I managed to get my Hitachi compliant 4*20 LCD screen about to work. I am thinking of a device that could be used by elderly people, and it would beed bigger screen. Do you have any hints, where I could get bigger LCD screen with big letters (and it also would be possible to read that in dark)? The characters would need to be big.
I have some 8" 640x480 LCDs that not only have a controller and a serial interface, but a Pentium CPU and an operating system ;D
I bought several of the Stylistics with the idea of turning them into "CAR PCs" with a big GPS display and music player. They actually work pretty well for that purpose, but a new generation of cheaper GPS systems with sexy female voices and better software kinda killed the product idea.
The model I have is the one with the "transflective" gray-scale screen that works well in sunlight, or at night with the backlight. They'd make nice displays for embedded projects, as long as there's AC power around: their batteries have pretty much died of old age, and are too expensive to replace.
Have you considered something like a GLCD, 128x64 has the equivilant of 8x20 display, and it is easy to make some large fonts for them. Not to mention greater flexibility with UI and positioning of text / graphics etc. Search for KS0108 on ebay, I bought a 192x64 a few days ago, but I haven't tested it yet. I will try to reply with results from that.
Alternativley you could build a custom display using a bunch of Shift Registers as Ben Heck did