Great idea! I'm assuming the device will work with a PC on the house network to store and retrieve recipes, shopping lists, and for the games as the 262 bytes of ram in the SX52 are no where near enough to keep anything and the EEPROM is limited life (you can only write to it so many times). Or will you add some external RAM to the device? It seems like making it work as a sort of smart terminal / minimal web browser would be best so that the intelligence / applications can be a service of a remote server. The commercial opportunity is to sell the unit at cost (or less) since it will be very inexpensive and then make your money off the service. This also allows you to offer constant upgrades, recipe of the month, dietary planning, chat services and new games. As for the touch screen, how about just using large "button" areas on the display and a ring of LED's and photocells around the display frame. When the beam from the LED is interrupted, you know the fingers position, then you just have to figure out if it is actually being pressed against the display. Perhaps a microphone attached to the display could "hear" the tap of the finger against the glass. Just ideas. --- James Newton 1-619-652-0593 mailto:jamesnewton@sxlist.com SX FAQ: http://www.sxlist.com -----Original Message----- From: Carrier Family [mailto:carrier@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 21:42 To: jamesnewton@sxlist.com Subject: submition for SX fast ebeded ethernet contest A month or two ago I ordered a 320 x 200 pixel LCD screen from Allelectronics (spec sheet at http://www.allelectronics.com/spec/lcd-51.pdf) and have been looking for something to do with it so... For my contest entry I will be designing a kitchen internet appliance. a.. It may have a touch screen and/or use a standard IBM compatible keyboard (I cant find anyone who will sell just one touch screen) b.. It will download recipes from any computer on the intranet and maybe even the internet. c.. When any food is need it can be typed or entered on the touch screen so it can compile a shopping lists of what is needed. d.. It will probably (why not?) have games, and if I have time maybe even two multi-player with someone on the computer. e.. It might even have email or text based web browsing capabilities I think I might use an LCD controller IC or an SX to scan the LCD and run touch screen. Until I have the screen taken care of I will write a QBASIC program to interface through the printer port and emulate the screen. I will probably implement either POP3 or HTTP to get recipes, and fill in what features I can until I run out of room. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.