thanks for the good tips fellas. i have since been reading, both on adafruit and newhaven about I2C LCD displays.
with the adafruit version in mind, do i understand correctly that the LCD plugs into the backpack, and that only 2 wires (plus vdd & grd) connect the backpack to the m.c. ?
if so, will an attiny (8 pin) do the trick and allow me to output text to the LCD ?