1. GETTING STARTED

First read the README if you haven't already.

LCDproc currently supports ONLY the 20x4 display from Matrix Orbital
Corporation (their part number is LCD2041). See our web page (given
in the README) for links to distributors and to Matrix Orbital
Corporation's web site.

2. CONNECTING THE DISPLAY TO YOUR SYSTEM

WARNING! Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! This is pretty easy, but if
by chance you screw up your machine by crossing some wires or by
pouring water on things with the power turned on, don't blame us!
Neither we, Matrix Orbital Corporation, or any manufacturer of LCDs
you're trying to use shall be held responsible for damage incurred
by following these directions.

These instructions are SPECIFICALLY FOR MATRIX ORBITAL'S DISPLAYS!
Other displays will quite obviously have different requirements!

2.1. POWER CONNECTION

Matrix Orbital has instructions online for connecting the power
cable.  It's at http://www.matrix-orbital.com/addendum.htm
Go there, if you're online.  Or you can just read this:

The LCD takes either +5V or +12V, depending on which model you
bought.  You should have the +5V model unless you requested
otherwise.  Either amount can be provided conveniently by a slightly
modified floppy power cable.

       ************* For +5V, use the RED wire. **************
       *********** For +12V, use the YELLOW wire. ************

Basically, disconnect the wire you don't need (yellow for +5V, or red
for +12V) and one of the black wires (they're both grounds so it
shouldn't matter which one you use).  Then move the two remaining
wires to the opposite ends of the connector. The power wire goes to the
clearly marked +5V pin, and the black one goes to the also clearly
marked GND pin.

Assuming you modified the cable right (we'll have pictures on the
web site in a few days to show how this connection should be made),
plug the other end of your modified wire into your system's power
cables and turn the system on (you don't need to connect the serial
cable until you know you got the power working). The LCD should light
up and tell you what version of the BIOS it has in it. If it does,
you've got it. If it doesn't, uh-oh. Turn the machine off quickly and
try it again.

2.2. SERIAL CONNECTION

The LCD uses a standard DB9 serial connector. However you want to
get from your motherboard or add-in card's serial port to the back of
the LCD is up to you. In one of my machines, I just literally pulled
one of the DB9 connectors off the back of my machine and plugged it
straight into the LCD, so it was just running from the motherboard
right to the LCD. YMMV (your milage may vary). In my new machine, I
needed a longer cable, so I just went out and bought a 6' external
serial cable, rolled it up and put it on top of my power supply, and
everything worked.

By default (at least mine was shipped this way ;) the LCD is
configured to run at 19,200 baud, 8-N-1. You might want to make sure
yours is set like this; otherwise you'll need to hack our code which
you shouldn't have to do for this to work right.

3. BUILDING LCDPROC

As long as you have a working gcc and make, this should work. Make
sure to check the Makefile to set up your preferences (like which
port to use, loadavg threshold, etc.). Run make by typing:

make

LCDproc will build in (hopefully) a few seconds. It's not very big. If
you want, you can install it (if you're root) by typing:

make install

This will install the binary and the man page, and will make a link
called /dev/lcd which points to whatever port you specified in the
Makefile. It will also change the permissions on the specified port
to allow all users to write to the port (so users can run LCDproc).
If you _don't_ want to allow this, change the permissions back after
installing LCDproc. :)

4. RUNNING LCDPROC

LCDproc has decent defaults, so assuming you set up the right serial
port in the Makefile, just typing "lcdproc" will get it started and
working right. The default contrast might be a tad on the low side,
so if it is, just CTRL-C it (or "killall lcdproc" if you put it into
the background when you ran it), then rerun it with the contrast
option:

lcdproc -c [contrast]

where contrast is between 0 and 255. The default is 140. We thought
it was easy to read. The man page discusses this and the other
options in much better detail.

If you have an LCD display already, be sure to use the "-l driver"
option on the command line, because the default output is a text screen.
The command:

lcdproc -l MtxOrb

should get the LCD display started..  :)

5. PUTTING LCDPROC IN SYSTEM STARTUP

It's nice to have LCDproc start when the computer boots, so here's how
to do it:

In Slackware or RedHat:
	Add lines to your /etc/rc.d/rc.local, such as the following:
	  echo "Starting LCDproc..."
	  /usr/local/bin/lcdproc C M X &

That's all the OS`s we've actually done this with so far..

6. OUR WEB SITE

Visit http://lcdproc.omnipotent.net/ for the latest updates and news
for LCDproc. If you've got comments, suggestions, bug fixes, or 
problems (related to LCDproc, not women ;), send e-mail to either
William W. Ferrell (choadster@earthlink.net) or Scott Scriven
(scriven@cs.colostate.edu).
