tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Oct 09 23:12:32 2005

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Re: digital clock pIqaD

James ([email protected]) 

At first I thought you were referring to a desktop widget similar to the 
old "Klingon Klock" that was quite popular awhile ago (and still around 
- http://www.ambin.com/software.htm ) which could speak the time.

Then I looked, and understood what you meant. The most common way to 
build up a large "digit" is to buy a bunch of LEDs (cheap when you can 
buy by the pound), then just wire them up to form your segments. Drive 
them with a high-powered driver IC (or a standard transistor array) and 
you'll be on your way. If you toss in a cheap and small FPGA, you can 
implement the entire clock in it (drive/display logic, timekeeping 
logic, plus any other oddball things you'd like, like perhaps an output 
for the visitors who refuse to learn in order to find out the time!).

(Or, for those who don't really have much hardware knowledge... there is 
an FPGA-on-a-cartridge that lets you use a Gameboy Advance as the main 
processor - http://www.charmedlabs.com/xport.htm - thus getting you 90% 
of the way there. Just add driver electronics, some C code, and your 
clock will be up in no time.)

> I've always liked digital clocks and the way all of the numbers
> fit together, so the other day at work I decided to see if I could
> do it with pIqaD numbers, this is what I came up with:
> 
> http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/purpleelaphants/images/digital_pIqaD.gif
> 
> (for some reason the picture only displays right when it is expanded,
> I think my web-site has shrinks it automatically-so make sure it's expanded)
> 
> if only I knew how to make a clock face...
> ~naHQun
> 
>

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