Re: USB scrolling LED signs

[Kim Wall <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On 27/10/09 22:32, Jamie Bennett wrote:
>> I'm driving them from some horribly hackish Java code that does
>> assorted
>> automation tasks, to provide deaf-friendly visual indication of
caller
>> ID, doorbell and the like.
>
> Oh, sounds very interesting. Is your java code available? (and does it
> rely on any of the windows libraries?).

The actual automation app is embarrassingly hairy, with lots of
hard-coded settings and dependence on other custom hardware, but I've
uploaded the notes and test code I wrote while reverse-engineering the
sign protocol, along with the contents of the supplied CD (including the
manual):
<http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/ledsign/>

I'm accessing the serial port over a network socket, as when I
originally wrote my automation software[1] I was using spare serial
ports on the box that was my ADSL router (since replaced with an
multiport serial card).  It seems to be a relatively painless way to do
serial IO in Java :)

Shouldn't be too hard to use this as the basis of a write-string-to-sign
app in a sensible language with proper serial libraries :)


Kim.
- --
[1] When I originally wrote it, it wasn't so much automation software as
an IRC bot that sent a CTCP SOUND request when someone rang the
doorbell.  Creeping featurism took over.
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