Mike:

I did as you suggested but still the display will not light.  All that I do
is remove the goto BUSY_FLAG? and it works.  I must have looked over this
code 100 times, run it through the simulator 50 times and it still won't
cooperate.

I do appreciate your suggestions and I will leave the code as you explained.
I looked at the display timing diagram and it confirms it.

Thanks

Mike Keitz wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Oct 1999 22:08:22 -0400 John Considine <jconsi@MAGICNET.NET>
> writes:
> > I am having a problem when I try to check the busy flag coming from
> > the
> > LCD display (BUSY_FLAG? subroutine shown below).  It is always busy
>
> The PIC must read the data from the LCD while E is high.  The LCD returns
> the data pins to tri-state as soon as E goes low.  Your program just
> pulses E, the data has gone way by the time it reads it.  Rearrange to
> something like:
>
>         bsf     PORTA,E
>         movfw   PORTB
>         bcf     PORTB,E
>
> Not that you're doing it here, but another common mistake is to hold E
> high and read the data repeatedly.  The LCD will not change the data
> output while E is high.  To find out when it becomes not busy you need to
> pulse E for each read.
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