A general purpose Liquid Crystal Display controller apparatus for controlling an LCD driver is operable to control an LCD having a plurality of individually addressable pixels arranged in lines. The apparatus has a pixel group generator for generating a pixel group for addressing respective groups of pixels on the lines of the LCD and a display buffer for storing image codes representing a desired image to be displayed on the LCD, the image codes being accessed in response to respective pixel groups. An identifier is provided for identifying each of the image codes as being a direct pixel group control code or a character addressing code and a character table is provided for storing character sub-line codes for controlling pixels in an addressed group, the character sub-line codes being accessed in response to the character addressing codes. The apparatus further includes a code provider for determining whether the image code associated with a pixel group is a direct pixel control code or a character addressing code. When the image code is a direct pixel control code, controlling the addressed group of pixels is controlled with the direct pixel control code and when the image code is a character addressing code, the character table is addressed with the character addressing code and the addressed group of pixels is controlled with a character sub-line code from the character table.