pyusblcd is copyright (C) 2009 Michael Whapples

Introduction
------------

Pyusblcd is a set of python bindings for the library libpicoLCD (previously 
called libusblcd) which is used to control the picolcd 20x2 displays.
These python bindings aim to give full access to libpicoLCD while trying be 
simple for python programmers to use.

License Information
-------------------

This module is free software; you
can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
Artistic License 2.0. For details, see the full text of the
license in the file LICENSE.

This module is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but it is provided "as is" and without any express
or implied warranties. For details, see the full text of
the license in the file LICENSE.

NOTE: As this module currently depends on libpicoLCD, you may want to check 
the licensing for libpicoLCD and whether that imposes anyrestrictions on your 
usage. As at the time of writing this document, libpicoLCD (version 0.1.8) 
is released under the GPL which may prevent you from writing and distributing 
a closed source program which uses this module, although the artistic license 
would permit this. Unfortunately the author of pyusblcd has no relationship or 
control of the licensing of libpicoLCD so if you wish to use this module in a 
closed source program you will need to contact the authors of libpicoLCD.

Installation
------------

You will be able to find pyusblcd in source form on the `python package index 
<http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyusblcd>`_. You may also find pre-compiled 
binary versions for some operating systems and some versions of python, 
however it is not guaranteed that any specific platform or version of python 
will have a pre-compiled binary package. As installation from source is the 
only method valid for all supported operating systems and python versions 
these instructions only relate to installing from a source package.

Before you start installing pyusblcd you will need to download and install 
libpicoLCD. You can obtain libpicoLCD from the `mini-box website 
<http://www.mini-box.com>`_ as part of the SDK. You will also require `cython 
<http://www.cython.org>`_ to be able to compile pyusblcd.

To install pyusblcd you should download the source package, unpack it, switch 
to the source directory and then run the setup.py script with the install 
option:

python setup.py install

Once this is done you can start using pyusblcd by importing the pyusblcd 
module. Hopefully the docstrings and the libpicoLCD documentation will be 
enough for you to use this module.

Status
------

These bindings intend to be as complete as possible, but unfortunately 
libpicoLCD does not seem to be fully complete itself, sothese bindings will 
not provide more functionality than available in libpicoLCD. To provide work 
arounds for these missing features in libpicoLCD are beyond what this module 
aims to do.
