Tiny4kOLED

This is a library for an ATTiny85 to use an SSD1306 powered, 128x64 pixel OLED, over I²C, with double buffering support for the common 128x32 sized screen.

The SSD1306 has enough RAM to support a 128 by 64 pixel display, and most SSD1306 controlled OLEDs are 128 by 64 pixels. However there are also other display sizes available. With a 128 by 32 pixel display, only half of the SSD1306's RAM is used, and the other half can be used as a frame buffer. This results in being able to have a slow ATTiny85 gradually update the display, then switch it into view when it is ready.

This library is an adaption of DigisparkOLED which in turn is a modification of the Tinusaur project's SSD1306xLED library. I have extensively re-written it, with the following changes:

• Replaced digistump's Wire with TinyWireM (Digistump's Wire is a rename of TinyWireM, but Adafruit's includes a necessary bug fix.)
• Fixed the sending of multiple bytes per I²C transmission.
• Changed the initialization to be two I²C transmissions, instead of using a transmission per command byte.
• Left the display off in the initialization, so that the display could be cleared before being shown.
• Altered the library to be for a 128x32 display.
• Added double buffering control code.
• Exposed all of the SSD1306 features, with example code (in v1.2).
• Optimised font usage, enabling custom fonts. (See TinyOLED-Fonts)
• Optimised code size.
• Exposed the blink and fade SSD1306 features documented in revision 1.2 of the SSD1306 Specification.
• v1.1 Support three different I²C interfaces:
  • Spence Konde's Wire.h that comes with ATTinyCore
  • Adafruit's TinyWireM
  • David Johnson-Davies / Technoblogy's TinyI2C
• v1.3 Added back support for 128x64 screens, including double buffering when 'zoom' is enabled (32 lines are each drawn twice).
• v1.4 Added support for SSD1306B documented features:
  • Ability to select internal current reference, providing consistent, bright displays. 72x40 displays typically do not include an external current reference.
  • Ability to select the voltage used by the internal charge pump (results in a minor difference in brightness).
  • Ability to horizontally scroll a portion of the display by one pixel (scrollContentLeft and scrollContentRight).
• v1.5 Added init sequences and offsets for 128x64, 128x32, 72x40, 64x48, and 64x32 resolution screens.
• v2.0 Extended the format used for fonts, adding support for:
  • Proportional fonts.
  • Multiple font subsets and unicode ranges.
  • UTF-8 encoded strings.
  • Printing double size text, with and without smoothing.
  • Option to reduce memory usage if print functions are not required.
• v2.1 Added support for a user callback function to combine images. See the BatteryMonitor example.
• v2.2 Replaced double size printing methods with double sized font selection methods.
  • Standard print methods, Unicode fonts, and new lines now work correctly with double sized text. See Refactoring to support double sized rendering. (Note: Double size text only works with fonts up to 16 pixels high.)
  • Added clearToEOP and fillToEOP where P stands for page, and fixed issue #10 so the EOL methods work with font heights larger than 8 pixels (1 page).
  • Added a 4th I²C interface to do raw bit-banging, but ignoring all the I²C rules.
  • Fixed double size text when double buffering (Issue #41) (v2.2.2)
• v2.3 Fixed % character in FONT6X8 and derivatives (Issue #55)

I2C Speeds and External Pullup Resistors

v2.2 added an I²C speed test example, which can be used as a simple (but rough) guide to the performance of your solution. It display the number of ms it takes to fill the screen.

Important Notes:

• Spence Konde (Author and maintainer of the best AVR Cores) has done more analysis of write speeds (see Issue #52), and showing the importance of ensuring your I²C lines have the correct external pullup resisters.
• This section used to have a table of times for different I²C implementations, using an ATTiny85 with nothing but a single random SSD1306 OLED module connected, and NO EXTERNAL PULLUPS. Unfortunately it made the Wire library look bad. The Wire library is the default for Tiny4kOLED as it is the best for a wide range of I²C scenarios. Other implementations take shortcuts or make compromises that may result in incorrect behaviour depending on your hardware configuration choices.

Online Simulator

The Wokwi Online Arduino Simulator has quite good support for the core features of the 128x64 SSD1306. Here are links to some of the Tiny4kOLED examples:

• Bitmap
• Custom Chinese Font
• Datacute Boxy Font
• Devices-128x32
• Devices-128x64
• Features Menu
• Double Buffered Display
• Unicode Font
• Double-Size Smooth Text
• Battery Monitor

128x64 / 128x32 / 72x40 / 64x48 / 64x32

The screens with a resolution of 128 by 64 pixels support a feature called 'zoom' where each row is drawn twice. This also only uses half the memory, and so the double buffering technique can be used when the screen is in that mode.

The double buffering technique doesn't have to be used, and library works with SSD1306 screens of different resolutions, however the default init sequence in this library is for a screen with 32 rows of pixel. Custom init sequences can be supplied. An empty init sequence can also be used with oled.begin(0,0); so the SSD1306 can be initialized by your own code.

