Post by thread:[OT]Inverse Charaters on LCD

Hi all - I just got my 16F84 talking with my 2x40 LCD Charater display. This is the first time I have used the LCD Module. So much better than 7 Seg. LEDs. Heres my question: Is there a way to display "Inverted Characters", ie, dark background with light letters. I want to highlight some text I will be displaying. If, not, how can a make a word or phrase flash. Do I have to do it manually, or is there some attribute I could set to make this happen. Any help appreciated Mike Gann

I know that many LCD's w/ the Hitachi HD44780 controller allow you to define a charachter set. I don't know much about doing this, but it seems like it would have a high nuisance value and use up lots of code if you want to invert all the characters. But if you just needed a few-- bcs On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Mike Gann wrote: {Quote hidden}> Hi all - > > I just got my 16F84 talking with my 2x40 LCD Charater display. > This is the first time I have used the LCD Module. So much better > than 7 Seg. LEDs. > > Heres my question: > Is there a way to display "Inverted Characters", ie, dark > background with light letters. I want to highlight some > text I will be displaying. > > If, not, how can a make a word or phrase flash. Do I have > to do it manually, or is there some attribute I could set to > make this happen. > > Any help appreciated > > Mike Gann >

Brian - I thought about that too. But since it need to be the whole alphabet, that will not work. So, maybe I will look into what it takes to make the text blink. Thanks Mike Gann Brian Striggow wrote: {Quote hidden}> > I know that many LCD's w/ the Hitachi HD44780 controller allow you to > define a charachter set. I don't know much about doing this, but it > seems like it would have a high nuisance value and use up lots of code if > you want to invert all the characters. But if you just needed a few-- > > bcs > > On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Mike Gann wrote: > > > Hi all - > > > > I just got my 16F84 talking with my 2x40 LCD Charater display. > > This is the first time I have used the LCD Module. So much better > > than 7 Seg. LEDs. > > > > Heres my question: > > Is there a way to display "Inverted Characters", ie, dark > > background with light letters. I want to highlight some > > text I will be displaying. > > > > If, not, how can a make a word or phrase flash. Do I have > > to do it manually, or is there some attribute I could set to > > make this happen. > > > > Any help appreciated > > > > Mike Gann > >

Thanks Dale - I saw that option in the data sheet. But I would need close to the whole alphabet. My second thought is to make the selected word blink. Any ideas how to do this other than displaying the word for 1/2 second and the clearing it for a 1/2 second, etc. Is there a command to make the charaters blink? By the way this display is based on the HD44780 controller. Thanks Mike Gann Dale Wescombe wrote: > > Some LCD units alllow you to create your own charachters and store them on > the controller. This would only be helpful if you needed a few charachters. > Not the whole alphabet though. I can chase up how it's done and what you > need if that helps?? > Dale

You have got to be joking. Why would having a 16 character display obviously mean that you do not need the whole alphabet ________________________________________________ David Instone Electronics Technician, Invetech 96 Ricketts Rd, Private Bag 44, Mt Waverley, Australia 3149 Tel +61 3 9265-8888 Dir +61 3 9265-8551 e-mail: spam_OUTdgiTakeThisOuTinvetech.com.au Fax +61 3 9265 8881 (or 8882) ________________________________________________ {Original Message removed}

You have got to be joking. Why would having a 16 character display obviously mean that you do not need the whole alphabet There are 26 letters in the alphabet (plus 10 digits.) If you only have 16 display positions, you can never need more than 16 of them (to be upside down or otherwise modifiedd) at any one moment. Now, I don't know if you can actually update the custom character table fast enough to add new characters as they scroll onto the screen if you want to do a scrolling display of infinite length, but it's certainly not immediately rejectable as impossible. Ya ever notice that a smallish PIC has JUST about enough eprom to be a character generator for a reasonable subset of ascii (say DEC's "Radix50" set (A-Z, 0-9, "$", "%", ".", " ") - 40 characters times 5 columns per is 200 words....) By the way, does anyone happen to have a set of character generator words already typed in someplace? Last time I did that I carefully saved the (ahem) cards, but I don't think they'll do me much good now, even if I could find them! BillW

