LCD question: custom fonts

[DrBunsen]

One for the LCD gurus.

Is the following possible:  I want to re-define all the alphabetical characters in a 16x4 LCD so that they display sideways.  ie instead of using it as 4 rows of 16 characters, I want to turn it on its side and use it as 16 rows of 4 characters.  I assume that this means creating a custom font.

The LCDs won't be addressed often, or used in a time-critical way, so it's not important that they be HD44780 types, as long as they are supported in MIOS.

Or am I going to end up using a GLCD?

[seppoman]

Is the following possible:  I want to re-define all the alphabetical characters in a 16x4 LCD so that they display sideways.  ie instead of using it as 4 rows of 16 characters, I want to turn it on its side and use it as 16 rows of 4 characters.  I assume that this means creating a custom font.

As far as I know the HD44780 only has support for 8 custom characters.

The LCDs won't be addressed often, or used in a time-critical way, so it's not important that they be HD44780 types, as long as they are supported in MIOS.

Or am I going to end up using a GLCD?

yes, it's GLCD then - HD44780 is the only character mode display directly supported by MIOS :) But if timing is not very critical, there's an easy solution: just get a GLCD with T6963 controller (they're quite cheap e.g. on eBay) and use it with the vertical mode driver.

S

[DrBunsen]

What do you know:  Sparkfun have the HD4478 data sheet (warning: PDF).  I'll have to read that.

As far as I know the HD44780 only has support for 8 custom characters.

Seems wikipedia agrees

[stryd_one]

FWIW I have seen HD44780 compatible chips with extended CGRAM (memory for custom chars) but they're rare.

Lot's of cheap GLCD solutions around though :)