Reconfigurable Automotive Display System

A reconfigurable automotive display system was developed for the purpose of displaying multifunctional information in a space efficient area. The system features an 80 x 16 graphic dot matrix fluorescent indicator panel and an advanced 8-bit microcontroller. The performance of the system electronics was greatly improved due to the real-time processing capabilities of the microcontroller. By using the macroservice data transfer feature of the microcontroller, the CPU loading for the real-time task of refreshing the display was greatly reduced. The reduced CPU loading allows processing time for other system functions such as scanning the keypad inputs and servicing the J1708 serial communications interface.