I just did this night before last with a Truly 16x2 in 4-bit mode, and
I didn't see any effect like a busy flag left on.  Are you sure you are
not reading the wrong nibble?

I think you are.  The read of the busy flag also includes the current
cursor address, and that means position 8 corresponds to a response of
00001000 which you are taking as 10000000 instead.

--
James Cameron   mailto:quozl@us.netrek.org   http://quozl.us.netrek.org/