How to Interface a Character LCD with a 8051 Microcontroller?

[Tony]

I've recently finished an introductory course in practical electronics, (completed the entire Hayes/Horowitz AoE student manual) and am itching to do some further work.

In particular, I want to get a character LCD (was thinking of ordering something from here: http://character-lcd-lcds.shopeio.com/inventory/catalog.asp?ACTION=2&cat=Lcds&sub=Character Lcd ) to work with a 8051 based circuit I have set up. I've done a little bit of programming with the 8051 already, so my question is primarily on how to work with an LCD screen.

Does anyone have suggestions for some resources and how to get started?

Thanks in advance.

 

[berkeman]

Great stuff Tony, keep it up. The LCDs will either have the driver IC embedded in them, or they will call out which driver IC to use with them. Get the User Manual for the driver portion, and read about the physical and logical methods to drive them. For example, the physical interface will either be serial (SPI or I2C usually) or parallel (byte-wide with some control signals). You will chose whichever interfaces is most easily supported by your 8051 platform. Then read about the commands that you send the LCD module to make it display characters, etc., and code those up in your 8051. For example, you will often send out a header byte with a command (like clear screen, or write character, etc.), with optional data after that first command byte. It all depends on the driver IC for the LCD.

Hope that helps. Download some User Manuals / datasheets for some of those displays, and look for programming application notes for them as well.