Programming USB port to control LEDs, displays

[larry98765]

This may be a bit of a long shot, but I'd like to set up an LED marquis that I can use AppleScript or perhaps RealBasic (or something else) to control. I'd like to have it display things like the currently playing iTune, or stock quotes pulled off the web, or whatever. Anyone knows of a commercial piece of hardware/software, or a book or site on how to rig this myself?

 

[amacks]

So these people make LCD displays to be used with Linux and LCDProc, http://www.cwlinux.com/eng/products/products_lcd.php
You'd have to do some hacking to send data to the LCD, but fundimentally it's pretty simple, it behaves as a character device that you just write to, like a lineprinter.

My advice would be to check in with the LCDProc people and see if anyone has used this hardware a sucessfully/ported software to OSX. Otherwise you're in for some fun in the rewriteing.
Aaron

 

[larry98765]

Thank you. I took a look and really am looking for something more like a 2-foot LED display, rather than LCD. But this is a start. Where could I learn about sending characters to a line printer through a USB port? And would RealBasic be an appropriate tool?

 

[gumse]

All big LED-displays I have worked with has been connected via RS-232, been a while though.