The Futaba Driver
This section covers the use of the Futaba TOSD-5711BB USB VFD display. This as commonly used on Elonex Artisan, Fujitsu Scaleo E and FIC Spectra Media Centre PCs.

Displays
The Futaba TOSD-5711BB is a VFD based USB 2.0 display, very much in the style of VHS Recorders/Players from the 1990s. It contains a single line, 7 Character 14-segment display and multiple icons to show the media type, codec, etc; current state of the PC; Volume knob and indicator. Each segment will display one character (Letters can only be in Capitals), and has a ':' (colon) and '.' (dot) between each character. There is no contrast control or back-light. The volume knob is lit using a blue LED and spins eternally. An image of the VFD circuit board and Volume knob can be seen here.
The IR attached is a standard MCE eHome remote which does not need any new drivers to work with lirc. It also works with scripts.xbmc.lcdproc on Kodi.
It comes pre-installed on Elonex Artisan, Fujitsu Scaleo E and FIC Spectra Media Centre PCs FIC Spectra Manual.
If the display crashes on start-up, this diff will solve the problem: Linux Diff. I have submitted this patch for inclusion into the standard Linux Kernel.
The patched version of scripts.xbmc.lcproc can be found here, this should be added upstream soon too.

Requirements
The driver is based on the libusb USB library (Versions 1.0 and 0.1), which should make it work with Linux, the different BSD variants as well as Darwin/MacOS X.
When using a libusb based driver like futaba, LCDd needs to be started as root. However LCDd may then drop down to a less privlidged user, such as nobody, after it has started.
On Linux, the only kernel module required is the USB host controller driver to fire up the USB bus to which the LCD is attached. For other operating systems, analogous requirements apply.

Configuration in LCDd.conf

[futaba]
There are no Brightness, Contrast or Back-light controls as the display does not support these functions

futaba driver status
All icons/indicators function well. Currently the ':' (colon) or '.' (dot) in between characters do NOT operate. In a future update I hope to get these to work, with three settings: one to enable/disable flashing; one to set the flash rate; and one to choose between ':' (colon) or '.' (dot).

Copyright
The lcdproc futaba driver originally was written by Blackeagle email: gm(dot)blackeagle(at)gmail(dot)com Additions by Alex Wood (2015/6) email: thetewood(at)gmail(dot)com.