Positron8 - EM34 'Magic Eye' Valve Emulator with a CG9A01 TFT

[top204]

I have completed one of my articles for the CG9A01 circular TFT here:

PIC18F EM34 'Magic Eye' Valve Emulator with a CG9A01 TFT

It emulates the wonderful EM34 valve (tube, for our American friends).

[charliecoutas]

Very nice Les. I'm going to try it.....

Charlie

[top204]

Many thanks Charlie.

I have updated the article with a simple circuit diagram for the CG9A01 connection to a PIC18F26K40 device.

The old display valves are a marvel in themselves, and they have always fascinated me since I was a boy and dad used them, and when I was repairing old bits I had been given as a boy. The same as old scope CRTs with their lovely phosphur screens, that are beautiful items. They never get boring, and the day they do, is the time to wave "bye bye everybody, bye bye". Name that TV program from our childhood? :-)

[charliecoutas]

Andy Pandy, I believe Les. "Andy is waving goodbye, goodbye". But thinking further, may be Muffin The Mule (before it was made an arrestable offence) or "Mac", Macdonald Hobley?

I've just cheated, it was Sooty and Sweep! Harry Corbett.

Memories.......

Charlie

[John Lawton]

I knew that Charlie without internet searching!

We're all showing our age here...

John

P.S. I meant to ask where to get the CG9A01 units?

[RGV250]

Hi John,
I got mine here, you can get ali expres as well I think. I wanted this one as it is on a round base so easier to fit where I plan to put it.
https://thepihut.com/products/round-1-28-lcd-display-module-240x240-ips-65k-rgb

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004360047964.html?src=google&pdp_npi=4%40dis!GBP!2.42!2.01!!!!!%40!12000028899440311!ppc!!!

BTW, I trust you did not drink too much yesterday

Bob

[John Lawton]

Thanks for the links.

Nope, just a small glass of sparkling over lunchtime on the terrace.

I'm now sober as a judge.

John

[charliecoutas]

Sorry to be a bit off-beam, but does anybody remember Billy Bean (on TV)?   Music: "Billy Bean built a machine to see what it would do.... .... With sticks and stones and glue"

Apologies to our non_UK members!

Charlie

[top204]

Wow.... At the pi hut, they are £16.20, but can be bought from china for £4.73 (including free postage and no taxes applied), when bought singly, so will be available to re-sellers for around £2.00, or less from suppliers. I wish I had learned to rip people off like that and be able to sleep at night. :-) OK, you have to wait a few weeks for it from china, but the money saved for a single test project is significant

TFT LCD Display Module Round RGB 240 * 240 GC9A01

The problem with AliExpress is the postage and the mandatory taxes placed on an item when bought, which boosts the prices up quite a lot, so, to me, it is not worth buying some single items from there. Although the CG9A01 LCDs are available for as little 77 pence from them, with free shipping as long as it is your first purchase, but taxes will still be applied:

TFT Display 1.28 Inch TFT LCD Display Module Round RGB 240*240 GC9A01

I've just looked up "Billy Bean", and all copies of it are gone, as with most programs from the stupid BBC up until the 1970s. So I could not have watched the repeats of it in the 1960s, as I did with "Watch with Mother", and Bill and Ben, and the Woodentops, and Andy Pandy etc... Harry Corbett started Sooty in the 1950s, and as a young boy in the 1960s, I used to love watching the sooty show, and Pinky and Perky, and Torchy the battery boy. :-)

But I would love to see all three series of "The Likely Lads" from the 1960s, but there are only a few left, and I have seen them all a few times. They are excellent, with Rodney Bewes, and James Bolam and his "nearly" Geordie accent, as he originates from Sunderland, which is a Wearside accent. Very similar, but not quite Geordie, as that requires being born beside the river Tyne. :-) "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads" is also excellent, and thankfully they were made in the early 1970s, so are still intact.

[RGV250]

Hi Les,

is the postage and the mandatory taxes

Not always, it is a minefield but if the value is low I have not paid any taxes. Also sometimes there are other sellers that do not have any postage or a minimum value for free post.

Bob

[RGV250]

Hi Les,
Off topic but I did look in BBC archives and nothing. I did see this which you might like, you have to have an iPlayer account but it is free.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b069gxz7/bletchley-park-codebreakings-forgotten-genius

Bob

[top204]

Thanks Bob

I watched that excellent program about Bletchley the other week on iPlayer, and it is brilliant.

I was looking at anything in the program that I remembered seeing from my wonderful day at Bletchley, thanks to Tim and Charlie, but all I recognised was the excellent Bombe, and I didn't realise they had built a few hundred of them. The noise from all of them running must have been deafening. :-)

Have you seen the program Charlie? It was made in 2010, so the chances are you have.

[charliecoutas]

Yes, I have watched it Les. It's very good. I also have a book written by Gordon Welshman called The Hut 6 Story. It's all about his life and work and the trouble he got into from the US government, fascinating.

I ordered a couple of those CG9A01 displays from AliExpress yesterday - £7.27 total incl shipping.

Looking at your code for the EM34 display, there's more to it than I thought, good stuff.

Charlie
(Still dreaming about Julie Christie)