just got my kit in the mail today and started to play around with it. happy so far. i'm digging around for datasheets for the major components i'm unable to find one for the LCD (or really any information about it online.)

Hey,

I did the same when I got my kit. If you have one of the new, fancy-schmancy 4-line displays (yeah, I do envy you), I can't help you there, but for the old 2×24 displays the datasheet can be found here. But perhaps of greater importance is the datasheet for the HD44780 driver chip.

thanks wayward - i do have the 4x20 display, probably should of mentioned that. the guide mentioned hd44780 so i searched around and found information about it. right now i'm wanting to create custom characters, http://home.iae.nl/users/pouweha/lcd/lcd1.shtml#_8051_lcd_userchar. not sure how hd44780 works, but if i can assume that everything is fully supported then i guess i don't need the datasheet for that, would still like to have it. -- best -rm

As long as your find a display that is HD44780 compatible, communication with it is easy. I did a project with a Vacuum Florescent Display that had different programming modes, including a HD44780 mode. In the end I opted to use the serial driver instead. Keep in mind, it may or may not be 1 to 1 compatible with the Nerdkit library, so you might have to do some tweaking in the library to get it to work. But the wiring "should" be the same.

I did find the datasheet for the 4x20 line LCD display.

You will need the datasheet for the GDM2004D, and for the HDD44780. The former will be more useful for connections, contrast, and backlight control. The latter will be more useful for LCD control.