Touchscreen question on Dell E 153 PPf

Todd wrote:

Hi All,

I have a customer with a point of sale system using a
touchscreen "Dell E 153 PPf" monitor. Needless to say,
I have not been able to find any spec's on it.

Question: is the video driver just like any other
video driver or does the video driver handle the data
after the user jabs an icon on the screen? The cable is
VGA, so I do not see how it could provide feedback.

I am hoping someone tells me the data goes back to
the computer over a USB cable or some such.

Many thanks,
-T

Specs for Dell E153FPT 15 Inch Touch Screen Flat Panel Monitor

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...4088&?~lt=popup&c=us&l=en&s=dfb&cs(

Connectivity Technology

USB for touch sensor,
VGA for analog video

A "monitor driver" would be optional. Many manufacturers will claim
their monitor is Plug N' Play, via the DDC serial interface on the
VGA cable. But you can also get a color profile as part of a
driver package. For example, there is a 6KB ZIP file for my monitor,
which includes a color profile (so Photoshop is a bit more accurate
on-screen). That file will also insert a registry setting for
max resolution, which sometimes helps if the OS is unable to
figure it out. (For example, if my video card wouldn't drive the
monitor higher than 1024x768, when my monitor is 1280x1024, installing
the 6KB monitor driver package will load the registry entry that
says it is safe to drive at 1280x1024, the native resolution. The other
thing that file does, is give the monitor a name. Without the driver
installed, WinXP calls it a "generic monitor" or something similar.
If your monitor is otherwise working, you don't need to hunt down
that kind of driver.)

That is separate from a video card driver. The video card driver is
more concerned with programming the GPU and making it work.

The touch screen basically creates a stream of characters at
a relatively low transmission rate. That gives X-Y coordinates for
things touched on the screen. On older screens, that might even
be accomplished by a serial connection (RS232), but more modern products
will have a USB cable for it (inside the monitor, they might convert
RS232 to USB with a chip). The Touchscreen software will be
a separate install, from the "monitor driver" (if a monitor driver
is even available).

The Touchscreen software will come from an entirely different
company. Dell may have sold the monitor, but perhaps in this case,
the Touch panel overlay is by 3M.

Here is a manual for it. Enjoy.

http://support.dell.com/support/edo.../index.htm

Also, the OS must be suited to touch input. If the OS doesn't understand
touch as an input method, it's not going to know what to do with the
input.

The Touchware driver here, claims to be for Win2K and WinXP. It's a
small file, so I had a look. It almost looks like the contents of
four floppy diskettes. Don't know what you're supposed to do with that.
I sure hope it installs, without making floppies.

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers...bsd&cs&DriverId=R89777

Paul