[Duo2400] Re: off the wall project

[Jani Tiainen]

> Can't remember what magazine I saw it in, but several
> years ago I read an article on building a scoreboard.
> The digits were made to look like large, red "LED"
> digits similar to what you see on clocks.
>
> The trick was to mask off the shapes on the back of
> a large piece of clear plexiglass then paint it with
> a couple coats of black paint. To make the red digits
> it used thin translucent red plastic on the back
> of the plexiglass. The box was constructed with
> individual compartments with lightbulbs for each
> segment. The drive system used was identical to what
> would be used to operate seven segment LED digit
> displays but in place of the LEDs it used relays with
> low voltage switching to operate 110V AC powered
> lightbulbs.

Well, this is pretty good alternative, altough ordinary lightbulbs tend to
wear out in fast speed switching. Better results can be obtained by using
eg. halogenlights that are much more resistant to temperature changes and
can handle more short time on/off cycles.

> Operating such a setup from a "bare" Duo would
> require a serial connection. I'd look into a
> "BASIC Stamp" style micro computer.

Well there is good variety of uCs to be used. BASIC Stamp is pretty, even it
is BASIC programmed...

Another very popular alternatives (if electronics/embedded systems are
interesting ones) is Atmel AVR-series, PIC-Series on of course good old
8051-series