My external 20x4 44780 display + driver

miwabba

New member
After assembling the LCD device and mounted it into a small external box, I started the hunt for the software to use. Without doubt, CrystalControl is the top of the line!
Curiousity and an urge to utilize the 8 custom characters in the CGRAM got me into trying to program my own driver. I now have a fully working VC++ class which is running my display. It has no GUI as of yet and shows "only" what you see in the picture below which is (1'st line) the new email count (MAPI), (2'nd line) a scrolling list of email authors and subjects, (3'rd line) the current date and current time and finally (4'th line) the most interesting, namely a live bargraph of the CPU load (Show's the last 16 seconds of activity) and a more traditional Ram load percentage.
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miwabba

New member
The case is a 13 x 7 x 4 cm plastic thing from my local radio shack type store. Besides cutting a hole for the display to "stick out" of, I cut off the one side in a angle that makes the display tilt about 15 degrees which is perfect for my viewing angle sitting down. It took some time but I am very happy with how it turned out! The print fits perfectly and on the back I mountet the parallel plug and on the sides of this, the light intensity control and the contrast control.
 

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