Zalman HD135 HTPC Enclosure

VFD Part 1

The HD135 comes fitted with a HD44780 compatible 2 x 20 character VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display) unit, capable of controlling the voltage to the two fans on-board. Essentially, this a re-badged and adapted VLSystems M·Play Blast kit, that incidentally, retails at around 100 USD.

Having had a look at previous incarnations of the VLSystems software in a past review, this version is a breath of positively fresh air. We had a play with it, experimenting with the plugins and configurables and took some screen shots to show you.

The display includes a dim red LED, to indicate the system at standby state, and the feature that most you will find extremely useful is the ability to cycle your system on and off at the touch of a button.

This requires that your motherboard has an internal USB port that supplies 5V at all times while the PSU is switched on.

The brightness is variable at software level, which is good for those dark viewing session, where any obvious light other than the display screen would cause distraction.

After the About and Help screens the first window you will find is the Basic Setup one, where you can choose some initial settings such as brightness and start-up options. The Auto User window a way of customising the display to cycle through various information screens like the following:

You can also build your own display, using the available CG Logo software or by using the ones included.

The CG Logo software is pretty simple to use and requires no explanation. The Quake and Pacman logos were provided, we believe the bit-tech one should be in future versions...