[Coco] LED Sign Kit for the CoCo

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/3/04 12:17:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
boisy at boisypitre.com writes:

> Does anyone remember an LED Sign Kit for the CoCo being produced?  Back 
>  in '89 or '90, the community college I was going to had a CoCo 2 with a 
>  cartridge that connected to an LED sign.  Through the CoCo, the sign 
>  could be programmed to emit messages in the cafeteria.

ISTR that at one of the Hamfests in the NW burbs of Chicago, there was such a 
sign, and it was Coco controlled.
Or maybe I'm just remembering the TV monitors -- they were definitely being 
run from a Coco.

I suspect that someone manufactured the LED controller with a standard RS232 
serial input.  Any computer could then be used to drive it, givent he right 
Baud rate.
Even DOS BASIC could put out 8-bit characters to the serial port.

Modern PCs of course can't do anything like that -- Windows won't let you 
near the serial port.  --Mike K.