Special characters and graphics on 1602 LCD

All LCD displays that are compatible with the Hitachi HD44780 driver has the following haracter map:

All above standard (?) characters can be printed with default library  'LiquidCrystal lcd' and use the lcd.write(number) command. the 'number' can be taken from above table when add the upper row number with the vertical (par example 43 is the + symbol). I found useful the characters 126, 127, 219, 223, 255.

As for graphics and custom characters this can been done with little more programming. Some examples can been found in the next pages

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,54411.0.html
http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/LiquidCrystalCreateChar
http://www.quinapalus.com/hd44780udg.html