RS232 to Composite

[Taylor93]

Hi All,

I am new to this all, so please be nice

Basically, we have a Test set that is based on RS232. It outputs a signal to a Terminal. This terminal has a Keyboard and CRT Display.

We basically want to replace this with a LCD display and a standard keyboard, as the terminal is getting very old (Circa late 80's Early 90's)

Now I see that theres an RS232 "Shield" that is compatabile with the Pi but would it be possible to do the job of the Terminal with a Pi with the current interface.

So the Pi will communicate to the test set via RS232, however will be able to display the data on a LCD screen in the same layout as before?

[whowantspi]

Most likely you can do it. First, you need to find out what type of terminal you have. There are lots of different types such as VT100, VT102, Wyse 60, etc... Once you know this you can run a terminal emulation program on the Pi. If you can give the make and model of your terminal I can be more help.

Max

[btidey]

This should be very easy to do.

You can make a connection either to the GPIO serial pins via a RS232 to TTL (3.3V) converter lead. Search eBay, they are pretty cheap. Alternatively you could plug a USB to RS232 converter into one of the USB ports.

Software will depend on whether the terminal needs any fancy emulation. VT100/2 was pretty standard in those days. If so then Minicom would be a good starting point and there are plenty of guides to set it up on the pi as it just needs a few steps; and then a single command brings up and display the terminal. It could be made to boot into this if it was to be a dedicated system.

If you have a choice of the LCD display to use then one with HDMI input would be the preference. Second choice would be DVI which would just need a different type of cable to hook to the HDMI port. A 'TV' like LCD with composite would also work, but not one with VGA without further fiddling around.