Hi again,
John:
This is what i was hoping to see. So the display comes up in EITHER/OR mode, either 4 bit or 8 bit, depending on how we want to start sending data.
Mike:
Just for your information, i had been using a 1602 LCD display long before anyone ever payed me to use one! (har har har)
I had to mention realism because that is what life is about, not as much about theory and believing what we read is correct all the time without question. Theory and reading is of course a great benefit for learning and prediction, but the down to earth final way of describing things is exactly as they occur, without any added interpretation.
To give an interesting example of this, i once posed the question: What is the largest number?
Think about that for a minute, and you will find that you probably say "infinity", but is that really a number?
A number is something like, 1, 2, 5, 899, 1e23, etc. Infinity is not really a number, it is an idea.
But the real heart of the question is to try to figure out if there is such a thing as the largest number, and by doing that one way we might start as:
Well, 100 is a big number, but if we add another 100 we get 200 and that is even bigger, so 100 cant be it. But then if we add another 100 we get 300 so 200 cant be it. So we think a little more, then maybe say:
Well, if we multiply 300 times 300, we get an even bigger number, which is better than the older 300. But if we multiply that by 90000 we get a bigger number, and then think a little more, then maybe say:
Well, if we take that 90000 and raise it to the power of 90000, we get a really really big number. But if we started with a larger number to begin with, we'd get an even bigger number yet, which is again closer to what we are looking for which is the largest number possible.
Now thinking again, what if we raise that to a power equal to itself, or calculate the factorial of that? We get such a huge number it might not even be possible to write it down on paper.
But all this thinking and calculating takes time, so we have to include the possibility that after we keep thinking and improving the procedure for doing this we might only get up to a certain very large number by the end of our lifetime. Is that the biggest number then?
Well, what if we pass it on to our offspring, so they can continue the process, then they pass it on to their offspring at the end of their lifetime, then after 100 generations, is that the largest number possible?
Well, then what if we wait 100+100 generations, is that the largest possible?
But what if we wait 100*100 generations, is that the largest possible?
But then what if we wait 100^100 generations, is that the largest possible?
Then the future of the human race comes into question: just how long will the human race last in this universe?
When the last man dies calculating the largest number possible, after many many generations, then that must be the largest possible number, at least as the human race is concerned. If there really is alien life, then maybe they can take over.
So that is an illustration of realism. We fantasize about what the largest number can be, but time comes into play and other problems come up when we actually try to calculate it. Even just thinking about it takes time, and we cant even think to the end of that sequence of operations because again time comes into play which means we have a limited time to do this.
Alec:
Did you mean either/or as above or did you mean that we dont know for sure what mode it came up in (random)? I think you meant either/or, where we have the CHOICE which interface to use right from the start after the required delay after power on. If this is not correct, please elaborate.