ISTR that there's plenty of code for an LCD interface.

If it's memory-mapped, say, at 0xFFF8..9, and driven in the "usual" way, similarly in Pascal and 'C' with, perhaps, a version in assembler for comparison, it would be useful enough, contain most of the elements that lots of code would require, and, with the aid of an input stream via the serial port, would probably provide all the interesting elements involving serial I/O, timers, Memory-mapped I/O, some "sort-of" critical timing, and it's code that has been done, already, in a number of ways. You could choose whatever is your preference, AND, you could include a 4x5 keypad, if you like, just for completeness with parallel I/O using port 1. I could install it on some hardware and make timing measurements, code size comparisons, etc. There's 'C' code for such on the NMIY site, for their NMIY-031 board. That's not the "cleanest" imaginable code, and it's written in Small-C, so it would probably work for "seed" without being ready-made. It would allow for some comparison, though.

Does that seem reasonable? It shouldn't take more than an hour or two ...

RE