What does it mean writing a Driver to LCD?

[electroRF]

I think to write a driver to an LCD, and I want to use C language for that task.
Does it mean that I connect the LCD to my laptop / PC and write a C program which plays images in the LCD display?
How different is it than programming an Uc to play images in the LCD display?

Thank you very much.

 

[Ian Rogers]

The main difference is the amount of memory you have available on a PC than a small μC... I once attached a simple 240x128 mono graphical screen to a PC's parallel port... Storing Umteen images in ram I could get 30 FPS video.... I was restricted only by the bus speed of the parallel port. On The mighty micro (pic18f4620) I get 12 fps, but limited storage.

You can get smart LCD's such as 4D systems.. They will run full video...

 

[electroRF]

Hi,
Thanks a lot Ian!

My main goal is to practice Embedded programming in C, in order to find a job in this field.

What do you think is preferable - programming a Driver or an Uc for displaying images on LCD?

 

[Ian Rogers]

If colour images.. Then you need 16bit μC and up... There are a number of colour LCD's with controllers out there now...

I'm toying with SPI Sram to see if I can use external ram to do the job..

 

[electroRF]

Hi again Ian, thank you very much!

Could you recommend on such Uc <-> LCD parts?

I actually would like to use I2C as the communication protocol.

I was thinking on a simple PIC and low cost Graphic LCD

I thought of the following **broken link removed** .

Could you recommend on a PIC that can work with it?


So, I understand that you recommend on programming uC than Driver for practicing C Embedded programming?

 

[electroRF]

Well,
It seems that this LCD already has an internal 16-bit Uc with I2C module, so all I have to do is taking care of the I2C communication with my own external pic.

You think it takes the substantial portion out of the project? (if my goal is embedded programming)

 

[Ian Rogers]

I have this.. https://uk.farnell.com/digilent/chipkit-uno32/chipkit-uno32-development-board/dp/1893211

It has been erased and the pickit3 header installed..

We bought this https://proto-pic.co.uk/color-lcd-shield/

I re-wrote the drivers to suit the pic32 using the student version of C32..

You can start programming as soon as.....