Fully manipulable (And expandable) 5x5 Display

[Chase Brower]

After some thinking, i solved the whole "2D displays can't be made on a 2D reality" problem. I simply spaced out the pixels, which allows for wiring to be put in between them. 2 blocks of space was what i found was needed, but maybe some of those T-MEC geniuses out there could drop it to 1 block.

Spoiler: The Actual Display

The display could theoretically be infinitely expanded, the only existing problem may be that you have to space out the pixels more.

Yes, i tried every lever, and they do properly light up the pixel they are connected to, so this could easily be hooked up to a Hard Drive

The only problem would be how exactly the "file" would be read from the hard drive, as 8-bit binary numbers can't just directly be hooked up to a display, that would be completely whacko. The solution is a GPU, but i'm still gonna have to figure out how to make that

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Ok, so I'd call (title) this a "Dot-matrix display".

2 blocks of space was what i found was needed, but maybe some of those T-MEC geniuses out there could drop it to 1 block.

Should be able to use junction boxes to duct adjacent wiring of the same colors, compress it a bit, yeah.

Shame the readability of the display isn't going to be great, here. Well, certainly not with just individual gem spark blocks. I mean, you could make each 'dot' bigger, of course, torches a brighter alternative, etc. And the possibility of an indefinitely extended horizontal display would be great (for scrolling text, long numbers, etc). Pixel boxes would be the ultimate for something like this, of course, if they were a fully functional solution.

The only problem [...] is a GPU

Yeah, just that minor detail... It will not be trivial. Although, if you are just reading in five 5bit numbers, it shouldn't be too bad.

 

[inomanoms]

Shame the readability of the display isn't going to be great, here. Well, certainly not with just individual gem spark blocks. I mean, you could make each 'dot' bigger, of course, torches a brighter alternative, etc. And the possibility of an indefinitely extended horizontal display would be great (for scrolling text, long numbers, etc). Pixel boxes would be the ultimate for something like this, of course, if they were a fully functional solution.

Yeah, I played around with a (vertically) spaced dot 5x5 matrix display in 1.2 when we didn't have our 4th wire colour, and have to agree, that legibility here is a huge issue. In order to be acceptably legible, the dots have to at least be larger than the spaces between them, meaning that with the current 2 tile spacing between the dots, the dots would have to be at least 3 by 3 tiles and that a character would be at least... 23 tiles? wide and high--much to large to be useful as a display.

Too bad pixel boxes don't function as usefully as hoped. Maybe MechMod can usurp them for a more functional design?

 

[DownsPath]

how far can you expand it? can the wires reach the Center of A 50*50 one

 

[Chase Brower]

how far can you expand it? can the wires reach the Center of A 50*50 one

Theoretically you could expand it infinitely, it would just require a higher space in between the pixels, meaning you would probably want to make the pixels larger.

I mean, you could make each 'dot' bigger, of course

Yeah, I played around with a (vertically) spaced dot 5x5 matrix display in 1.2 when we didn't have our 4th wire color, and have to agree, that legibility here is a huge issue. In order to be acceptably legible, the dots have to at least be larger than the spaces between them, meaning that with the current 2 tile spacing between the dots, the dots would have to be at least 3 by 3 tiles and that a character would be at least... 23 tiles? wide and high--much to large to be useful as a display.

I made a version that has 3x3 size for the pixels, and i will probably have to make it an even bigger pixel size because it does not appear to be very legible even now, although it has improved and letters can at least be made out easily. I also threw on my hard drive (your eyes will burn when you see the output wiring for it, lol). I pre-loaded an image onto the drive to show that it works, the letter F, which you can see in the video below.

Spoiler: Video of the Display/Drive New Setup

 

[ninjofes]

I've also been working on a display sort of thing (see my post here), and while we're talking displays, here is my current dot matrix display. It is expandable horizontally, and is, as I see it, a 1D screen extended into the second dimension by coloured wires and taking advantage of both the top and bottom.

Spoiler: My current display

Should be able to use junction boxes to duct adjacent wiring of the same colours, compress it a bit, yeah.

This could absolutely render a screen more compact. It could also render a screen less pretty. Maybe using shadow paint on the junction boxes along with the background could allow us to have decent-looking compact displays?

That makes our current limit one space between pixels horizontally and zero spaces between pixels vertically (Or vice versa).

On second thought, it might be more difficult to have an input wire connected to a torch on one side without connecting to the torch on the other side.
I don't quite understand how we should employ junction boxes, although there probably is a way it can be done.

However, for the time being, I will leave my current size of display as-is to allow the character loading mechanism to fit "tileably". I'll leave the compactness for the "T-MEC geniuses out there" as I continue to work on my project.


EDIT: it is absolutely do-able. See this:

Spoiler: 1 space between pixels

Every torch is activated independently.

(Am I now a "T-MEC genius?")

This is done at the cost of not having a row of consistently matching wire colours.
It should be an easy cost to pay.