LCD PANEL from a CALCULATOR?
 

Ok, we've all seen the trendy little (20x4) LCD panels you can slap on your case and display system temp and load and XMMS songs etc etc... but I was wondering...

If it can be done with a special LCD that costs 40$, can it be done with a CALCULATOR (numbers-only) LCD that I could rip out of an old calculator?

I mean, wow, that'd kick butt. Yeah, it's cheap, but if I have twenty computers I simply want to visually display the system load without a monitor... it'd be really cool.

another possibility?: what if I wanted to display 10 levels of system load, and used 10 leds that would light up to represent the system load? (or 4, and have in in binary) would that be an easy thing to make..?

Yeah.. you could, it's preety esay.
Keep in mind that those LCDs are preety limited, and some of them are so integrated into the case, that once you take them out they don't work more. I've had a few like that.

pretty easy huh... what would it involve? I mean, I look and I see docs for all these LCD panels but I never found any info on using calculator screens. Where should I go / what should I look for to research the subject?

It depends on your knowledge of electronics. A plain jane LCD display requires a LCD driver IC, somekind of circuit to display what you want and then somekind of interface to attach it to the PC.

It would be far easier to use the 20X4 LCD module.

I made one for computer club a while ago. It used the parallel port. Crappy, but it worked :)
Just displayed what I would type in. Very little knowledeg of electronics is needed.

If you are talking about a 20X4 LCD display I will agree with you.