u/Consistent-Formal483

hey everyone,

i’m a first-year cse student at a pretty intense t2 in bangalore with 96%ile in JEE engineering college in india, and i’m honestly at my lowest point right now. i just needed to vent and maybe get some perspective from people who’ve been through this. 😭

i took cse thinking it would guarantee a good package. big mistake. i spent most of my first year “enjoying” college which basically meant doing nothing productive, and now i’m paying for it hard. my college has zero actual college life. the only thing anyone talks about is placements. i skipped some genuinely better options with way less stress because i was chasing that dream of a fat ctc. now the daily 1 hour commute each way is killing me and i feel exhausted all the time. 😭

i’m studying literally double the amount i did for jee and i still only managed a 7 cgpa. meanwhile i went to a school reunion recently and saw all my friends doing really well. many in t1/t2 colleges, some seniors who’ve already cracked good offers at places like intel with high cgpAs and solid profiles. it hit me like a truck. i feel so behind and worthless. 🥲

the worst part? i barely have any time left for the things that actually matter in cs. working on projects or grinding dsa. in a normal week i get maybe 30 hours of free time and i’m expected to study for 24 of them. my parents are paying huge fees and the guilt is crushing me. the job market is already brutal and with ai changing everything so fast i keep wondering how i’m ever going to make myself competitive or safe. 😭

i know i sound dramatic but i genuinely feel like i’m drowning. to anyone reading this who’s thinking of joining a super rigorous cs program just for the brand or package. please think twice. the stress is not worth it if you’re not built for this grind 24/7.

has anyone else been in a similar spot? how did you pull yourself out? any advice on managing time, building projects on the side, or just not losing hope in this ai driven market? i could really use some honest words right now.

thanks for reading. feeling very alone in this. I genuinely wanna kms😭🥲

please pray for me 😭🙏

Hey all, been deep in a rabbit hole trying to source a display for a hardware project and I genuinely cannot find what I need anywhere. Tried DigiKey, Mouser, Newhaven, Crystalfontz, Raystar, AliExpress, TSD Display, WanDisplay, BuyDisplay -- nothing hits all my requirements at the same time.

Here is exactly what I need:

• Resolution: 128x64
• Active area: minimum 63mm wide x 25mm tall
• Display tech: FSTN Positive, Transflective or Reflective (needs to look like an old monochrome LCD from the 90s, no glow whatsoever)
• Backlight: None, or a backlight that can be physically removed without destroying the polarizer
• Total module thickness: under 3mm
• Interface: 4-wire SPI
• Connector: 30-pin FPC ribbon cable, not rigid pins
• Module outline: under 74mm wide to fit inside an existing plastic enclosure

The problem I keep running into is this -- every display with a 63mm+ active area comes with a thick LED backlight unit making it 6-9mm thick. Every thin no-backlight FSTN display has an active area of only 47-52mm which is too small. The one display that comes closest to checking everything is the NHD-C12864WO-B1TFH#-M from Newhaven but the module is 75.7mm wide which is 1.7mm too wide for my enclosure, and the backlight makes it 6mm thick.

Has anyone:

1. Successfully peeled a backlight unit off a COG LCD without damaging the polarizer? Is this even possible?
2. Found a 128x64 FSTN positive transflective display with a 63mm+ active area that is genuinely thin with no backlight?
3. Ordered a custom COG LCD from TSD Display or BuyDisplay? What was the sample cost and lead time to India?

Any leads appreciated, been going in circles on this for weeks.

Hey all, been deep in a rabbit hole trying to source a display for a hardware project and I genuinely cannot find what I need anywhere. Tried DigiKey, Mouser, Newhaven, Crystalfontz, Raystar, AliExpress, TSD Display, WanDisplay, BuyDisplay -- nothing hits all my requirements at the same time.

Here is exactly what I need:

• Resolution: 128x64
• Active area: minimum 63mm wide x 25mm tall
• Display tech: FSTN Positive, Transflective or Reflective (needs to look like an old monochrome LCD from the 90s, no glow whatsoever)
• Backlight: None, or a backlight that can be physically removed without destroying the polarizer
• Total module thickness: under 3mm
• Interface: 4-wire SPI
• Connector: 30-pin FPC ribbon cable, not rigid pins
• Module outline: under 74mm wide to fit inside an existing plastic enclosure

The problem I keep running into is this -- every display with a 63mm+ active area comes with a thick LED backlight unit making it 6-9mm thick. Every thin no-backlight FSTN display has an active area of only 47-52mm which is too small. The one display that comes closest to checking everything is the NHD-C12864WO-B1TFH#-M from Newhaven but the module is 75.7mm wide which is 1.7mm too wide for my enclosure, and the backlight makes it 6mm thick.

Has anyone:

1. Successfully peeled a backlight unit off a COG LCD without damaging the polarizer? Is this even possible?
2. Found a 128x64 FSTN positive transflective display with a 63mm+ active area that is genuinely thin with no backlight?
3. Ordered a custom COG LCD from TSD Display or BuyDisplay? What was the sample cost and lead time to India?

