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Altera_Forum
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11 years ago

Using LCD on DE0 (Noob)

Hi every one, i just soldered the Altera LCD on the DE0 board. It lights up showing "Welcome to..." The LCD is a 2x16 and has a display controller HD44780. My question is how do i communicate with it? Whats the address for the control register and stuff? Any tiny example of printing something on it would be a great deal of help. I plan on using Assembly Language for my project. I am currently using Altera Monitor program and using NIOS II Basic computer. Kindly if possible help me out here with a sample code or something !

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  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    11 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    My question is how do i communicate with it?

    --- Quote End ---

    At the hardware level, there are wires between the FPGA and the LCD controller. The Embedded Peripherals IP Guide has an Optrex LCD controller core;

    http://www.altera.com/literature/ug/ug_embedded_ip.pdf

    If you add this core to a Qsys system along with a NIOS II processor, then that processor can access the core registers. The address of the registers is determined by you, when you create the Qsys system.

    You should be able to open a Qsys example design that came with the kit, open the Qsys system design, and then look at the properties of each component in the Qsys system (select, right-click, and look at the documentation links).

    Cheers,

    Dave