Don’t know if this is good or not, but dakro69 David has gotten hold of some “weird” displays which are HD44780 compatible:
They’re “buy it now” for $32.99 and are supposed to be up near 100 dollars for a current DigiKey version.
I’ve dealt with him before with no problems. Don’t know what the deal is on his user name. It’s now exdwh_com, but it was dakro69 (it’s still Experimenter’s Discount Warehouse).
Take Care,
George