4DS Video 8 - Getting Started with a Diablo-16 Display

The speaker gives a walkthrough on how to get started with the Diablo 16 display. They explain how to modify the display's interface, including the background, LED digits, slider, and text labels. They mention that buttons and LEDs should be set to report a message, and the slider should change the LED digits. The speaker also discusses how to load a project onto the display, either onto the RAM or the SD card. They explain that loading it onto the SD card will allow the project to persist after powering off the display. They provide instructions on how to upload the project to the SD card using a card reader or directly from the computer. They conclude by mentioning an option to upload the project to the display's flash directly if the SD card slot is not accessible. Now, let's do a quick walkthrough of how to get started with the Diablo 16 display. So I'm going to load a sample project here. This is a thermostat, as you can see, and I'm going to do a quick run of how I put this together. So this is from an image as its source, so the background is an image. We've got three LED digits, which I basically just modified the size and colours and the colour palette. We've got a slider here, which I've also modified the palette and the size and pattern. And we've got a few static text as labels. I've made two user buttons, and so these are images. The text are actually images that I've made using paint and then changed the colours off. So there are two of them. So the one is coloured the same colour as the palette, and the dark or the black, dark grey one. So these are the status of the states, the on and the off and the on states. So that's really how easy it is to create an interface. These are just drag and drop changes to the properties. And of course, don't forget to set the events to report message. So for the buttons, the LEDs, make sure to set them to report message. However, the slider is set to change the LED digits. This one is the temperature. So what happens is if we change the values of the slider, it's going to change the value of the LED as well. And that LED will report its value to whatever your host is. So that's how this VCG project works. So you use the LED digits that are supposedly written to by the host, which contain the sensors. So it's all right. So let's get started. So let's say you've finished your project and you're ready to load your project onto the display as well as the RAM. Well, as I mentioned before, if you load it onto your RAM, it's going to disappear after you power off the display. However, if you put it or load it to the SD card, we could do the same thing. Just click the USD option for your destination and do the same compile. Now you also have the same option. You can either plug it in, use an SD card reader, and then click on USD copy or file transfer copy. The only difference this time would be that the executable itself, if you check the contents of the SD card, would also be there as well as the configuration. So that's basically the only difference that we already have. I've already loaded the assets with the executable as well as the configuration file to the SD card. So I'm just going to press or click on No Thanks because now we will go back to the tools because you only have the project executable itself on the SD card to tell the display to load that. Just click on Upload Thanks and Run and you will see that the display will also restart, would also reboot, and it's going to shortly prompt you that it's reading the executable from the SD card and then it's going to upload to the same project that you have uploaded. So those are the options on how to get started with a Diablo 16 display. Now you can see it's almost done and transferred and at this point, once it's finished with the file transfer, the display is just going to reboot itself to do the same thing, read from the SD card and display your initial form. And that's about it. It might take a bit longer, but it's pretty simple as well. So now there's also an option for you to load your project to the SD card. And ideally, it will go to the option and environment and make sure that the maximum baud rate is the maximum possible selected there, so that it won't take that long to upload the project to the display's SD card. So now the display has the SD card inserted. We would do the same, however this time we will use the file transfer copy. You don't need to select a drive if you are going to use a file transfer. You will see on the display, it's going to be counting down the number of bytes it's transferring. It's significantly slower than direct USB or USB card transfer, so just be mindful of that. However, the maximum baud rate of a Diablo 16 display is about 2 megabits per second. So it's going to take time, so just be patient. You would see the countdown both on the screen, both on itself and also on the workshop for IDE. So just pause it for a bit and let's wait for it to finish. Now once that's done, you will see that the display will mount the SD card first and then it's going to display the first form. And that's about it. It's very, very simple. And so now as an additional option, if you do not have a card reader or you don't have access to the card slot or say the display itself, or the display itself is already embedded into a system, you could still transfer files, transfer the project itself without removing the SD card from the display. And I'm just going to show you how to do that. So now the next step is to plug in the display onto the computer. So I'm going to be doing that now. And then the typical way of uploading your project is via SD card. So let's check first the comms tab to make sure it's detected. So we've got the display detected over here and the project is set to run flash because we want to upload this to flash directly. And then that and then the file system is the SD card. So what you would need to do also is to plug in the SD card to your computer. And there we go. So as you can see, the SD card is empty. It's a four gigabyte card, so it doesn't have anything in it. Now it's very simple to upload. Just click either of these. I usually use the second one and there we go. So it's pretty quick. Now if you have the SD card plugged in, just select here because it's going to give you a list of SD cards or devices plugged in. So make sure you select the drive of your SD card and then click on USD copy. And what it's going to do is it's going to copy the assets onto the SD card and it's also going to load the project itself to the flash of the display. So now what's going to happen is since the display doesn't have the SD card yet, you need to disconnect it and then insert the SD card onto the display before you reconnect it to power. And that's it. I hope that's been a good introduction on how to get started with a Diablo 16 display.