How to connect an EPSON P300008111 LCD to your PC with a SED1330 LCD driver IC

This page contains informations about electronical devices and informations help you build an LCD driver ISA-bus card for your PC. You should note that THE AUTHOR of this page REFUSES ANY RESPONSIBILITY! This page and informations you find on it comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! Building this card can cause damage to your computer! Any damages to your computer or any harmful things happen to you is your responsibilty! If you don't agree with it you'd better leave this page now (click 'BACK' on your browser).

Here you can find informations about an LCD and an ISA card (built by me) for using this LCD. The card uses EPSON's SED1330, but the card is not 100%. I mean the following: you can send data to SED1330 (and to it's display memory), but you can't read back any data! I'm sure, that this is somekind of a timeing problem, however it wasn't necessary for me to read back any information from the display memory or from the SED1330's registers... so keep it in mind: this is a "one-way" card. Since this is FREE, I take NO SUPPORT. The card is not copyrighted, but I expect that no one use it to make money from it! Please do not write me letters about buying components (I can't help you buying LCDs, driver ICs). Also, do not write me letters, that the card you've built according to my informations is not working! (My card works perfectly, I've tested it with a 386DX40, 5x86P75, IP233MMX, ICeleron433 system). After all, I'm looking for comments and letters about successfully working LCD cards...

 Good luck, David Toth (dave@iris.elte.hu)

The EPSON P300008111 LCD

First, a picture taken from the LCD:

EPSON P300017100 is a passive 512x64 dot-matrix LCD without backlight. On the back side of the LCD panel (not shown) you found 8x SED1180 and 1x SED1190 ICs (you can download documentation about SED1180 from here and SED1190 from here). For SED1330 users: the panel needs single-panel drive, 16-line AC drive.
Pinouts:

'Connector A'	Connected on the LCD panel to
Pin 1: Vcc (+5V DC)	SED1180 pin 73 (Vdd), SED1190 pin 74 (Vdd)
Pin 2: GND	SED1180 pin 72 (Vss), SED1190 pin 75 (Vss)
Pin 3: Contrast Voltage*	pins (of SED1180 and SED1190 thru resistors): Vssh, V2, V3.
Pin 4: LP	SED1180 pin 35 (LP), SED1190 pin 80 (YSCL)
Pin 5: WF	SED1180 pin 36 (FR), SED1190 pin 79 (FR)
Pin 6: YDIS	SED1190 pin 78 (-INH)
Pin 7: YSCL	SED1190 pin 77 (LAT)
Pin 8: YD	SED1190 pin 76 (DI)
Pin 9: XSCL	SED1180 pin 34 (XSCL)
Pin 10: XECL	SED1180 pin 76 (ECL)
Pin 11: XD0	SED1180 pin 33 (D0)
Pin 12: XD1	SED1180 pin 32 (D1)
Pin 13: XD2	SED1180 pin 31 (D2)
Pin 14: XD3	SED1180 pin 30 (D3)

(Note: the pinout is according to SED1330's connections!)

*The contrast voltage is NEGATIVE DC voltage (e.g. -12V ... 0V).

Notes for the LCD: I used a SED1330 LCD driver IC to use the display. 'Connector A' pins 4 to 14 can be connected directly to this driver IC (SED1330).

A "one way" SED1330 based ISA card

This card makes possible the communication between your PC's CPU and the SED1330 LCD driver IC (which has the LCD connected to). The "one way" means that your PC's CPU can send data to SED1330, but can't receive! If you need to read back data from the SED1330, do not build this card, this card won't do.
You can check it's schematics clicking here. I'm sorry but I've lost the original schematics file, the picture you see is a scanning of the original schematics printed version...
About the card: U1 (74132) watches /IOR and /IOW on the bus. If one of them is active (these pins are active-low) U1 enables the two comparators (U2, U3). U1 also generates RESET signal for SED1330. U2 and U3 (74520) make comprehension between the address on the bus and the address set on J1. Only addresses 0-0x3FE can be set to the card (as it's address). U2 also takes care about /AEN (if it is not low, DMA uses the bus). U7 (7432) takes care about the two comparators output. If the addresses are equal (and /AEN low) there is data on the bus for the card, U7 (OR-gate) enables SED1330 and U4 (74245 bus driver). U6 is a 32Kbyte static ram, used for SED1330's display memory.
You can see two pictures taken from my card:

This is a bit differ from the card described below, becuase in the beginning I used 74ALS32 on my card, but that was too slow (when I sent data to the card and sent another data to a different address the card used the 'another data', too..) So I replaced it with 74HC32, but this change made necessesry two pull-up resistors. Since, the panel was ready and I didn't want to build a new card, I put the two resistors in the circuit in a way you see on these pictures. If you build this card you can download a PCB file for it later. Of course, I've modified the PCB for these resistors.

Do you want to build it?