Any leads appreciated, been going in circles on this for weeks.

Looking for a tiny stealth LCD for a tight embedded enclosure, need help finding the right part

I'm working on a small embedded project where I need to swap in a graphical LCD. The catch is it has to look like an old school passive display, not glowing or backlit, and it needs to physically fit inside an existing plastic enclosure that's pretty cramped. I can't modify the case at all so the dimensions are non negotiable.

Specs I'm working with:

Look: FSTN, positive, transflective or reflective. Basically needs to look like an old 90s style segment LCD, nothing glowing or blue. No OLED, no TFT or IPS, no color displays.

Thickness: Either no backlight at all, or total module thickness under 2.8mm. Anything past 3mm, or anything with an LED backlight, just won't fit.

Size: Active area should be roughly 60 to 65mm wide. Total module width needs to stay under 74mm max. If it's 80mm or wider it's a dealbreaker.

Interface: Needs to be 128x64 resolution, running SPI, I2C, or Serial. Not parallel, so 6800/8080 or 8 bit bus types are out. It also needs to connect through a flexible FPC ribbon cable since there's no room for rigid pin headers.

If anyone's run into a part number that fits this, or a supplier that stocks something close (Aliexpress, LCSC, Mouser, Digikey, whatever), I'd really appreciate it. Also open to hearing if anyone's done a similar swap before and what they learned. Happy to post progress once I get it working.

Looking for a tiny stealth LCD for a tight embedded enclosure, need help finding the right part

I'm working on a small embedded project where I need to swap in a graphical LCD. The catch is it has to look like an old school passive display, not glowing or backlit, and it needs to physically fit inside an existing plastic enclosure that's pretty cramped. I can't modify the case at all so the dimensions are non negotiable.

Specs I'm working with:

Look: FSTN, positive, transflective or reflective. Basically needs to look like an old 90s style segment LCD, nothing glowing or blue. No OLED, no TFT or IPS, no color displays.

Thickness: Either no backlight at all, or total module thickness under 2.8mm. Anything past 3mm, or anything with an LED backlight, just won't fit.

Size: Active area should be roughly 60 to 65mm wide. Total module width needs to stay under 74mm max. If it's 80mm or wider it's a dealbreaker.

Interface: Needs to be 128x64 resolution, running SPI, I2C, or Serial. Not parallel, so 6800/8080 or 8 bit bus types are out. It also needs to connect through a flexible FPC ribbon cable since there's no room for rigid pin headers.

If anyone's run into a part number that fits this, or a supplier that stocks something close (Aliexpress, LCSC, Mouser, Digikey, whatever), I'd really appreciate it. Also open to hearing if anyone's done a similar swap before and what they learned. Happy to post progress once I get it working.

Hey guys, the semester 3 subjects for CSE is changed for the next academic year so I'm sharing the new subjects. could you please be kind enough to tell me will slides cut out for the following subjects? apparently the combination of subjects are significantly harder than the previous years. I'm just going to keep it here because I don't want to lose my curiosity in figuring out the subjects later on. so these are my subjects

DDCO OS CN DSA MCSE

The above is for semester 3 so please be kind enough to help me out with figuring out if I would need only the slides or only the notes whether the PYQs are useful for some particular subject, etc. please don't comment on burning out this is not meant for immediate studying but for figuring out later which I just wanted to post right now because I was free lol

Hey all, building a custom low power sensor display that needs to fit an existing enclosure I have I've been trying to source a very specific display for a hardware mod and I'm completely stuck. Spent days going through DigiKey, Mouser, AliExpress, Newhaven, Crystalfontz, Raystar and nothing hits all my requirements at the same time. Hoping someone here has dealt with industrial LCD sourcing before.

What I need:

• Resolution: 128x64
• Active area: ~65mm wide x ~25mm tall
• Display tech: FSTN Positive, Transflective or Reflective (needs to look like an old handheld device screen, no glow whatsoever)
• Backlight: None
• Thickness: under 3mm total
• Interface: 4-wire SPI
• Connector: FPC ribbon cable, not rigid pins
• Module outline: under 74mm wide to fit inside a tight enclosure

The problem:

Every display with a 65mm+ active area seems to come with an LED backlight and is 8-10mm thick. Every thin no-backlight FSTN display I find has an active area of only 47-52mm which is too small for my window.

It feels like this combination (wide active area + no backlight + thin + SPI + FPC) just doesnt exist as a standard off the shelf part.

My questions:

1. Does anyone know a standard part number that hits all these constraints?
2. Has anyone ordered custom COG LCDs from manufacturers like BuyDisplay, TSD Display or Enrich Electronics? How was the experience, MOQ, cost, lead time?
3. Am I missing something obvious here?

Any leads appreciated, been going in circles on this for a while now.