HTML LCD Panel Kit Speeds GUI Design

June 10, 2002

Drive embedded LCD displays with HTML instead of a graphics library, thanks to Amulet Technologies' Easy GUI Browser chip. The 5.7-in. Easy GUI Starter Kit gets developers going with LCD output in a fraction of the time other techniques...

William G. Wong

The key to Amulet's solution is the Easy-GUI Browser chip found on the 0.25-VGA size, 5.7-in. LCD's controller board. The board offers a serial interface to the EasyGUI Browser chip for PC-based development. Embedded applications can access the browser chip directly. The controller board can also provide an LCD interface to any system with a serial port.

EasyGUI tools include a compiler that converts HTML to Amulet's µHTML. Designers can use conventional HTML page development tools like Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Adobe's GoLive to create content. Users can then quickly move existing HTML content to an embedded environment. Amulet supplies a number of predefined widgets, including buttons and bar graphs. It even supports animations.

The µHTML is downloadable to flash memory. The serial protocol used with the controller provides a way to get data and invoke functions. The 5.7-in. starter kit is $399. A 3.8-in. starter kit is $239. LCD modules, GUI controller boards, and Easy GUI Browser chips are also available.

Amulet Technologies LLC, www.amulettechnologies.com; (408) 244-0363.

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About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.