The controller board used to test my libraries was originally made for a completely different application - an electronic ignition with four outputs. The project went to the back burner but the PCB remained a neat little testing platform for any 8 bit PIC idea I came up with.

     Even though I recently bought an MPLAB XPRESS board for these purposes, I decided to go old school with this library testing project. If you wish to take a look at the code, feel free to contact me through e-mail!

     This is an older project I resurrected for the activity box. It implements a simple PIC library for a 2x16 Chinese LCD I bought off eBay. I created a simple clock for the Activity Box just to begin experimenting with the display and get a head start. The following C calls generate the output that can be seen on the left. Not too complicated, but quite good for the Activity Box main display!

    LCD_cursor(0, 1);                            // go to bottom line

    LCD_string("                ");              // clear display bottom line

    LCD_cursor(0, 0);                            // go to top line

    LCD_string("                ");              // clear display top line

    LCD_cursor(0, 0);

    LCD_string("=== ");

    LCD_value(hours / 10);

    LCD_value(hours % 10);

    LCD_character(':');

    LCD_value(minutes / 10);

    LCD_value(minutes % 10);

    LCD_character(':');

    LCD_value(seconds / 10);

    LCD_value(seconds % 10);

    LCD_string(" ===");