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Displays Toys Hardware

Send A Message To An LED Sign 316

Posted by timothy from the well-that's-brave dept.
An anonymous reader submits "I just got a Pro Lite LED sign today. After a few minutes splicing and wiring up a DB9 to RJ11 connection, and a little fun with python, I've got a script that lets me take input from the web and display it on the sign. Eventually it will have other, more useful, purposes, but I figured I'd let you guys play with it as it is. There's also a log of past messages."
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Send A Message To An LED Sign More

Send A Message To An LED Sign

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  • Imagine... (Score:4, Funny)

    by mdrejhon ( 203654 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:55AM (#9363591) Homepage
    Just think of the possibilities with the Times Square billboard! :D

    • Already done (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Snaapy ( 753650 )
      In year 2000 there was a Finnish company called Wapit. The company building, which was located in central Helsinki, had a huge LED display on its wall. You could send SMS to a certain number and your message appeared on the display.

  • Hah (Score:5, Funny)

    by lancomandr ( 785360 ) * on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:56AM (#9363593)
    Before the story went public....I input to the sign "You're about to get RAPED by slashdot!" Now the story is public. No more website.

  • Chance? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ScribeOfTheNile ( 694546 )
    Any chance of sharing the code? ;P

    • Re:Chance? (Score:5, Informative)

      by marklyon ( 251926 ) * on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @07:06AM (#9364367) Homepage
      I'm the guy running the sign. I didn't intend for it to be posted here, but I'll be happy to point you in the right direction if you want to set up your own sign. Just don't let Clint on ArsTechnica know your IP address. He'll post it on /.

      For the sign, I'm using a Pro Lite PL-M2014R. It's connected with an RJ11 cable that I spliced a DB9 connector on. I'm running a bit of Python which opens the port and writes the information to the sign. All the information you need is available at: http://wls.wwco.com/ledsigns/prolite/

  • That's a good idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by HiQ ( 159108 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:56AM (#9363597)
    Maybe you can use the smoke that's coming from your computer right now as a screen for looking at the Venus transit. You won't be using that for a while I guess.

  • Darn.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Insurgent2 ( 615836 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:56AM (#9363599)
    The Quake dudes on your segment are gonna be pissed!
  • well at least it loaded the background color... btw its blue... i think thats as far as anyone will get

  • connection speed..? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Polkyb ( 732262 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:57AM (#9363606)
    After a few minutes splicing and wiring up a DB9 to RJ11 connection

    Have you thought of trying ethernet...? I hear it's a bit quicker than a serial connection and may help prevent the /. effect...

    ;-)

    • Re:connection speed..? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Otherwise use a smart serial-to-ethernet converter like the one at:

      http://www.multenet.com/demo/webcam.html
      http: / /www.sanpeople.com/webcam/camframe.html

      "Using an EtherPAD, SAN People have connected a LCD Electronic display to the Internet. The EtherPAD is connected to the serial port of the LCD display and, via an ISP, to the Internet. Using the SAN People scripting language, SANscript, a web page was written allowing full control of this display. This web page was then loaded onto the EtherPAD allowing

  • Fortunate (Score:2, Funny)

    by NemesisStar ( 619232 )
    You're lucky goatse is no more. What would your mother say if she decided to see what internet site was so important for you to enshrine on a LED board?

  • Excuse me, but ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by krumms ( 613921 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:58AM (#9363608) Journal
    I've got a script that lets me take input from the web and display it on the sign. Eventually it will have other, more useful, purposes, but I figured I'd let you guys play with it as it is.

    Are you FUCKING INSANE?
    • Yeah, that's the equivalent to a kick me sign on his back.

      Actually, closer to the sign Bruce Willis wore briefly in Harlem in Die Hard 3...
    • What's the problem? Why do people keep talking about the /. effect? Someone's computer/connection can't respond to all the requests, so you wait a little while and view it later if you're still interested. Wow. Hilarious.

      • Re:Excuse me, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tokerat ( 150341 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @04:06AM (#9363829) Journal

        It's called TOS, or terms of service. This guy is going to get an angry call from his cable provider come 9AM, and they'll probably take the wire down right off his house lol

        As for the /. effect, it can last for a long time. As long as that story is on the front page.

        Hell, I post an occational image on Fark and you should see the logfiles go apeshit

    • Maybe he's got religion... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And this is the digital equivalent of a hair shirt.

      Or maybe he was looking to compile a list of all the lastest euphemisms for gentials, excrement, related fuctions, and common miss- or alternative spellings. In which case, he's brilliant. Mission Accomplished.

