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AN ELECTRONIC LITESHOW DISPLAY

Part 2: Controlling the Lights with Software

by James Antonakos

Start ý Recap ý Software Initialization ý Building a Bit Pattern ý Outputting Data to the Display ý Scrolling the Display Pattern ý Handling Network Messages ý Other Uses ý Sources and PDF

Last month, I explained the hardware details of the LiteShow display, which contains 384 lamps, all individually controlled by only three signals from the PC printer port. This month, Iýll conclude with a discussion of the software used to control the display. This includes the basic principles of using the PCýs printer port to output serial data to the display, the method used to create the display bitmap in memory and scroll the display, and the TCP/IP networking code used to send messages to the display over a LAN.

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