What sort of display did you have in mind?
The bfgminer api exposes most of the useful information so I suppose something like attaching an Arduino with a 7-segment display to the USB port and having a script to feed it for example the hashrate from the api could be one simple option. Replace that 7-segment display with some commonly used small OLED and you could fit a little bit more info there. Replace the Arduino with a ESP8266 or ESP32 and it could read the bfgminer api by itself without needing to be attached to the USB port.
I’m not sure what sort of display. I’m researching different options now. - But I’m wanting something small, probably around 4x6 inches or so. But I believe ideally, I’m wanting to display the command line process?
Not for any functional reason. But rather last night I had an idea to make sort of an art piece out of an Apollo. And I think displaying the code/hashing on a external display a requirement to make it worth exploring this little side project further.
If it had been a small status / monitoring display you were looking for then
https://github.com/Qrome/printer-monitor is probably the closest that comes to mind that could be made Apollo compatible with some code changes (new output layout + bfgminer json parsing instead of octoprint json).
If with command line process you refer to the bfgminer console output then one possibility could be to modify the startup parameters a little bit and make it use a log file. Then you'd need some process to read that log and dump it to some display. As there's only a USB port available, you'd either need some USB->VGA converter (DisplayLink may be supported enough) + a small VGA display. Most likely the cheaper option would be to have an Arduino connected to the USB which would then become visible as a serial port. With some scripting, it would be possible to dump new lines from the log file to the serial port which would the be read by the Arduino and shown on some supported display (
https://www.buydisplay.com/default/9-inch-arduino-touch-screen-shield-ssd1963-library-for-mega-due for example, the largest I could find). With the Arduino, you'd have full control on how to output the input text and that way make it as artistic as you'd want/can.
I haven't actually gotten my Apollos yet. They currently are scheduled for delivery next week. But I just went and looked around, and I think that the console output by bfgminer is exactly what I'm looking for. I found this sample output from their thread:
Sample output:
bfgminer version 5.5.0 - Started: [2014-06-10 20:13:01] - [ 0 days 06:15:32]
[M]anage devices [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [H]elp [Q]uit
Pool 0: ...ning.eligius.st Diff:128 +Strtm LU:[02:28:32] User:1QATWksNFGeUJCWBrN4g6hGM178Lovm7Wh
Block #305190: ...6e8ba4d9 Diff:11.8G (84.16P) Started: [02:07:22] I:1.04mBTC/hr
ST:156 F:0 NB:31 AS:0 BW:[269/ 12 B/s] E:1127.28 BS:21.8M
5/24 63.0C | 94.10/98.68/95.60Gh/s | A:1974 R:2+2(.20%) HW:5729/2.6%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BFL 0: 54.0C | 8.11/ 8.10/ 7.65Gh/s | A: 62 R:1+2(4.6%) HW: 273/1.3%
HBR 0: 63.0C | 22.91/22.85/21.55Gh/s | A: 208 R:0+0(none) HW:3022/5.4%
TBF 0: 28.0C | 5.13/ 5.10/ 4.89Gh/s | A: 49 R:0+0(none) HW: 331/4.5%
PXY 0: | 27.85/30.23/29.84Gh/s | A: 358 R:1+0(.28%) HW: 450/1.0%
RKM 0: 40.0C | 30.10/32.40/31.67Gh/s | A:1297 R:0+0(none) HW:1653/.92%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2014-06-11 02:28:10] Accepted 00c819ef HBR 0d Diff 327/255
[2014-06-10 02:28:13] Accepted 012058dd PXY 0 Diff 227/128
[2014-06-11 02:28:15] Accepted 01778be1 RKM 0b Diff 174/128
I think if I could somehow display that as it happened, that would be perfect. Especially if it can be easily done. Because as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not the most technically savvy person there is.
But really, my goal with this display isn't anything more than to show "the process" of mining. - When the average person hears of "crypto mining" and sees a miner, they just think its a thing that takes up a lot of space, makes heat, and wastes electricity. And I figure if there's a way of showing "what" the miner is doing, maybe they'll realize about the whole decentralization thing.
(Also, I just haven't seen any good art influenced by crypto. So I figured why not make it myself)
