[Matt Krass]

Thats a nice solution, but a little software elbow grease and a shift register is a much simpler/cheaper solution, being that each of these is $29. That and the cost of the parallel LCD brings it up to the costs of Serial ones, somewhat defeating the purpose.

I've been reading up on shift registers, if you connect the clock and input pins to 2 outputs on the BS1 and use a third output for the Enable pin on the LCD, I believe it will work.

First, set the first output pin of the LSB (least significant bit) of the binary command for the LCD, then pull the clock pin on the register high, then low. That shifts the first bit in, do that 7 more times, filling in the remaining bits with zero's if necessary, you have to do this in 8-bit chunks. Then pull enable high for 2 microseconds or so and then pull it low. Start over.

Also, you can go with 4-bit mode and use a 4-bit shifter register, but since the intent of 4-bit mode is to trade pin usage for complexity, and you won't save anymore pins on the BS1 with it, it's rather pointless.

sparksandtabs, I received your PM and we can discuss this in more detail at your leisure if you need help.