Re:Don't use 7-segment displays [pdf]
by duskwuff on Tuesday July 09, 2024 @03:50PM
(#40920291)
> That would probably be 100x more complicated than the actual business logic on a small microcontroller
It really isn't. I've implemented simple GUIs on SSD1306 displays, and it's very easy to work with. The hardware is specifically set up to optimize for rows of 8px tall text (or multiples of that with a bit more effort). Once you have row/column addresses set up, each byte you write to the display writes one 8px column of pixels to a row and moves the column pointer over by a pixel. Printing text is a matter of streaming a sequence of bytes to the display.
It really isn't. I've implemented simple GUIs on SSD1306 displays, and it's very easy to work with. The hardware is specifically set up to optimize for rows of 8px tall text (or multiples of that with a bit more effort). Once you have row/column addresses set up, each byte you write to the display writes one 8px column of pixels to a row and moves the column pointer over by a pixel. Printing text is a matter of streaming a sequence of bytes to the display.