The maximum unique characters at any time would be 16. On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, David Instone wrote: {Quote hidden}> You have got to be joking. Why would having a 16 character display obviously > mean that you do not need the whole alphabet > > ________________________________________________ > David Instone > Electronics Technician, Invetech > 96 Ricketts Rd, Private Bag 44, Mt Waverley, Australia 3149 > Tel +61 3 9265-8888 Dir +61 3 9265-8551 > e-mail: .....dgiKILLspam@spam@invetech.com.au Fax +61 3 9265 8881 (or 8882) > ________________________________________________ > > > > {Original Message removed}

Hello David & PIC.ers, mmm. I think what Bill's saying in his roundabout way, is that with a 16 char line, you couldn't be using more than 16 members of the alphabet set at any given moment. .. Therefore, if you have 16 programmable chars available to you -but I think standard 44780s only give you 8 - then you could write your s/w so that the programmable chars are set up `on the fly' just before loading the line to the lcd. Bit of a grind to write, but if your app. demands inverse chars, I think it could be done. .. >Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 11:40:14 +1100 >From: David Instone <dgiKILLspamINVETECH.COM.AU> >Subject: Re: [OT]Inverse Charaters on LCD > >You have got to be joking. Why would having a 16 character display obviously >mean that you do not need the whole alphabet > > ________________________________________________ > David Instone .. .. >>>it's >>> done and what you need if that helps?? .. >> Obviously, if you have a 16 character display, you do not need the >> whole alphabet... >> > > BillW best regards, John .. email from John Sanderson at JS Controls, PO Box 1887, Boksburg 1460, Rep. South Africa Manufacturer & purveyor of laboratory force testing apparatus and related products and services. Tel/fax: Johannesburg 893 4154 Cellphone 082 453 4815

|I think what Bill's saying in his roundabout way, is that with |a 16 char line, you couldn't be using more than 16 members of the |alphabet set at any given moment. . |Therefore, if you have 16 programmable chars available to you | -but I think standard 44780s only give you 8 - |then you could write your s/w so that the programmable chars are set |up `on the fly' just before loading the line to the lcd. The 44780-based displays allow eight custom characters; if you're using a very small display (like the 4x2 units available from TimeLine or the 8x1's I've seen elsewhere) you can fill the display with custom characters and then treat it as a bitmap. You'll still have the blank rows and columns between characters, but you could do whatever you wanted with the dots that were there--even display all your text upside-down (for using a 12-o'clock display as a 6 or vice versa). Even on a 16x1 or 16x2 display, it's sometimes useful to have a small "bitmap" on screen in addition to the normal text. Unfortunately, by the time you get up to a 40x2 dis- play, your bitmappable area becomes pretty puny compared with the rest of the display. Unless you're looking to do some well-defined tricks (ever see a Yamaha TG-33 synth? When powered on, the top of the 2-line display starts out black and "dissolves" to ---------------- YAMAHA TG-33 ---------------- after which the bottom line scrolls on vertically [if memory serves]: ---------------- Good to meet you ---------------- In both of those animations, there are exactly eight custom characters ["YAMHTG-3" dissolving and "Godtmeyu" scrolling] on screen at once. By the way, does anyone know why 99.44% of the 44780-based dis- plays used have the Japanese upper character set? There is a "stock" version of the chip with a European character set in the mask ROM, but few modules seem to use it. Any idea why?

John Payson wrote: > By the way, does anyone know why 99.44% of the 44780-based dis- > plays used have the Japanese upper character set? There is a > "stock" version of the chip with a European character set in > the mask ROM, but few modules seem to use it. Any idea why? Probably 'cause 99.44% are made in Japan ? <G> Peter Cousens email: .....cousensKILLspam.....her.forthnet.gr phone: + 3081 380534 snailmail: Folia, Agia Fotini, Karteros, Heraklion Crete, Greece. We cannot blame God for creating a World with so many problems, He had just upgraded from win3.11 to win95. No wonder Eve recommended Apple.

