[Noisebridge-discuss] LED sign

[Jonathan Lassoff]

Encapsulated within <20081109015749.GT18862 at hexapodia.org> on Sat, Nov 08, 2008 at 05:57:49PM -0800, Andy Isaacson <adi at hexapodia.org> wrote:
> 
> ACCRC graciously donated an LED sign to us.  It's sitting atop the
> shelves on the south edge of 83C.  Someone (Jof?) should take lead on
> making it go.
> 
> -andy

I still haven't gotten anything meaningful going on this yet, however many parts of the sign still 'work'.

Inside, it looks like an old motherboard that connects to a sign controller via a cable plugged directly into an ISA slot on the motherboard.
Last time we had a look at it, it seemed like we should be able to pop out a seperate motherboard (an ISA-equippped motherboard was brought in by Andy - thanks!), and play around with trying to write some data to the sign controller's memory.

Also of interest is an ancient floppy that used to boot the whole contraption. Still trying to recover data off of it that might be useful in examining the process through which the computer programmed the sign controller.

Right now, the sign will at least power on and display an all-on field of red LEDs - neat.

I'm hoping that we might be able to to hang the sign inside and create a system through which it can be programmed and controlled over the network.

--j