  • Been said before, will be said again: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BodyCount07 ( 260070 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:58AM (#9363614) Homepage
    Why on earth would you submit your own website when you know it will go down in a matter of seconds? Authors should have to start proving some sort of minimal bandwidth requirement before submitting their own site. I'm tired of people hosting web pages on their home DSL lines.
    • I'm tired of people hosting web pages on their home DSL lines.
      As opposed to paying per the GB xfer for enterprise hosting and sending a slashdotting over there instead?

      • I don't know about every web host, but any cheap arse virtual host in a decent datacentre should be able to handle it... for a while.

        The person who submitted this story is one stupid idiot. Heck, even hosting a mirror in ISP user webspace would be better.

        * Disclaimer: I operate a virtual webhost in a "decent colo", more specifically, The Planet [theplanet.com]

    • Who, in the BLUE HELL, are you? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is a FREE UNIVERSE, buddy. If you don't like it, eat shit and DIE. I'll submit on 2600 baud if I so fucking like.
    • actually it's cable, as signified by its presence on the 24.0.0.0/8 netblock, seems to be holding up (somewhat) so far... I imagine his provider's going to kill his connection for getting himself slashdotted though.
    • That's nothing. You should see the wankers trying to sell hosting space on their home DSL lines. We get calls from their customers all the time about how they want the DNS hosting to change every 2.5 days with the DHCP changes.
    • Why on earth would you submit your own website when you know it will go down in a matter of seconds?

      It's worse...check the IP address. It's on cable, and it almost certainly violates the TOS to run a web server there. So, not only did it go down right away, it might stay down permanently, depending on how annoyed the cable company is.

    • Maybe it's the exhilaration of doing something naughty just because you can. I remember signing my school's web server up as an official mirror for the very first Quake3 DemoTEST when it was released four years ago. For about a day we were the only published European mirror, which very quickly brought down (and kept down) the entire public school network in my area.

      Of course, for that theory to work, this guy would have to be a) a high school kid, b) stupid like me, and c) somehow using a network connectio

  • Anyone on the Web can write on your sign? (Score:5, Funny)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:59AM (#9363616) Homepage Journal
    Either you're a VERY brave man or this thing is locked in a closet somewhere. If it's visible from the street, you're in a heap of trouble, boy.

  • What goes around ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @02:59AM (#9363617) Homepage Journal
    ... comes around.

    In the early days of the web, back when men were men and browsers were something nobody really wanted to write, there was a webcam ... before there were webcams ... at Netscape ... before there were dot-com crashes ... that was powered by a CGI script ... before there was web application services (tm IBM^M^M^MMicrosoft^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^MSCO) ... that was pointed (the webcam, stay with me) ... at an ...

    LED sign. To which you could send your own messages, laugh while your coffee and TSP reports get cold, and marvel at the 'wonders of that modern Internet thingie'.

    Now any punk with a screwdriver and half a tab key can hack their own 15 minutes of signage ... I'm just ... not ... inspired by it all any more.

    So I'm not even gonna visit the link.

    • story poster will have fun on 56K (Score:5, Funny)

      by Barbarian ( 9467 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:48AM (#9363776)
      Cablelynx [cablelynx.com], his provider, is going to shitcan [cablelynx.com] him:
      f. Service Restrictions. You agree to use your Service for legal purposes only. Any illegal use shall be cause for immediate termination of Service.
      You agree that your use of the Service shall be for personal use within the confines of one household or business. You shall not share Service, or use Service to host a server site for FTP, telnet, e-mail hosting, web hosting; or use Service in conjunction with a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or VPN tunneling protocol; or sublet, resell, assign, or provide access to any third party on any basis under the terms of this Agreement. Violations of any of these terms shall be cause for immediate termination of Service and may be grounds for Company's refusal to provide future Service to you. You agree that you will not web host or utilize continuous streaming video or audio for periods of more than four hours with at least one hour of inactivity between uses. You understand that the Internet is a public place and you are responsible for your actions or the actions of those that access the Internet through your Service. It shall be your responsibility to provide, at your own cost, any necessary firewall, or Internet security software to prevent unauthorized access of your computer via the Internet.

      He's probably killed off service for others in his neighborhood too:

      (from tcptraceroute>

      13 89-228.vbrg-a5.cablelynx.com (24.204.89.228) [closed] 1713.840 ms * 2018.488 ms

    • Re:What goes around ... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MartinB ( 51897 )

      In the early days of the web, there was a webcam that was pointed at an LED sign. To which you could send your own messages, laugh while your coffee and TSP reports get cold, and marvel at the 'wonders of that modern Internet thingie'.

