Monday, September 17, 2012

Nokia LCD PIC driver revamp

It's been quite some time since I've published my last post on interfacing a Nokia 84x48 monochromatic LCD to a PIC microcontroller but I recently got the itch to port the driver code from its original assembler to the language I use most now, C. Once again I opted to write the SPI interface in software since it gives greater flexibility although at the cost of speed. I've upgraded from my paltry pic16f84a to the pic16f887 which offers several improvements including more memory, gpio, and an internal oscillator as well as many useful peripherals.


I've also picked up many useful programming tricks up my sleeve since then. This time I've made the driver faster as well as added direct support for drawing full 84x48 black and white images that can be drawn in Microsoft paint. If anyone wants I can write up a tutorial on drawing an image in paint and exporting it to another program to generate the hex array that my PIC uses to draw. But for now enjoy the pretty pictures.





This software will make it much easier to develop user interfaces and graphics for future devices. I realize that the display I am using is a bit outdated, but the practice is useful towards someday interfacing to much higher resolution color displays. Anyway, I think I've rambled on for long enough. Here are the source and image files. Feel free to ask for any help should you wish to integrate this display into your own project. Stay tuned because I have many cool projects and videos planned.

Files up on MediaFire

Friday, September 7, 2012

TeardownTube - episode 7 - Gameboy Pocket

Here's the 7th episode of TeardownTube. Subscribe, comment, and like if you want to see a different device dismantled every week. The videos are not detailed instructions for repair but rather just for entertainment. Enjoy.


In this episode I venture into the past of portable video gaming when I lurk inside an old gameboy pocket. Find out what makes up the device which provided many children hours of joy in the 90's.

Link: TeardownTube - episode 7 - Gameboy Pocket