A display and buttons shield (but BTW: have you checked other Displays on this site?) well suited as the human interface for a number of “compact design standalone” projects.
Similar to already described 16×2 LCD module (using the same display), but with 6 built into the shield buttons (RESET, SELECT; and 4 directions: LEFT, UP, DOWN, RIGHT).
The shield leaves a lot of pins at your disposal. Used pins are only:
Analog 0 | Button (select, up, right, down and left – see the code comments) |
Digital 4 – 7 | DB4 – DB7 |
Digital 8 | RS (Data or Signal Display Selection) |
Digital 9 | Enable |
Digital 10 | Backlit Control |
So the user has free access to Analog 1-5, and Digital 0-3 and 11-13. Out of these, the most important are 0 and 1, which can be used as RX and TX, 3 and 11 with are PWM capable, as well as standard LED 🙂 output on digital pin 13.
Also whole ISCP connector, which is normally blocked by the shield body is repeated on the side.