      I also seem to remember some guy who claimed to have a speech synthesiser hooked up to an Amiga in his apartment, and you could talk to his cat.

      Ah, here's some contemporary info [dircon.co.uk] about it, although the original talk to cat gateway is no longer running and even the Wayba

    • ... laugh while your coffee and TSP reports get cold ...
      Do you really mean Tandy Service Plans? I think you mean TPS--and while I'm here, I noticed you didn't put a cover sheet on yours. Did you get the memo? ...

  • Original /.ing error code (Score:5, Funny)

    by frs_rbl ( 615298 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:02AM (#9363627) Journal
    Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\sendmessage.py", line 13, in ? tty=SerialPort("COM1", 1000, 9600) File "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\SerialPort_win.py", line 117, in __init__ raise SerialPortException('Unable to open port') SerialPort_win.SerialPortException: Unable to open port Exception exceptions.AttributeError: in > ignored
    I suppose he's busy debugging now

  • Famous last words (Score:5, Funny)

    by GammaTau ( 636807 ) <jni@iki.fi> on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:03AM (#9363633) Homepage Journal

    Slashdot hits you. You die. --More--

  • Could be worse (Score:5, Funny)

    by xsupergr0verx ( 758121 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:06AM (#9363645)
    At least he didn't code it into his spiffy new Nokia phone and has to wave his arm for the next 8 hours to display our messages.

  • "Here comes /."

    No kidding! :-)

    z

  • Here's the site (Score:5, Informative)

    by NemesisStar ( 619232 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:09AM (#9363657)
    Well seeings how I think I was one of the only people to be able to load it up before it went down, here is what was on the site. This is pretty much it (very simple interface), the only thing you can't see here are "Send Now" and "blank sign" buttons and a dark blue background.

    Leave a Scrolling Message for Mark
    You can leave a message on the scrolling message board for Mark, or see the log of messages already left.

    This will replace the existing message of:

    [Tue 02:55 24.5.54.115]
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

    Below are some simple commands you can use. Insert the command text where you want the command result to be. Hey folks, this isn't XHTML. If you want to use a tag, please make sure it's in all caps or it doesn't work.

    Graphic Blocks
    There are 26 reprogramable graphic blocks.
    <BA> Telephone <BB> Glasses <BC> Tap <BD> Rocket <BE> Monster
    <BF> Key <BG> Shirt <BH> Helicopter <BI> Car <BJ> Tank
    <BK> House <BL> Teapot <BM> Knife & Fork <BN> Duck <BO> Motorcycle
    <BP> Bicycle <BQ> Crown <BR> Sweet Heart <BS> Arrow Right <BT> Arrow Left
    <BU> Arrow Down-Left <BV> Arrow Up-Left <BW> Mug of Beer <BX> Chair <BY> High-heeled Shoes

    Colors
    There are 26 color modes.
    <CA> Dim Red <CB> Red <CC> Bright Red
    <CD> Orange <CE> Bright Orange <CF> Light Yellow
    <CG> Yellow <CH> Bright Yellow <CI> Lime
    <CJ> Dim Lime <CK> Bright Lime <CL> Bright Green
    <CM> Green <CN> Dim Green <CO> Yellow/Green/Red
    <CP> Rainbow (Default) <CQ> Red/Green 3D <CR> Red/Yellow 3D
    <CS> Green/Red 3D <CT> Green/Yellow 3D <CU> Green on Red
    <CV> Red on Green <CW> Orange on Green 3D <CX> Lime on Red 3D
    <CY> Green on Red 3D <CZ> Red on Green 3D

    Note:
    Some of these color combinations look so bad that they should require a permit.

    Character Sizes
    <SA> Normal (Default) <SE> Flashing Normal
    <SB> Bold (Wide) <SF> Flashing Bold (Wide)
    <SC> Italic <SG> Flashing Italic
    <SD> Bold Italic (Wide) <SH> Flashing Bold Italic (Wide)

