[Sprite_TM] is was sent an old LED Marquee by an anonymous fan of his hacking projects. The screen isn’t full color, however it’s big — 224 by 48 pixels — as well as he figured he might render some alright pictures with the bi-color diodes. In the end, he replaced the controller as well as turned it into a video player.
The original system work well enough, however the 100 MHz 486 industrial style PC that drove the screen seems a bit comical these days. After providing it a spin as well as testing out exactly how it drives the screen [Sprite] hooked up an FTDI chip as well as handled to get it playing video from his computer. above you can see part of the opening sequence of The Simpsons.
Now that he had discovered its tricks he set out to provide it an embedded controller. His very first attempt was with a Carambola board which he’s dealt with before. That shown to be a bit sluggish for all the pixel data he was pushing so he upgraded to a Raspberry Pi as well as never looked back. You can see the demo video after the jump.