The clear and fill commands, and the wrapping of lines of text by this library, use the screen's height in pages (a page is 8 rows of pixels). This library defaults the number of pages to 4. For screens with other geometries call the setPages method, or use the begin settings appropriate for your display.

The following begin parameters are supported for the various display resolutions. The b at the end means bright. The r at the end means rotated.

    // this is equivalent to tiny4koled_init_128x32r
    oled.begin();

    oled.begin(128, 64, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x64), tiny4koled_init_128x64);
    oled.begin(128, 64, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x64b), tiny4koled_init_128x64b);
    oled.begin(128, 64, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x64r), tiny4koled_init_128x64r);
    oled.begin(128, 64, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x64br), tiny4koled_init_128x64br);

    oled.begin(128, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x32), tiny4koled_init_128x32);
    oled.begin(128, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x32b), tiny4koled_init_128x32b);
    oled.begin(128, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x32r), tiny4koled_init_128x32r);
    oled.begin(128, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_128x32br), tiny4koled_init_128x32br);

    oled.begin(72, 40, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_72x40), tiny4koled_init_72x40);
    oled.begin(72, 40, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_72x40b), tiny4koled_init_72x40b);
    oled.begin(72, 40, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_72x40r), tiny4koled_init_72x40r);
    oled.begin(72, 40, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_72x40br), tiny4koled_init_72x40br);

    oled.begin(64, 48, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x48), tiny4koled_init_64x48);
    oled.begin(64, 48, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x48b), tiny4koled_init_64x48b);
    oled.begin(64, 48, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x48r), tiny4koled_init_64x48r);
    oled.begin(64, 48, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x48br), tiny4koled_init_64x48br);

    oled.begin(64, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x32), tiny4koled_init_64x32);
    oled.begin(64, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x32b), tiny4koled_init_64x32b);
    oled.begin(64, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x32r), tiny4koled_init_64x32r);
    oled.begin(64, 32, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_64x32br), tiny4koled_init_64x32br);

The SSD1306 remembers many of its settings even when powered off. After experimenting with various features, it can be useful to reset all the settings to the default values, which can be done with the following initialization sequence (Note: by default the charge pump is turned off):

    oled.begin(128, 64, sizeof(tiny4koled_init_defaults), tiny4koled_init_defaults);
    oled.enableChargePump(); // The default is off, but most boards need this.
    oled.setRotation(1);     // The default orientation is not the most commonly used.

Example Usage

// Choose your I2C implementation before including Tiny4kOLED.h
// The default is selected is Wire.h

// To use the Wire library:
//#include <Wire.h>

// To use the Adafruit's TinyWireM library:
//#include <TinyWireM.h>

// To use the TinyI2C library from https://github.com/technoblogy/tiny-i2c
//#include <TinyI2CMaster.h>

// The blue OLED screen requires a long initialization on power on.
// The code to wait for it to be ready uses 20 bytes of program storage space
// If you are using a white OLED, this can be reclaimed by uncommenting
// the following line (before including Tiny4kOLED.h):
//#define TINY4KOLED_QUICK_BEGIN

#include <Tiny4kOLED.h>

void setup() {
  // Send the initialization sequence to the oled. This leaves the display turned off
  oled.begin();

  // Two rotations are supported,
  // The begin() method sets the rotation to 1.
  //oled.setRotation(0);

  // Some newer devices do not contain an external current reference.
  // Older devices may also support using the internal curret reference,
  // which provides more consistent brightness across devices.
  // The internal current reference can be configured as either low current, or high current.
  // Using true as the parameter value choses the high current internal current reference,
  // resulting in a brighter display, and a more effective contrast setting.
  //oled.setInternalIref(true);

  // Two fonts are supplied with this library, FONT8X16 and FONT6X8
  // Other fonts are available from the TinyOLED-Fonts library
  oled.setFont(FONT8X16);

  // Clear the memory before turning on the display
  oled.clear();

  // Turn on the display
  oled.on();

  // Switch the half of RAM that we are writing to, to be the half that is non currently displayed
  oled.switchRenderFrame();
}

void loop() {
  updateDisplay();
  delay(50);
}

void updateDisplay() {
  // Clear the half of memory not currently being displayed.
  oled.clear();

  // Position the text cursor
  // In order to keep the library size small, text can only be positioned
  // with the top of the font aligned with one of the four 8 bit high RAM pages.
  // The Y value therefore can only have the value 0, 1, 2, or 3.
  // usage: oled.setCursor(X IN PIXELS, Y IN ROWS OF 8 PIXELS STARTING WITH 0);
  oled.setCursor(0, 1);

  // Write text to oled RAM (which is not currently being displayed).
  oled.print(F("ms: "));

  // Write the number of milliseconds since power on.
  oled.print(millis());

  // Swap which half of RAM is being written to, and which half is being displayed.
  // This is equivalent to calling both switchRenderFrame and switchDisplayFrame.
  oled.switchFrame();
}

_{The 4k in the project name is because 128 multiplied by 32 is 4096. This library is for a display with only 4096 pixels, not for UHD displays.}