At 08:51 10/11/98 -0600, you wrote: {Quote hidden}>|I think what Bill's saying in his roundabout way, is that with >|a 16 char line, you couldn't be using more than 16 members of the >|alphabet set at any given moment. >. >|Therefore, if you have 16 programmable chars available to you >| -but I think standard 44780s only give you 8 - >|then you could write your s/w so that the programmable chars are set >|up `on the fly' just before loading the line to the lcd. > >The 44780-based displays allow eight custom characters; >if you're using a very small display (like the 4x2 units >available from TimeLine or the 8x1's I've seen elsewhere) >you can fill the display with custom characters and then >treat it as a bitmap. You'll still have the blank rows >and columns between characters, but you could do whatever >you wanted with the dots that were there--even display all >your text upside-down (for using a 12-o'clock display as a >6 or vice versa). > >Even on a 16x1 or 16x2 display, it's sometimes useful to >have a small "bitmap" on screen in addition to the normal >text. Unfortunately, by the time you get up to a 40x2 dis- >play, your bitmappable area becomes pretty puny compared >with the rest of the display. > >Unless you're looking to do some well-defined tricks (ever >see a Yamaha TG-33 synth? When powered on, the top of the >2-line display starts out black and "dissolves" to > >---------------- > YAMAHA TG-33 >---------------- > >after which the bottom line scrolls on vertically [if memory >serves]: > >---------------- >Good to meet you >---------------- > >In both of those animations, there are exactly eight custom >characters ["YAMHTG-3" dissolving and "Godtmeyu" scrolling] on >screen at once. > >By the way, does anyone know why 99.44% of the 44780-based dis- >plays used have the Japanese upper character set? There is a >"stock" version of the chip with a European character set in >the mask ROM, but few modules seem to use it. Any idea why? > > Cost and smart marketing. In Japan just about everything has an LCD or some sort of display, plays some dinky, tinky (Annoying) music (Even the traffic lights! :-)) and that sort of stuff. Also I you look you will see that the Japanese (Nihon.go) have cornered this market very well indeed (Hitachi rules on this) :-). Dennis

Throwing my 2 oere in... I have not followed this thread, but i want to mention a method that requires neither programming or hardware! I learned it when working with polarizing filters i used for a fast bean sorting machine. I don«t remember the detail right now, but: In the display, between the glass and reflective background there is a polarizing filter. Turn it upsidedown (i think it is a circularly polarizing filter) (or turn 180¡? i don«t remember) Viol‡! I used the trick to "customize" one of my cheap calculators. Really cool... If i had time i would add red LED backlight too :) There is of course problem if it is glued to the glass or locked otherways. There is also the possibility to buy polarizing films of different sorts to substitute. I think the rebuild operation can be quite easy and fast on some displays. Regards /Morgan Morgan Olsson ph +46(0)414 70741 MORGANS REGLERTEKNIK fax +46(0)414 70331 H€LLEKS (in A-Z letters: "HALLEKAS") SE-277 35 KIVIK, SWEDEN EraseMEmrtspam_OUTTakeThisOuTiname.com ___________________________________________________________

On Tue, 10 Nov 1998 22:09:03 +0100 Morgan Olsson <mrtspam_OUTINAME.COM> writes: >Throwing my 2 oere in... > >I have not followed this thread, but i want to mention a method that >requires neither programming or hardware! I learned it when working >with >polarizing filters i used for a fast bean sorting machine. > >I don=B4t remember the detail right now, but: >In the display, between the glass and reflective background there is a >polarizing filter. >Turn it upsidedown (i think it is a circularly polarizing filter) >(or turn 180=B0? i don=B4t remember) In all the alphanumeric units I've taken apart the filters are glued to the glass. Also after taking a display apart it can be difficult to get the conductive strips aligned properly so it works when put back together. But maybe you could order inverse units from the factory. LCDs with light digits on a dark background are made this way for car stereos and the like. Backlighting would be pretty much essential. ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]