Sometimes I just can't help myself.
.. but you certainly helped another one... 
Thanks for the pseudo-code and the real one. I learned:
- internal variables,
- predeclared functions
- ...
Still have problems with pointer and why you have filled the buffer[17] with buffer[1] = '\0';
I thought that was not needed for the LCD.
No excuse, but I stopped about 15 years ago programming in Smalltalk and Prolog and started now again with C. So going is slow and I learn quicker by example when I am unsure about the syntax.
Again thanks for your help.