical version of a VT100 terminal) that would allow me to place a
> few buttons, graphs, and text windows on the PC's screen and maybe
> even accept user input commands like button press events and keyboard
> input - over a low bitrate serial stream.
>
Check EmWare's EMIT. If you have little space left on your micro, could
be an easy way to add a graphical interface.
Basically, your micro sends events and receives commands with a
proprietary protocol. On the PC, a gateway renders this in a dynamic web
page, that could be delivered also on the net, or locally.
The www.emware.com site doesn't point to the company anymore...
Anyone knows if it's still in businness ?
Reply by ●August 20, 20072007-08-20
howy <howyhowy@gmail.com> writes:
> I was hoping there was a standard terminal emulator protocol (like a
> graphical version of a VT100 terminal) that would allow me to place
> a few buttons, graphs, and text windows on the PC's screen and maybe
> even accept user input commands like button press events and
> keyboard input - over a low bitrate serial stream.
Ok, not syslog then. That's for debug messages and the like.
Sounds more like Display Postscript, unless you want to do X over PPP,
but that's pretty heavy-weight.
Reply by howy●August 20, 20072007-08-20
> You're probably thinking of Display Postscript, not X.
> Still, it sounds like you need something more like syslog than X or..
OK, thanks I will look into that.
I was hoping there was a standard terminal emulator protocol (like a
graphical version of a VT100 terminal) that would allow me to place a
few buttons, graphs, and text windows on the PC's screen and maybe
even accept user input commands like button press events and keyboard
input - over a low bitrate serial stream.
-howy
Reply by Grant Edwards●August 20, 20072007-08-20
On 2007-08-20, DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> wrote:
>
> howy <howyhowy@gmail.com> writes:
>> I was under the impression that the graphical user interface was
>> based on a stream of ASCII commands similar to PostScript. Maybie it
>> WAS postscript...
>
> You're probably thinking of Display Postscript, not X.
>
> Still, it sounds like you need something more like syslog than X or
> DP.
Except I think he wants to do graphical stuff...
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I just bought
at FLATBUSH from MICKEY
visi.com MANTLE!
Reply by Grant Edwards●August 20, 20072007-08-20
On 2007-08-20, howy <howyhowy@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Huh? X Windows terminal emulators don't typically do graphics
>
> That may explain my confusion when trying to Google for info
> on this concept.
>
> Back in the late 1980's to early 1990's when Unix work
> stations transitionsed from text-based to graphical interfaces
> (at least thats when I saw it happening in college), I was
> under the impression that the graphical user interface was
> based on a stream of ASCII commands similar to PostScript.
> Maybie it WAS postscript...
> But at any rate these graphical dumb terminals were
> communicating over a network using a human-readable ASCII
> protocol (similar to the concept of HTML but much more user
> readable).
>
> Was I on drugs or was there some GUI interface that used an
> ASCII serial stream at its lowest level (not HTML but similar
> in concept)?
That sounds like either MGR or Display Postscript to me (though
I know little about the latter). The X protocol is a pretty
complex binary protocol that runs over network connections.
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I want to so HAPPY,
at the VEINS in my neck STAND
visi.com OUT!!