We are going to be putting together a display system for some physiological data. Included are some neural data, and some of the investigators really want to be able to see _every_ neural event, in detail. Ok, most events will overlay, but they want to be able to see anomolous-shaped events within a stream of data, typically displayed at 200us or 500us/screen-width equivalent. Some of the neurons in the areas of interest can fire in bursts to over 1000/sec. We have some special-purpose hardware to get the data; assume that is not a problem.
We will probably simulate a variable persistence display to get around the limited frame rates of normal video displays.
In the past we've used SvgaLib for some related applications, but this software seems less well supported with time. It would probably be better in terms of long term support to use something within X-windows. A memory-mapped display would seem reasonable, but this doesn't seem kosher in a Linux environment. Most of the "graphic display" packages really seem focused on providing buttons, entry fields, and other widgets that are completely unneeded in this application. Some text display will be needed but this is pretty minor.
Ok, that should be enough to show you how stupidly I'm approaching this problem. What would you use to implement this display function? Or is this completely insane? Is special-purpose hardware necessary? (I'd hoped to use a previously acquired Matrox G400 card with a generic LCD monitor).
Thanks for your insights...
-frank