VFD - Vacuum Fluorescent Display

I found some VFDs on ebay and i thought, that would be a great replacement to the USB LCD - bigger and brighter. 

These were NCR 5972s, these are great as they are RS232 controlled (which  is why i needed to add some extra RS232 ports in an earlier post).

I used this document i found for the pinouts.  www.maltepoeggel.de/html/vfd/vfd_ncr5972.pdf

Initially i wrote the code below on the Mac, but the serial to usb dongles i had didnt like the length of time they were running and died/crashed after a few hours runtime.   On the linux box it has been running for days no problem.

Adding a 5v and 12v rail to my PC

I wanted to add a 5v and 12v rail to my PC, this removes the need for all the wall-warts (great US term there :)) i use to power various bits also attached to my PC.  Weather station, VFD etc.  (more on those later)

Front view showing the molex standard harddrive connector used.

Now installed into my PC