I just got a new All electronics catalog today and they have 640x480 LCD
    panels with on board drivers. 6"x4.5" veiwing area for 25 bux

On board drivers are not the same as an on-board controller.  (your standard
hitachi ascii display has both, right?)  A VGA LCD with drivers needs
something analagous to an expensive VGA card to give it dot-addressable or
text capabilities.  (You could probably do SOMETHING with just a PIC, but
it'd be as hard as driving video directly, I think.)

BillW