I recently picked up several 2x16 backlit and 2 4x40 (nonbacklit) LCD displays from
Marlin P Jones and Associates (http://www.mpja.com/)
and over the holiday break hooked them up to my computer using David Tait's C program.
I've created a QBasic program as an excercise to familiarize myself with
controlling the HD44780.
The 4x40 display did not come with any data, so I traced the PCB and found which pins
do what. The resulting pinout is here.
I intend to put up the circuit diagrams and programs I am using. This is the
start of my home automation. I will have the 2x16 LCDs in each room with a keypad
networked together with a main controlling computer for now.
CC5XLCD.C(5KB) is the code I use
to control the LCDs through their 4-bit interface. It is in C, and should compile
under most PIC C compilers for most variants. Please email me if you want an
assembled version.