    Display Functions
    <FA> AUTO
    Random color & presentation <FB> OPEN
    <-- Open from Center --> <FC> COVER
    <-- Covers Text --> <FD> APPEAR
    Instantly replaces text <FE> CYCLING
    Rolling Colors
    <FF> CLOSE <--
    Blank screen right to left <FG> CLOSE -->
    Blank screen left to right <FH> CLOSE --><--
    Blank screen outter to center <FI> SCROLL UP
    Scroll up from bottom <FJ> SCROLL DOWN
    Scroll down from top
    <FK> OVERLAP
    Two layers slide together to form text <FL> STACKING
    Falling dots form text <FM> COMIC 1
    PacMan <FN> COMIC 2
    Random creature walking
    <FP> PAUSE
    Short delay of motion <FQ> SLEEP
    Blank screen until the next timer activates <FR> RANDOM
    Random dots appear forming text <FS> SHIFT <--
    Roll message right to left (Default) <FT> TIME/DATE
    Show time and date, no choice of formatting
    <FU> MAGIC
    Change text color each time <FV> THANK YOU
    Cursive "Thank you" <FW> WELCOME
    Cursive "Welcome" <FX> SPEED 1 <FY> SPEED 2
    Jittery

  • I hope he doesnt have kids..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jeff Benjamin ( 528348 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:10AM (#9363660)
    It was only a matter of time before some clever slashdotter figured out how to make the leds light up to look like the goatse man.

  • help needed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrStrangeLoop ( 567076 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:12AM (#9363664) Homepage
    speaking of this topic, i own a LED dotmatrix display for which i could use some specs... it features about 12 characters width of 7x5 [if im not mistaken] red LEDs. the only visible company label is SIGMA, which has not proven very helpful since this is a brand of the very large METRO group who are not exactly helpful to small consumers. the device features a rj-11 input, presumably for getting the time, and an IR port for inputing static data. any information helping me to put my current server load or pfctl logs on the display would be highly welcome.

    thnx,
    strangeloop
    • i own a LED dotmatrix display - Dude, I totally read that as "i own a LED dominatrix display"...

      The real question is: What would a LED dominatrix display actually be? ;)

  • Mirror anyone? (Score:5, Funny)

    by craigmarshall ( 679127 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:13AM (#9363670)
    Doesn't ANYONE have a mirror?!

  • Here's a useful purpose... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MonkeyBot ( 545313 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:13AM (#9363673)
    I've always wanted to get an LED sign for the back of my car. Yours fixes the problem that I had with actually buying one. Now, I could just edit the Unix "fortune" program to quip random, witty, profane statements to drivers that piss me off rather than having to type the whole statement in. Thanks.
    • I want one in the front of my car with a mirror image of the text.

      For a while I have used a notebook to display an animated gif with the mirror image of the traffic signs for 'End of speed limit 70km/h' and 'Speed limit 90km/h' to slow drivers in front of me who stubbornly insist on driving 60km/h where 90km/h is allowed (and 100km/h is tolerated).

      Another worthwhile text is 'Slower traffic keep right'.
    • I dunno how true this is or where it applies, but I'm pretty sure that here in the UK, having any sort of moving display showing on a vehicle is illegal.

      Otherwise, don't you think that all these advertisers would have 50-foot-high Plasma screens driving along the motorways advertising their wares?
    • I thought of that too once. Then I did a search at the USPTO and found that idea had already been patented. I'd search for a link now, but I don't have time before work.

      I think using an LCD would get around that though, as I did a search for that and came up with nothing.

  • Want to know why it's /.'ed? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HellKnite ( 266374 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:24AM (#9363705)
    Let's take a quick look at this line:

    There's also a log of past messages [24.204.89.228].

    So... log.asp eh? Windows? Or some silly man running asp under apache? 'Nuff said...

    Oh, and I guess maybe it's on some cable modem or DSL provider... that doesn't help. :P

  • This would be sweet if (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:25AM (#9363709) Journal
    if you could make it display the wavform of an MP3 player in near real time. But, it didn't sound like that was doable. I'd buy one if it could do that.
  • according to the site you reffed for the prolite [wwco.com]

    However, it is possible to build your own cable for a few dollars. Then making Linux communicate with the light board is trivial.

    Once you have it, your can start communicating with the message board from your computer. I've proposed an enhanced protocol that would be backwards compatible. Pro-Lite has not responded much about it. Perhaps they think there is little interest by programmers.

    [..]

    I've started to collect home-brewed applications , parti

  • Cannon Fodder (Score:5, Funny)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @03:30AM (#9363721)
    This is just begging for it. It's not even a challenge - at 1:30 AM Pacific time it doesn't even stand a chance. Why not host it on an 8086 running Elks or Minix off of a 360KB floppy while you're at it? And power it by a couple of potatoes, too.
  • that's the sound of little innocent leds whimpering under a slashdotting

  • Never seen this?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hurricane78 ( 562437 ) <(deleted) (at) (slashdot.org)> on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @04:11AM (#9363849)
    Never seen this [blinkenlights.de]?

