DELAY performance...

Hello... 

Im writing a driver for an LCD ( HD44780 ) which is wired to the printer 
port. Im having performance issues when throwing lots of data to it.. and I 
think it is because of the DELAY function. 

With each byte I send out the printer port to the lcd, I need to call 
DELAY() about 4 times, with about a 1100 usec delay in total. When I send 
many megs to the lcd, I find that the rest of the system gets very bogged 
down... 

AFAIK, DELAY halts the kernel from doing other things (except for handling 
interrupts). I am guessing that is what is causing most of the system 
slowdown.. 

So, can anyone suggest a nicer way for me to delay ( even if it is not as 
accurate )? 

Thanks