Thanks Alfredo (i *knew* somebody out there must have done it before!). The way you use the latches and the control signals on a port pretty well describes the way I'm considering to do it, so the approach looks viable. I'm going to examine the board I plan on using (an ATI Graphics Solution card) to see if it needs the OSC signal or not. I could even tape over the edge connector finger to try it if I'm not sure. I'm planning on putting it in graphics mode and then writing text by creating large characters, much like the large text you see when you program your VCR. It will be fun when I get around to it. Any other comments are welcome but thanks to all for the tips so far.