Maker revives a 1990s cash register display by converting it to VGA

[Priya_39]

An old cash register has been given a new lease of life with some clever electronics. Hackaday reports on a project by Voltage Ventures, shared on Instructables, to repair a 1990s Samsung cash register whose monochrome STN display had died

A replacement display was going to cost a fortune. The original screen is 320 by 240 pixels and uses a simple 4 bit data bus

The maker sampled the data bus, worked out its timing, and used a microcontroller to convert the signal into monochrome VGA, so any monitor can display it. The first version used an STM microcontroller, and it was later moved to an RP2040, the chip used in the Raspberry Pi Pico

No FPGA or special converter chip was needed, because the old display format is so simple. Older formats are often easier to work with than modern ones

Projects like this show how much older equipment can be saved with a little reverse engineering. Using a cheap Pico instead of hunting down rare parts is a smart, sustainable fix. The same approach could rescue lots of old devices with dead screens

Have you ever repaired an old device rather than replacing it? And what retro gadget would you like to bring back to life?

Translating An Old Display To A New Onehackaday.com