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Re: Good HMDs - Was: help!!!

From: "Rudy Gingles" <>
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 15:22:20 -0700

> >I know this has been discussed before (what were some of the message
> >subjects? I'd like to look them up in the archive...), but what would
> >it
> >take to build your own display? Even it was only mono. I'm sure there
>
> It depends on the resolution.  Take a look at the "moving sign"
> schematics
> on the internet for a few ideas -- those are bitmapped displays that can
> be mechanically scanned.  In fact, there are several schematics for
> scanned
> variants too!  Very low resolution, but made with off-the-shelf LED
> arrays,
> though.
>
> (virtual clock is a name sticking in my mind)
>
> Of course, a full resolution mono display would just be a bigger version
> of one of these displays -- harder to build with more connections (unless
>
> multiplexed) but otherwise, very similar.  A little creative engineering,
> and
> multiple shades of "gray" could be reasonable too.

I see. I'm guessing shades of gray would be accomplished by strobing the
LEDs at a particular speed? I wonder how expensive it would be to use fiber
optics to route the light from the LEDs to the eye-piece, so the bulk of the
LEDs can be stored in a better location...

> A Hercules compliant HMD might have its uses!

Yes, that would be good. Would you happen to know where I can find specs on
the Hercules standards?

> >designs such as this one. Also, as far as experimental wearables are
> >concerned, how far would we be able to stray from the standard
> >VGA/NTSC
> >hardware and protocols? Eliminating that and using a much cleaner
>
> Why VGA specifically?  Make it with one of the other "standards," i.e.
> MDA, Herc, CGA, EGA, VGA, QVGA, SVGA, XGA, PGA, or
> one of the numerous others I'm leaving out.

Well, I was thinking of VGA only because I've seen some people complaining
of it's complexity or power consumption in the circuitry. But I suppose
sticking to a mono standard such as Hercules would be best in the end.

> I'd be willing to bet that there is a single (or maybe double) chip set
> that would do one of these standards, and that's pretty cheap.
>
> It's only a guess, but I would say Hercules, being the best
> monochrome graphics standard, and the standard of choice for DTP
> and CAD stations (until SVGA got good and cheap), had a lot of
> single chip options available.

Hmm, I should look around for some specs on some of these. That would
certainly save a lot of effort. I was thinking I'd have to get into FPGA
programming for it, but maybe not with one of these... :-)

Rudy

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