Katakana Quiz

Katakana Quiz (Work in progress)

I am currently taking an Intro-Japanese class at Miami Dade College. In this class we must learn part of the Japanese writing system.

The writing system is divided into 3 parts:

Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

Let’s focus on katakana for now. Katakana is one of Japanese’s syllabaries. It is used for loan words from other languages, for onomatopoeia, and for scientific and technical terms.

Parts List

• Arduino UNO
• 10k Potentiometer
• Push button switch
• 20x4 LCD
• Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller

Looking at the datasheet for the Hitachi HD44780 LCD controller I learned that the character generator ROM has Japanese Katakana symbols. So I hooked up a quick test circuit and wrote out a bit of code, just so I could see the Katakana characters.

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

int aval = 0;
int row = 0;
int col = 0;
char c = '0';

const int apin = A0;
const int button = 10;
const int rs = 12, en = 11, d4 = 5, d5 = 4, d6 = 3, d7 = 2;
LiquidCrystal lcd(rs, en, d4, d5, d6, d7);

void setup() {
  pinMode(button, INPUT);
  lcd.begin(20, 4);
  lcd.display();
  Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
  lcd.setCursor(col,row);
  aval = analogRead(apin);
  c = (aval % 64) + B10100000;
  lcd.print(c);
  Serial.print('\n');
  Serial.print(col);
  Serial.print('_');
  Serial.print(aval);
  Serial.print('_');
  Serial.println(aval, BIN);
  if (digitalRead(button) == HIGH){
    col++;
    if(col == 20){
      row = 1;
      col = 0;  
    }
  }
   delay(200);
}