Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Mac OS X USB LCD Info

Since I haven't had any LCD Kits available for a while, I thought I would clear up some details about the kit for people who want to try it on their own.

The LCD is a HD44780 compatible character LCD. It is connected to the Mac USB port using a Belkin F5U002 USB Parallel adapter. Make sure to get the correct version that uses a separate USB cable.

The pinout I used for the kit and the Mac OS X USB LCD Command Line Tool is available here: Beyond Logic Interfacing Example. With some minor changes to get power from the parallel port, the final pinout is:

Centronics
Parallel    LCD
30             1
13,14          2
30             3
36             4
29             5
1              6
2              7
3              8
4              9
5             10
6             11 
7             12
8             13
9             14

Following this pinout should allow you to use the Mac OS X USB LCD Command Line Tool on your own cable and LCD.