Hello everyone and thank you for taking the time to read my post. I just registered at this forum after having being bitten by the "project bug" in the past few weeks. I've got a bit of am ambitious(I think?) project that I'd like some advice on, and I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd be of service to me.
Project: A portable device with an LCD displayer, some sort of controller chip(PIC, STAMP, whatever), and storage by means of a compact flash drive(ie; re-formatted digital camera disk) or, preferrably, a "key" USB flash drive. A simple text file of whatever format would be stored on the drive and the controller chip would read X characters at a time from the text file(8, 16, or whatever the display width of the character LCD is) and display a different set of those characters to each line of the LCD display, corresponding to the text file. There would be an UP and DOWN button which would redraw the screen and essentially "turn the page". In order to display the information, I am thinking it would be possible to either display directly what is on the flash drive, or to transfer X bits at a time to the device's memory and display it from there.
The information I'd like to know is how exactly I would go about building this device. I've done a bit of searching but I've come up short in finding other people who've completed similar projects. I assume this device could be built very similar to a portable MP3 player, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My basic underlying question is: will I need any special hardware to "decode" the ASCII text or can it be done simply through software programming onto the chip?
Any information at all, no matter how "newbie-fied" that you can provide related to this project would be warmly accepted and very appreciated. Information that would especially be appreciated are any links related to a project like this. I am a newbie to the electronics scene, but I have some experience in software programming and basic exposure to electronics. While I have no formal education in electronics, I am a very fast learner, especially when confronted with a challenge. Any information you provide will be put to good use.
Thank you very much,
-Joe
Project: A portable device with an LCD displayer, some sort of controller chip(PIC, STAMP, whatever), and storage by means of a compact flash drive(ie; re-formatted digital camera disk) or, preferrably, a "key" USB flash drive. A simple text file of whatever format would be stored on the drive and the controller chip would read X characters at a time from the text file(8, 16, or whatever the display width of the character LCD is) and display a different set of those characters to each line of the LCD display, corresponding to the text file. There would be an UP and DOWN button which would redraw the screen and essentially "turn the page". In order to display the information, I am thinking it would be possible to either display directly what is on the flash drive, or to transfer X bits at a time to the device's memory and display it from there.
The information I'd like to know is how exactly I would go about building this device. I've done a bit of searching but I've come up short in finding other people who've completed similar projects. I assume this device could be built very similar to a portable MP3 player, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My basic underlying question is: will I need any special hardware to "decode" the ASCII text or can it be done simply through software programming onto the chip?
Any information at all, no matter how "newbie-fied" that you can provide related to this project would be warmly accepted and very appreciated. Information that would especially be appreciated are any links related to a project like this. I am a newbie to the electronics scene, but I have some experience in software programming and basic exposure to electronics. While I have no formal education in electronics, I am a very fast learner, especially when confronted with a challenge. Any information you provide will be put to good use.
Thank you very much,
-Joe