Asimov Asks "How People Get New Ideas"

You just can't resist stepping forward to be the consummate asshole. ...Jim Thompson

Yep. Two more chips for driving LED billboard displays... that's turning into a really large market.

Also a weird chip that flips tiles, black on one side, white on the other, to make cheap business displays like menu's, etc... extremely low power.

Fun stuff.

Then there's the on-going security video camera controller chips, PELCO data, etc.

Plus I continue to pursue behavioral modeling... becoming my fun-time hobby... watch for a perfectly-modeled diode forward/reverse recovery subcircuit... coming RSN >:-} ...Jim Thompson

I remember things like that on signs, and at airports. Metal discs were flipped by coils, or maybe stepper-motor-like things, black on one side and yellow or something on the other side, giant round pixels. They made a cool fluttering noise every time the image was updated. Haven't seen one lately. Weatherproofing would seem to be a problem. And illumination.

Yep, airport flight displays used to be like that. These are indoors, sign-board style, room lighting is quite adequate. Updated via power over the cabling... power consumed only during flipping... statically zero power.

(Square, and very small... consider them as a B/W pixel.)

And they are fun to listen to... these small ones make more of a hiss rather than a flutter ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--- As usual, you misrepresent the situation in order to cast yourself in a more favorable light.

Review the post with which I entered this thread and the source of the provocation is easily discernible.

Moreover, my purpose in entering the thread wasn't to insult, but instead to explain why your claim about the difficulty of brainstorming on Usenet was bogus.

--- You try to make it seem so, but behind that facade lies a narcissistic control freak with little on his mind but proving his own importance to himself.

---

--- More to dangle: "See what I can do, and you can only aspire to?" over everyone as bait for adulation.

---

--- Yes, John, because you're a saint...

---

--- That may be true as long as you're not being corrected or criticized, but when you are, civility goes out the window and "going personal" becomes de rigueur.

---

--- And when you do, since it's all subjective, you feel free to be as abusive as you please to those with different points of view than yours.

---

--- If you think it's an obsession, then you think too highly of yourself. I can't speak for Jim or Bill, of course, but my interest is piqued - when I bother to read you - when you make patently absurd "observations" and then foist them upon us all as if they were divinely inspired revelations.

---

--- Well, of course it does, since we should all know that any criticism of your majesty must be based on some mental aberration.

---

--- It is, and if that's your preference, why not limit yourself to that instead of fomenting discord?

Say, JF, I guess your vacation from SED wore off already. It was surprisingly peaceful in your absence.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

yeah, you need a clear weatherproof cover, like a window with the recent civil-works boom here I see these at-least once a week announcing a coming road closure.

LED based now I expect. putting LEDs inside the pixels would be a neat trick.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014 16:03:07 -0500, Phil Hobbs Gave us:

I'd say he needed to answer that, but he is likely as fed up as some others.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:12:39 -0800, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno Gave us:

And don't even think of alluding that he was the source of the noise.

Wait! Wait! I have a great idea: dump the disks and use the LEDs themselves as the pixels!

Texas Instruments claimed to have a display that worked that way years ago. Have they finally got enough enquiries to justify spending money on an actual product, as opposed to marketing-research advertising?

On Sat, 22 Nov 2014 00:02:53 -0600, John Fields Gave us:

Must have been the shardonae... :-)

Oh wait... that's Jim.

There are the MEMS "micromirror" arrays, they the standard for cinemas AIUI.

Not quite the same thing but some similarities; mechanical pixels.

There was only one pole in the feedback network, possibly. JT and JL are pretty civil to each other when you're not around, for one thing.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs