Using the LCD on "new" PICDEM 2 Plus

The "new" PICDEM 2 Plus board has an LCD that doesn't behave the same as the one on the original board.  In particular:  Check the PICDEM 2 Plus page on the Microchip website and you can compare the schematics of the two versions.  The board on the older version is red and uses mostly through hole devices, the newer board is green and uses many surface mount components.  Not only is the hardware different, but the software needs to be changed as well.

1. The connections to the PIC are different.  The original board had 4 pins from port D and 3 pins from port A.  The new board uses all 8 pins from port D.
2. The extra pin is used to turn on power to the LCD (the LCD on the old version is always on).
3. If I used a software check of the "busy flag" the code would hang after writing 8 characters.  Instead, I check the busy flag, and if it is set, I just do a delay and then continue.  This seems to work robustly.
4. Three web pages that discuss these issues (not entirely satisfactorily)
   • CCS Forum
   • MCUSpace Forum
   • Rose Hulman web page

My code (originally based on code from the microchip website)  is in the file PicLCD.c (and below).