Well I am using the Optrex 16117A 16x1 LCD.
I could not get it to work at all with the 4-bit mode described in the
data book. So I am using a 74HCT164E Serial Shift register to drive the
thing with ah 16C57 with only 7 I/O lines, I'm sure I could use less,
but I have not tried it. Anyway I connected one of the I/O line to the
ouput of the Bit-7 register for the "BUSY" flag from the LCD. I also
found that the software was much simpler this way. Of course I cannot
read any of the LCD data, but I dont need to for my application.

Alan Nickerson