Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!oliveb!pyramid!weitek!practic!vlsisj!davidc
From: davidc@vlsisj.VLSI.COM (David Chapman)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: What interface do LCDs use?
Summary: if it's old, probably ugly
Message-ID: <15314@vlsisj.VLSI.COM>
Date: 26 Sep 89 02:44:00 GMT
References: <6499@ux.cs.man.ac.uk>
Reply-To: davidc@vlsisj.UUCP (David Chapman)
Organization: VLSI Technology Inc., San Jose, CA
Lines: 42

In article <6499@ux.cs.man.ac.uk> tait@v1.ee.man.ac.uk (David Tait) writes:
>Hi all,
>
>I recently bought a liquid-crystal display (LCD) module from a local
>electronics junk shop for no better reason than it was cheap, looked
>useful and I thought I might learn something about this technology.  The
>display is made by Toshiba (model ZQ8045D-101, circa 1986 I'd guess), and

I have a couple of displays lying around (also 1986 vintage) that I bought 
on the promise of specs in the mail.  Ha!  They never sent them.  I haven't 
had the time nor inclination to start poking around like you did, but...

>leading to pins 16 and 8 of the standard chips, plus checking the polarity
>of electrolytics connected to the LA5316, I connected a 5V supply (I think
>a -5V supply is also used, but I grounded this pin).  Anyway, I was
>rewarded by a randomly changing display (vertical bars mostly) when I
>touched some of the unconnected edge connector pins.  The display
>appears to have 200 rows of 640 pixels (a very useful size).

Once I _did_ get some specs, but they were for the wrong display!  What
they told me is that I needed +5 and -8 (or -13; I remember seeing 13
somewhere), plus two data lines, plus a clock.  You send in raster data
(another reason I never messed with them; I didn't want to build a 10-
or 20-IC display circuit to go in my homebrew portable) and a bunch of
other stuff.  My display had 11 or so wires too, and I think they used
all of them (at least the similar display in the spec did).

>...  My best guess is that it uses a raster mode
>with X and Y clocks, X and Y resets (horizontal and vertical sync) and
>serial data taken in 4-bit chunks.

You're probably very close to the truth here.  Let me dig up the spec sheet
(if I still have it); if it disagrees with anything I've just said here I'll
repost.

Send me E-mail if you're interested in a Xerox of my spec sheet (assuming
I find it, it's 3rd generation already) and we'll work out postage etc.
-- 
		David Chapman

{known world}!decwrl!vlsisj!fndry!davidc
vlsisj!fndry!davidc@decwrl.dec.com