  • Slashdotting a LED (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chran ( 142121 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @04:16AM (#9363861) Homepage Journal
    I think this is the first time a LED has been slashdotted.
  • we can get Timothy to post this as the daily dupe, and slashdot him again! Betcha his isp sends someone over to his house at 1:30 am to personally pull the plug.

  • All your led... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Iblis ( 80771 )
    are belong to us!

  • Ive always wanted one of these... as soon as this guy regains consciousness, Im going to get details, build my own, hook it up to my friends OC3 network (@isp), and repost to /.

    Should this actually work, it could become the next net phenom.

    We should all ban together and donate band-aids by the thousands for this guys server :P

  • One of the funnier submissions. (Score:5, Funny)

    by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @04:32AM (#9363909)
    I guess the submission widget is closed due to slashdot. With all the cursing and trolling people did with the sign though, the good ones sort of got lost. My favorite [24.204.89.228]:

    Trapped in Pro Lite LED Sign factory. Please send help!

    classic. I don't really thing it will be very interesting unless the sign is posted in a public place, with a strict swear filter. Maybe some moderation oversight. Put it in a pub; loads of fun. The true entertainment potential of this thing is vastly underestimated.

    Then again, when you're drunk, anythings funny. Except those "in Soviet Russia" jokes.

    • I'd second the idea about putting up a LED sign in a pub, except for two issues: one, you can't really filter profanity. The assholes will use spaces, letters and whatnot to mask it and it will still get through. Second, the LED display humor will be limited to the moderator's sense of humor.

    • Filter? (Score:3, Funny)

      by MBAFK ( 769131 )
      I was at a festival this weekend where they had the sms txt screen going on. If they did filter it I didn't notice it - there were some racial ones that raised a few eye brows.

      "Mat blows goats Andy/Nuk has proof"

      60,000 people laugh.
  • He's talking about a 1999 LJ article, and all the pages are last modified 1999 or 2000..

    ie, 4 or 5 years ago.
  • "You have no chance to survive make your time!"

  • Co-incidence? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MtlDty ( 711230 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @06:22AM (#9364147)
    Perhaps its just a coincidence, but the ticker board in Times Square is now scrolling: 'Error 404 Page not found' ?

  • Ethics of Article Posting (offtopic) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by harikiri ( 211017 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @06:33AM (#9364175)
    Slashdot needs to post an article, on above all things - article posting ethics. This current article demonstrates a trend that's happening recently, whereby people are seeing someone's cool homepage (or submitting their own), and forwarding it to hundreds of thousands of internet users via a Slashdot article.

    I mean please, linking a CGI page on a windows server hosted on your cable modem connection, with a throughput of 9.6K... that's not gonna hold up 5 seconds after slashdot posts the article.

    This is hopelessly offtopic, but it's something that people need to start thinking about before they submit an article.

  • Why approve this submission? Idiot editors! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Monoman ( 8745 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @07:51AM (#9364698) Homepage
    This was an AC post calling for control of a piece of hardware. How do we know the AC is even the real owner of the sign? Even if it is real, the sign probably crashed under the load just from /. subscribers (all 3 of them :-) ) before it was posted for the public.

    Over the years I have had quite a few submissions rejected and then the editors publish something like this. eeedeeeeots!

  • Another sign to play with (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kent_eh ( 543303 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @08:24AM (#9364985)
    Well, since that sign has been slashdotted into a smouldering mass of silicon, here [216.36.143.13] is a different sign to play with.

    It runs Apache and has survived under heavy load in the past.

    Oh, and it's been online for about 4 years.

    Have fun.

  • Oh, great! (Score:3, Funny)

    by piecewise ( 169377 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:35AM (#9365793) Journal
    Now we're even slashdotting LED signs! Outrageous!

  • A similar CGI interface to a scrolling LED sign (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BovineOne ( 119507 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @01:41PM (#9368751) Homepage Journal
    I set up a similar looking LED sign a couple years ago at work and we have an internal webserver that hosts the web interface to it (using Apache for Win32). The CGI interface is written in Perl, using a perl module (that I also wrote) that provides an minimal Perl API for the sign.

    When a new line of text is submitted to the sign, the CGI script also sends the text to our office IRC channel via a separate Perl IRC bot, so you don't have to be sitting within visible range of the sign in order to enjoy it.

    Full Perl source, a sample POD text output, and some pictures and screen snapshots are all available online on my website [bovine.net]. (Note that no actual public interface to my LED sign setup is provided.)

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