Disclaimer: We do not recommend connecting CFAH* series displays to a PC's parallel port as an "end product". The CFAH* series displays are not "user friendly" and connecting them to a PC's parallel port is often difficult, frustrating, and can result in a "dead" display due to mishandling. The CFAH* series displays are intended to be designed into a finished product by an engineer--they are not designed to be a PC accessory.
That being said, there will still be plenty of hardware hackers that will do it because it can be done, and connecting the display to a parallel port can be a handy way to test or evaluate the displays. While we do not offer support for connecting the CFAH* series displays to a PC's parallel port, we do think that this utility will make the task of debugging your circuit much easier. Use at your own risk--this is entirely unsupported software.
Features:
This is an unsupported product, but you may download the full source code below.
Each control and data bit of the cable can be individually set high or low. This feature is helpful in debugging cables connected to a PC's parallel port.
Initilaizes a CFAH* series display using either "8-bit" or "4-bit" mode.
Allows you to change the initialization the message shown on the LCD.
Supports port addresses of: 0x378, 0x278, 0x3BC.
32-bit Windows 9x/NT/2K/XP compatible program.
Easy: Copy the contents of the "executable" zip file to a directory double-click on "CFAH_WinTest.exe" to run it. No changes are made to your registry, to "uninstall" just delete the files. Before running CFAH_WinTest, NT/2K/XP users must first install port95nt, a port I/O driver from Scientific Software Tools.