Post
by MrAl » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:59 pm
Hi again,
Basically if you build one yourself you can use address counters
to drive the address inputs, clocked by either a switch or the
computer interface. This takes a string of binary counters.
You have to apply a programming pulse of the correct voltage
for the correct amount of time, refer to the data sheet. This
takes a one shot and perhaps a transistor.
The computer interface has to take whatever port signals you are
using and convert your commands to either a program pulse
or data transfer or address counter clock pulse.
The software to drive the computer interface has to take your
data file and read it and send the data to the port, sending the
required commands before and/or after each data entry.
The data would probably be arranged as one line per address
such as:
0x80
0x91
0x32
etc., for an 8 bit data device.
The theory behind these things isnt that hard to understand, but
it does take a little bit of hardware, and the software has to be
written to work with the port and the address counters and
data latch and probably a command interpreter. The command
interpreter can probably be just a 1 of 8 decoder or something
like that, with a latch to hold the command byte.
It should also be possible to accomplish all the above tasks with
a micro controller, except for maybe the address lines, which would
probably still be better done with binary counters, having the uC
reset the counters to start and then pulse them once for each new
address.
LEDs vs Bulbs, LEDs are winning.