Archie and R.J.

[Chris in U.K.]

You both made many helpful suggestions when I was researching LED matrix displays a few weeks ago. In the end I managed to borrow a display unit from another theatre and didn't need the suppliers you suggested. I did a lot of detective work once I got the unit, as it only came with a very pedestrian DOS-based control prog. I managed to find a better, although incomplete (kind of beta) windows-based prog which was much more user-friendly, from a small software workshop in Manchester England.

The project was a play based on a real-live incident that happened over here a couple of years ago. The British passport office's new puter system fouled up big time, and people had to queue round the block from 5 a.m. to get new or renewed passports for urgent travel. I had to show time and whose turn it was, as in a take-a-ticket-and-wait-your-turn system. Obviously a clock could not run in real time, and the numbers had to jump as well, so a programmable LED unit was the answer, especially as we had linking scenes with people waiting for trains, getting delayed, etc.

It's all working fine (touch wood). A Celeron 333 is running the prog, and the signal goes via a serial port, although bizarrely only 3 cores are used. However, this suits me fine as I can use a standard microphone cable for extension. The total cable run is about 20 metres.

Funny story: I looked at one of the websites you suggested, Archie (in midwest USA) and they emailed me back same working day with a link to the sales office in San Diego. I emailed them, and they referred me same working day to the Euro sales office in Paris. Paris emalied me back next working day asking for clarification, which I gave, and they emailed me again same day with e-mail address for the U.K. agent. I emailed the U.K. agent, and two weeks later he responded with irrelevant information.......Hmmmm.

Thanks again,

Chris.

[archie]

Glad to hear you got it working fine.