Compact Text Based Driver for Sharp Display

published: September 7, 2015 — last modified: October 23, 2025

Update 2015-09-10: I also added a timer 2 based version of the driver which does not need any manual refresh.

I created a fast and compact driver for the Sharp memory display LS013B4DN04. The driver is text based and uses 8×8 pixel characters on the screen. The screen can display 12×12 characters using this size of characters.

Demo

This demo is an example of the Arduino library.

Features

  • Uses only 174 bytes of dynamic memory.
  • Refreshes only changed rows on the screen. This speeds up the refresh process and makes the refresh method suitable to call it from an interrupt.
  • Each character on the screen can be displayed normal or inverted. Ideal to mark a row in a menu.
  • Fonts can provide up to 128 characters. The font can be changed at any time.
  • Minimal but complete API with direct character access, cursor based write methods and scrolling of the display in four directions.
  • Open Source

The Sharp memory display driver with manual refresh.

The Sharp memory display driver with timer 2 based refresh.

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