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Send A Message To An LED Sign
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."
Just think of the possibilities with the Times Square billboard! :D
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.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Any chance of sharing the code? ;P
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.
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
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Have you thought of trying ethernet...? I hear it's a bit quicker than a serial connection and may help prevent the /. effect...
;-)
I've never shoed a horse, but I once told a donkey to piss off!
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?
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?
That's a pity. I wanted to add a "First Post" scrolling LED message...
Microsoft delenda est!
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.
The Technonaut
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.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
... comes around.
... 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 ...
... I'm just ... not ... inspired by it all any more.
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
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
So I'm not even gonna visit the link.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
This is not my opinion. Actually, it's not even an opinion. And I'm nowhere to be seen near it
Slashdot hits you. You die. --More--
Your server has no chance to survive make your time. Ha ha ha ha ha...
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
Maybe that explains him hosting this on slashdot. Ya know, scipt kiddies just aren't the same these days. Back in my day, we knew not to do something this stupid!
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
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.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
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.
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
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.
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
Doesn't ANYONE have a mirror?!
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.
No, it wouldn't have saved him, you insensitive clod. RTFA!
Please note that you cannot submit a whole site to FreeCache as in http://freecache.org/http://www.rocklobsters.com/ This will not work as only index.html will be cached. You have to prefix every item that you want to have cached seperately.
Also it wouldn't have done much good for a CGI script, now would it?
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Let's take a quick look at this line:
:P
There's also a log of past messages.
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.
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.
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.
Lets see.
:(
Half the worlds geeks visiting simultaneously a website having its bandwidth narrowed to a 9.6k serial pipe with the repeated message "j00 b33n ownz3d by goatse LOL". Let me think...
hmm...
This is why we cant have nice things.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
24.x.x.x = cable
And DSL... but, yes, this is cable.
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
Never seen this?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I think this is the first time a LED has been slashdotted.
are belong to us!
"Free" as in "free 'undred quid".
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.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
"You have no chance to survive make your time!"
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.
Back in the day you'd probably get DDoS'ed by your mom picking up the phone downstairs.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Perhaps its just a coincidence, but the ticker board in Times Square is now scrolling: 'Error 404 Page not found' ?
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.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
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.
here is a mirror version
From the webpage itself, now that it's back up: "Someone thought it'd be cute to link to me, which isn't a good idea with the 10 user version of IIS. Sorry for the 403.9's." Want to DDOS someone? Just pretend to be them and submit their webpage to Slashdot!
Besides the fact that there is no such critter as a DB-9 connector.
r e x is either P or S depending on whether the contacts are pins or sockets. As an aside, there are now connectors with fifteen 22guage contacts in an "E" size shell, 26 in an "A" etc. These "high density" connectors are HDE-15x, HDA-26x, etc. The VGA connector is a variant of the HDE-15.
Back in the day when the "D" shell connectors were created (at ITT-Cannon?) there were four sizes all with 20 guage contacts. The 15 contact connector was in an "A" size shell, 25 contacts in a "B", 37 contacts in a "C", and 50 contacts in a "D" size. Later, a 9 contact connector was developed in a smaller shell. Guess what, the next letter available was "E". So it's correct to have:
DE-9x
DA-15x
DB-25x
DC-37x
DD-50x
whe
When RS-232 was standardized as an interface, they chose two connectors - the DB-25 and a 26 contact Centronics. The DB-25 became the ubiquitous connector in the PC industry. But almost no one was the full RS-232 standard. At best they might use the CTS and RTS lines in addition to the transmit and recieve. So, to save money, the PC industry went to the DE-9 to eliminate the extraneous hardware costs. But guess what, a lot of inDUHviduals couldnt' get their minds around the fact that the connector is smaller so they couldn't change what they call the connector. Thus the incorrect nomenclature "DB-9". Get it right, it is a DE-9.
Also note, since the PC makers have eliminated all the hand shaking, most of the flow control, and used a different connector than what's in the specification, the serial port on your PC is not strictly RS-232.
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!
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I bought the one that's being pounded on through Ebay. I'd recommend NOT buying the Beta Brite. Get the Pro Lite instead.
The Pro Lite has many advanced features and an open protocol that you won't get if use buy a Beta Brite.
The sign runs off of 9v, so it could easily be wired to work in your car. A little bit of work on a controller and you could probably create a simple pre-programmed series of messages accessible by button press in the front.
-- Mark Lyon http://www.marklyon.org
You may have a second chance around Christmas Time - I'm thinking of implementing the same concept/idea for my webcam/webcontrolled Christmas lights - see item #3 in what's planned/new for Christmas 2004 ... which if successfully implemented, will make for a additional factor to consider in my Slashdot Effect Analysis
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Well, since that sign has been slashdotted into a smouldering mass of silicon, here 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.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
You can go here to see some shots of the sign in action.
-- Mark Lyon http://www.marklyon.org
Now we're even slashdotting LED signs! Outrageous!
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
It still gets a slow trickle of traffic (with, surprise, a huge spike this morning.) Usually it's just (.Y.) or 8===D up there, but sometimes people put entertaining stuff up there. My favorite in recent history was:
In the first castles, I bet a common mistake was putting the torture room next to the master bedroom. Boy, you're just not going to get the good sleep that way
I probably glance at it every morning getting ready for work, and sometimes it's good for a laugh.
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. (Note that no actual public interface to my LED sign setup is provided.)
Don't waste those cycles! Put them to use! http://www.distributed.net/