Be sure, that your LCD can be driven with SED1330 before you begin to build it. (e.g. you also have a 14 pinout on your LCD and you see SED1180(s) and SED1190(s) on it).
You should have experience in making printed circuits, and a small experience in C programming!
If you have, read it carefully:

1. If you don't know what is SED1330, you can download a PDF file about SED1330/SED1335/SED1336 clicking here.

2. Buy it's components. SED1330Fba is hard to get, but maybe you also have one:)
Anyway, here is a list about components you need:
- SED1330Fba.
- 62256 (32Kbyte static RAM)
- 2x 74520 (You can also use 74522 and 74689. These three ICs are equivalents. I used 74(ALS)522.)
- 1x 74245 (Bidirectional bus driver. I used 74HC245).
- 1x 74HC132
- 1x 74HC32 (do not use ALS here!)
- 2x 10kOhm pull-up resistors (not SMD. for 74HC32)
- 7x 100nF SMD capacitor
- 6MHz oscillator (or any less than 10MHz. also read page 52 in the SED1330 PDF you've just downloaded)
- 14 pinout
- 3 pinout + 3pin connector (if you want to change the contrast anytime)
- 10kOhm potmeter (for contrast)
- 2x 9 connector
- 9 jumpers (for the 2x9 connector)
- the printed circuit. You can download it's PCB file by clicking here. The layout is two sided and for SED1330Fba only. There are companies make you the circuit on the basis of this PCB file. Since I've received letters about problems with opening this PCB file, I've converted the PCB file into Adobe Encapsulated PostScript and BMP files.
Here they are:

Top-side layout	PostScript format	BMP format
Bottom-side layout	PostScript format	BMP format
Vias, thrupads	PostScript format	BMP format
Drill-holes	PostScript format	BMP format

(To convert from PS to BMP I've used ImageMagic, the command: convert -density 300x300, so the BMP's are 300pixel/inch)
But remember: using the PCB file you can make more accurate circuit layouts and photomasks than using BMPs.

3. Place the components on the board. Use these two pictures:

Note: 100nF capacitors are not shown on the schematics but they are on the board! ('C' components)
10kOhm potmeter is for contrast set. Connect it to the 3 pinout (J3) as follows:
pin 1 ----[=====]---- pin 3
                  ^--------- pin 2

4. Set the card address as follows: decide what address you want to use (and check it's not used, yet! For a little help do NOT use the followings (according to IBM-AT map): 0x000-0x1F8, 0x200-0x207, 0x20C-0x20D, 0x21F, 0x278-0x27F, 0x2B0-0x2DF, 0x2E2-0x2E3, 0x2F8-0x31F, 0x360-0x36F, 0x378-0x393, 0x3A0-0x3DF, 0x3F0-0x3FF), for an example now we choose 0x34E. Substract it from 0x3FE, which is (0x3FE-0x34E=) 0xB0. J1 has text on the board. Put jumpers on the pins next to 0x80, 0x20, 0x10 (because 0xB0=0x80+0x20+0x10. See my card. That is also set to 0x34E) and leave the others open.

5. Insert it to an empty ISA slot in your computer. Make sure that J2 and J3 is closer to the back of your computer than J1 - an even better rule: the ISA connector has more pinouts the card not uses. These pinouts should be at the "address set jumpers" side of the panel (that is the right direction to put the card into an ISA slot in your computer. Do not insert the card in the wrong direction since this could cause serious damage). Connect contrast potmeter, connect LCD to the card.

6. Download the following C program (for MS-DOS) to try out your card (and also your LCD).
To compile the source code I recommend you to use DJGPP. You can also download a precompiled binary of the source code above (if the exe fails to run with the error message "Load error : no DPMI" extract this cwsdpmi into any directory which is in your path - or into the directory the exe situated).
Run the exe with the following arguments: sed.exe -p0x34e -t1 -tt0x34c (0x34e is the address of the card; 0x34c is an address not used by any resources in your computer). Press 'y' and if you see vertical columns on your LCD (and a text message flashing) you can be happy... (if not, see troubleshoot). Pressing enter the program sends new data to the display memory (which is not changes for this time). Pressing 'q' the program quits.
(You can also try out if your card responses only for it's address with sed.exe -p0x34e -t2 -tt0x34c but if -t1 fails, -t2 fails too...).
Now start sed.exe -p0x34e. You should see text messages (on the right of the panel text have to flash, on the left another text with bigger charset) and lines. Pressing enter the lines change position...
Notes: you should know: the ISA bus's A0 is connected to SED's A0. This means that if you want to send a command to SED, send it to it's port address +1 (e.g. 0x34F if you follow my settings), and send data to it's port address (0x34E). Check the source code (especially init_lcd() there are the parameters for P300017100) and feel free to modify it... also check the PDF file, there is everything you need to know about SED1330.

Troubleshoot

1. There's nothing on my LCD while sed.exe is running. Check your LCD's type (if it is differ from P300017100 you have to change the source code you've downloaded, especially init_lcd(), WINWIDTH, WINHEIGHT). Check contrast. Check if your LCD is connected to the card. Check your card, it's direction, and components on it (you have all the components on it?).
2. Starting sed.exe using the switch -t1 I see something 'stairway'-like pattern on LCD or using the switch -t2 I see 'chaos' on the screen or after I put the card into my computer hardwares work wrong (e.g. your Disk Drive is reading 'dummy' data or fails): your card responses for other addresses than it's. Check if you are using 74HC32 (important), and the pull-up resistors are on board!