Sources for OLED/PLED or VFD displays?

[tetsujin]

Hey,

I want to get some kind of character or dot matrix display for my control panel for displaying the button assignments for the game.  I was thinking of using LCD but I'm concerned the EL backlight and contrast ratio won't be good enough for all playing conditions...  I'm also concerned about the viewing angle limitations of LCD.  Plus I love the way self-lighting displays like VFD or OLED look.  I don't have any good sources for buying these displays apart from Matrix Orbital, which is kind of expensive.  I dunno, maybe it's too much to hope that I could find a good deal on these displays through surplus channels...  (VFDs being fragile, and PLEDs being new, I guess I could see why they wouldn't be common at surplus places)

So can anyone recommend a source for such displays?

[Silverwind]

I bought mine from www.crystalfontz.com. 

They have a wide selection.  There are USB models if you want an easy no-fuss hookup, or you can go with a wire your own serial/parallel model.  Prices are pretty resonable on the DIY screens.

Here is a list of their Industry-standard HD44780 compatible controller based LCD's.
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/index-std.html

HD44780 compatible PLED/OLED  (this is what I purchased)
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/index-pled.html

Here is a sample wiring guide with some nice pictures:
http://www.moddershq.net/guides.asp?guideid=13

Make sure you check to see if you need to use a resistor to limit input voltage on the backlight so you don't damage it.