Hypothetically let's say I have a remote display device which can display 3 lines of 8 characters each. It has a microcontroller and an RS-232 port. Let's say it also has some input device like joystick and/or a few buttons.

How much glue do I need to write to get a basic remote player display working with this?

As I recall (it's been a while and they're packed away) the empeg player software can be configured to print out the current track, and accept commands to control playback. But can the menus (playlists, etc.) be navigated via the serial console?

I looked around a bit but it looks like the other remote display projects involve a bitmapped remote display. Has anyone tried an ASCII remote display?

Any comments will be appreciated.