RE: [ECOS] Proposed idea for eCos debug/development user interface.

[<felixwong at i-technologies dot cc>]

For the word of "graphical interface", I mean the bitmap type of display.
Not necessarily big enough for a Web browsing.  And also not necessarily
color (but can be if such an interface is defined).  The interface may update
REQUIRED pixels but NOT ALL pixels.

For example, if my target application need a "100x60" pixels black and 
white LCD, I may use the proposed platform below to start user interface 
programming immediately without any ROM consuming packages lik "web 
browser" as the hardware EVA board may have limited memory space for
development.    Serial speed of 115.2K baud is much more than enough
for this use.

With this interface eCos may be applied to handheld applications with much 
ease.  Even if I want to migrate from B/W LCD to a 8 bit color LCD with biger 
screen like 160x160, the task is easy as I have just to change the init setting to
color 8, 160 by 160.  No need to design/source/built/test a totally new LCD 
hardware before you can see its effect.  The software programmer do not
need to have any hardware design skill before the design is done.  Isn't that
great?


-----Original Message-----
From: Jesper Skov [mailto:jskov@redhat.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:15 PM
To: felixwong@i-technologies.cc
Cc: eCos Discuss
Subject: Re: [ECOS] Proposed idea for eCos debug/development user
interface.


On Wed, 2001-12-12 at 08:12, felixwong@i-technologies.cc wrote:
> My suggestion is : shall we place some effort in making a GRAPHICAL DISPLAY
> /INPUT interface using the serial ports (like some predefined protocols /packet 
> commands), that will show the output graphically on you developing/compiling 
> computer (such as you PC or MAC).  

Knock yourself out!

I doubt anybody would be interested in using a graphical interface
communicating over serial though.

If you have a board that's worth putting graphics processing on, you can
probably run Linux (and thus X applications on your host computer's
display).

The only half-serious use of graphics on an eCos target, driven via
*serial*, would be by employing a web server. Then the host can access
the target's "GUI" by a simple browser. HTML transport is cheap compared
to a bitmapped graphics GUI.  And people use HTML via serial every
day...

So in summary: what you are after is a web server, tied in with your
application. There's already a web server available for eCos (I don't
have the link handy, sorry), and I'm sure it's open source so you can do
the necessary hackery to merge it into your application needs.

Jesper