On 09/01/07, Jim Jackson <> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Lars Torben Wilson wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've been looking into adding an LCD display to my TS-7400. I have
> > here a 2x20 HD44780-compatible with backlight.
> >
> > (For background, I'm a software designer and budding electronics
> > hobbyist).
> >
> > Of course, the TS-7400 does not have an LCD header or a parallel
> > port out. Is anyone aware of an LCDProc driver which could be used
> > to drive the display via some of the GPIO pins (4-bit is fine for my
> > purposes, for now) or the GPBUS, or such? It almost seems like
> > it should just about be as easy as hacking an existing driver to
> > address the 7400's pin addresses instead of the parallel port
> > addresses, but I rather doubt that's the case.
>
> Technologics publish example code for driving such LCDs. There is nothing
> "special" about the "LCD" port on e.g. the TS7200 - it is just general
> purpose IO port. A more complete program (lcdd) is available from my
> TS7200 web site and Yan Seiner has modified that to make it handle ANSI
> control sequences.
Cool, I'll check that out.
> There are loads of sites describing how to program the interface for these
> devices.
There sure are. But software isn't as much fun anymore as hardware
so a ready-made driver, while not required, would be nice to find.
> > My other thought was to build a simple serial-to-lcd daughterboard
> > using a shift register, as shown on the following pages:
> >
> > http://www.myke.com/lcd.htm
> > http://www.repairfaq.org/filipg/LINK/F_Tech_LCD5.html#TECHLCD_002
> >
> > Given my inexperience, this seems the easiest solution.
>
> ??? sorry but that doesn't seem to make sense - maybe I've misread it.
> You are a s/w guy and are saying the h/w solution is simplest???
Yep. Or maybe "more fun" would be a better way to put it. I'm fine
with doing the driver myself if needed, but if I can just dump bytes
(or nybbles) down a serial line, making a simple pcb in my basement
would indeed be a more fulfilling use of my time. Like I said, I'm
learning hardware.
> > So: why am I wrong, where should I look for more information, and
> > what hideously simple solution am I overlooking?
> >
>
> I'm a s/w guy with some (amateur) h/w experience. As long as you have the
> requisite number of GPIO pins (3 controls and either 4/8 data) hooking up
> and driving one of these LCDs is pretty simple.
Heck, it's a TS board. I have LOADs of pins. But I also want to use
loads of pins for other things eventually, so if one trade-off is a slow
display, I'm fine with that. The kinds of things I would be using the
system for would generally use the display as a kind of last resort
when an on-site worker doesn't have a laptop with a serial interface
to log in with.
> Happy hacking
> Jim
Thanks for the hints. I'll check out your site and code.
--
Torben Wilson <>
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