Hardware or software problem? LCD (HD44780) pic12f683 with shift-register

[lk]

Greetings Everyone,

I have gone though the steps on this blog post, i would like to use it as a debugging output display, but currently i have more bugs than displays
http://embedded-lab.com/blog/?p=30


I use mikroc, and i have been able to simulate a different setup, not this above, i only have access to PICsimulatorIDE, and that cant simulate with the shiftregister. But anyway, the basic 4 bit HD44780 works well when being simulated(different micro), but when i build it in hardware, i got similar output to what you see in the picasaweb link below. So i decided to try the shift register instead, less wires from the micro. but i get the same problem, there is activity in the LCD display, but i only get garbage.  I can see the cursor move around and print more garbage. I have tried several displays, i have tried 2 of 4 displays, so my normal reasoning would be that the displays are OK, but I'm suspicious.

I guess what I'm asking is if anyone has seen the displays behave the same way as show in the link below?

Picture showing my problem.
https://picasaweb.google.com/108987705034973313443/18042012?authkey=Gv1sRgCI-snavJspbnQQ

Link to the displays (got them last year, but this pretty much looks the same)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HD44780-1602-16x2-LCD-Display-Module-Blue-Blacklight-/180849058072?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1b71a118
-lk

p.s sorry for the messy message 

[lk]

oki, at least my displays are out of the question now, i got an old display from a HP Visualize workstation, maybe 10-12 years old, and that does the same thing, it does however use 250 mA , in contrast to the new display that uses 20 mA.

[lk]

Ok, now its working, i played with the settings in the pic, clock and tons of other things but anyway now its working, both with the cheap ebay lcd and the old from the HP workstation.
very strange, now i just need to know what changes i have done to make it work
-lk