Two decades ago, I saw a product in GAMES magazine - it was a vertical column of LEDs in a flower pot, that - when one shook ones head from side - would spell out "ROSE" or "TULIP" etc.
Being an engineer at Epson at the time, I immediately saw that this was just a dot-matrix printer head, standing still, and using LEDs instead of pins.
Another engineer built one based on my description, and we could type in a word on the PC, and have seeming randomly flashing LEDs spell out our name or whatever we chose.
Now they have these things in clocks, skywriters, etc. where the LEDs are motorized, swung, or rotated to create a message.
I have searched for and not yet found, a program that would:
- have a vertical string of seven or nine "LEDs" on the screen - even simple rectangles would work, but selectable round shapes and colours, and sizes would be a treat;
- have a input box for a short message (likely 10 -12 characters would be the workable limit)
- take message, break it down to each letter's vertical slice, and loop the display of that slice in the same vertical column on the screen;
- to make it a "screen saver", the column could slowly slide around the screen, but that's not important
Thus, Joe Average would see this blinking column of pixels on a screen, and think nothing of it. Those "in the know" would shake their head side to side, and read the message.
Interesting?
