Search found 25 matches

by FreeThinker
Sun Sep 12, 2010 8:36 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

As I thought VERY busy at work past week or so.Being spending most of my free time here:- http://www.eevblog.com/episodes/ The Steve Urwin of the electronics world, one real Crazy Auzzie (No Offence Brad :) ) SwordFish Update: David Barker is back on the Forum, Maybe an update in the offing? Done Zi...
by FreeThinker
Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:26 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

thanks buddy, I downloaded the pdf and am surprised that these LCD's have been around for that long. Having said that, I guess people have been programming pic microcontrollers for many years now :) A good read, thanks again for the link! Think they were developed in the mid 80's but only got cheap...
by FreeThinker
Thu Aug 26, 2010 11:43 pm
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

Hi,
Have a read of these pdf's on LCD's.Now thats what I call cool! :twisted:
http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/resources.htm
by FreeThinker
Wed Aug 25, 2010 7:47 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

That is really impressive! I know exactly what you mean about the screen refresh rate though. I seem to get quite a bit of 'ghosting' from the transition of one screen of text to another. Having said that, it displays static text just fine. I.E. without any flicker. The hardware varies so much betw...
by FreeThinker
Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:15 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

Thanks for that Bitforgav.The code may look a little strange but was witten that way to ease debugging, I simply comment out sections when testing (Especially in Isis).Hope to create an interupt driven 'Blitter' to write the screen with the array manipulation handled in the main loop, Don't expect s...
by FreeThinker
Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:07 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

Yes and No.What i am doing is writing 8 graphics to the screen updating the graphic data writing that to the screen etc.Once a User Defineable Graghic (UDG) is written to the screen it can be changed without altering what is on the screen so you can have any number of UDG's displayed but only 8 in u...
by FreeThinker
Tue Aug 24, 2010 5:48 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

Ok not had much time to play but here is an update of what I havedone so far.Using sword fish I created four sets of 8*8 user graphics.Then using four for next loops I printed the graphics 8 at a time to the lcd ending up with 32 user graphics on the screen at the same time.I now know that the theor...
by FreeThinker
Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:33 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

Some really neat info there :) I had a look on ebay recently and found you can get graphic LCD displays for around $5 with free postage. I think they were something like 128 x 64 pixels maybe? Arrrh! Pains in the chest.... Think it's constriction of the wallet :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol: Seriously I ...
by FreeThinker
Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:45 pm
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

Hi BitFogav Being doing a little reading of the hd44780 data sheet when I was struck by a thought.Character codes 0 to 7 are user defineable in 5x7 blocks.My idea was to write the user graphic off screen, scroll it in to view and reload the graphics ram with fresh data in a loop. :twisted: You now h...
by FreeThinker
Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:11 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

HaHa! I was just interested in this because I have used LCDs alot in assembly and I have now switched to swordfish so this would be very usefull :) and oh yeah i dont think you can upload PDF files on this forum hehe. Has the attachment worked?I cannot see it' but is there in preview? No sorry budd...
by FreeThinker
Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:03 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

bitfogav wrote:HaHa! I was just interested in this because I have used LCDs alot in assembly and I have now switched to swordfish so this would be very usefull :)

and oh yeah i dont think you can upload PDF files on this forum hehe.
Has the attachment worked?I cannot see it' but is there in preview?
by FreeThinker
Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:54 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

When power is applied to the lcd display it runs its internal init routine and defaults to an 8 bit data bus with its display cleared and pointing to its first memory location.Any data received is now used to index into an internal character map and the bit pattern copied to the current cursor loca...
by FreeThinker
Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:46 am
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

This is so cool! It's such a simple solution to a problem that I couldn't figure out. The good thing is that I have a use for it with my LED games - thanks very much for posting. :D I am guessing that these two 8-bit numbers are specific commands built into the LCD displays: %00011100, %00011000 Is...
by FreeThinker
Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:52 pm
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

FreeThinker wrote: As I have seid before I DON'T have an 18F platform to test so I used the Oshon 18F simulator after removing the delays as it is not real time.It works as expected but is only a simulation.
Opps forgot to put link to Oshon site http://www.oshonsoft.com/
by FreeThinker
Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:44 pm
Forum: Programming PIC's with Swordfish Basic
Topic: Getting started with programming pics in Basic
Replies: 53
Views: 89584

That's some very handy info there, thanks for sharing :) It is fantastic that all the user modules are open source which means you can do exactly what you were talking about - modify them to suit your needs. We were discussing a while ago about how to get scrolling text via swordfish, and perhaps w...