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I opened up the case of an old toy to take a look at what is inside.
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The device had what seemed to me a bizarre LCD display with a controller(or microcontroller?) I have never seen before(middle image).My question is:what kind of display is this,what kind of controller&how does it all work together?Note that the LCD is attached on with the help of two rubber bands(first image) and can easily be removed or be placed back without soldering or desoldering it.Also,what's the role of the black cover placed in the middle?

Daniel Tork
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The black blob is a custom IC called a "chip-on-board". The IC does not have a standard case like what we normally see when looking at a PCB. Instead, the die itself is glued to the PCB and has very fine wires coming out of it to connect to the board. The whole thing is encapsulated in the black resin to protect it from the elements.

In my experience, salvaging displays from this sort of thing is generally a lost cause--they are most often custom jobs and, while I'm sure you can find a way to reuse them, it will take a lot of time to determine the pinouts and how to control them.

It looks like the LCD is mounted to the PCB using a press-fit solution. Pressing it to the PCB connects the pads and the pins on the board and the display. By far not the best (can lead to intermittent connections if not done properly, or if the pads get dirty) but for a cheap toy it usually gets the job done.

This answer briefly explains the chip-on-board concept.

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DerStrom8
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  • @destrom8 The display had some preset characters appearing on the screen.Is there a way to make it show numbers and letters? – Daniel Tork Jul 23 '15 at 05:04
  • Not without a microcontroller and lots of time and effort determining the pinout. A character is simply a collection of dots, and figuring out how to turn on the dots, when to turn them on, etc is very complicated and probably not worth the trouble. I suggest simply buying a common LCD panel, like the LCD-00255 from Sparkfun. It has a standard interface for which you can find all sorts of documentation. It's very easy to control with a microcontroller provided you know how to program the device (whole other project in itself) – DerStrom8 Jul 23 '15 at 12:01
  • Note that the two rubber strips have embedded contacts, and are commonly referred to as "zebra strips". If the LCD only had a limited character repertoire that's because of its internal electrode pattern and you have zero chance of changing it... I'd suggest some basic research via e.g. Wikipaedia is in order. – Mark Morgan Lloyd Sep 08 '20 at 09:03