[Sprite_tm] had heard some time ago that middle of the road Nokia phones had some really interesting LCDs, they are 2.4 inch TFT’s with 320×240 resolution. He immediately got 3 beccause they are pretty low cost as well, and started working with them. Apparently these LCDs are self contained, meaning they have all the driver chips and memory on board, you just need to know the pins and commands. This too is fairly easy as they are somewhat standard setups and datasheets for similar models work in a pinch.

Once the things were working, what do you do with them? [Sprite_tm] decided to make a desktop minecraft portal. Since the animation is a bit complex in micro controller worlds, he grabbed one of the STM32F101CBs for their beefy cpu and got to work. Getting the texture from minecraft proved to be a bit of a bear as they are not static images, but are calculated on startup. A bit of C code on the PC quickly generates an appropriate pattern and is exported to the micro controller for display in its final home.

The case is made out of wood and once finished looks just like the “real” thing giving a presentation any “blockhead” would love to have on their desk.