What is a LCD?

An LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is a glass sandwich which contains within it a material that has liquid / solid properties. This is called Liquid Crystal Fluid. For details about LC, see here.

Display Properties

Below is an example of a TN segmented display. These are the most inexpensive of LCD displays.

Below is an example of a dot matrix character display. It consists of many different "pixels," which are aligned into boxes called "characters." The LCD that we used for the demo is a character display (16 x 2).

Below is an example of a dot matrix graphics dot matrix displays. These also have many "pixels." These dots can be turned on or off depending on how the display is programmed, and can be made to show any images. The format of a graphics display is determined by the number of pixels in a row and by the number of pixels in a column. For instance, the below display would have a format of 16 x 16.

References

1. LCD Technology Basics:
   http://www.edtc.com/edt/news/docs/Basics.pdf