Path: utzoo!yunexus!maccs!darel From: darel@maccs.McMaster.CA (Darel Mesher) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: LCD displays Message-ID: <1670@maccs.McMaster.CA> Date: 6 Dec 88 18:15:14 GMT Article-I.D.: maccs.1670 References: <182@serene.UUCP> Reply-To: darel@maccs.UUCP (Darel Mesher) Organization: McMaster U., Hamilton, Ont., Can. Lines: 50 In article <182@serene.UUCP>, gbell@pnet12.cts.com (Greg Bell) writes: > > Also, what good single chip display controllers are there around? I'm > looking to interface a 16 segment, 16 character LED or LCD alphanumeric > display, and I would really prefer that the 8031 I'm using in the project > could spend its time doing things other than refreshing a display. > > GBell I built an intelligent controller based on the 8031 family a few years back and had exactly the same requirements (as well as monetary constraints ;-) and after much research I used the EPSON family of LCD displays. The actual device I used was the EA-Y20025AZ (20x2 character display with dot matrix format). The beauty of this device is that it is a stand alone logical block. The device consists of; complete ASCII character set (as well as character definition capabilities), single +5V supply, 8 bit data bus, standard control signals (ie R/W, Enable, external contrast adjustment), on-board display ram and it supports many high level s/w commands (Clear Display, Return Home, cursor placement and control, auto-increment/decrement data buffer entry, read/write from Data RAM and many more). This particular display is relatively cheap (CAN$70 3 years ago) and is only one of a family of devices (from 16x1 to 80x4 characters with provisions for easily cascading multiple displays, also dedicated numerical displays are available). The quality of the display is excellent (although I can't say the same for the Canadian distributors!) and it has been in constant use (24 h/day 365 d/yr) for the last 3 years with out any problems...I recommend them highly. Just as a side note - if you are going to be doing any S/W development for the 8031 family, and are going to be using a PC as the development system then I would recommend investigating AVOCET's 8031/51/71 cross-assembler and simulator. I used these tools to develop the 6000 lines of assembler code required for my controller. The simulator allowed me to develop the S/W and H/W concurrently:- the system code (approx 95% bug free) was ready before the H/W was completed. They can be contacted (for a product catalog) at: AVOCET Systems Inc. P.O Box 490 120 Union Street Rockport, Maine 04856 Of course I am nothing other than a satisfied customer (of both AVOCET and EPSON). Darel. -- Darel Mesher ...!uunet!mnetor!maccs!darel McMaster University darel@maccs.mcmaster.ca