Pro-Lite Frequently Asked Questions

Over the course of time I have gotten numerous letters and questions posted to my sign. Redundant questions have started to get asked, and thus the FAQ is born.

Any clue how to program any animated chatater on the sign?

    None at all. It would appear that animations are encoded on the ROM. Clever artists can make tiled patterns with graphic blocks and scroll them horizontally and vertically for interesting effects.

If I update my sign, using the computer, every second or so, messages don't finish. How can I quickly update the sign.

    No they don't, the sign can't handle updates that fast. Apparently if you update during a message it screws up the display. Pro-Lite supposedly has a special fast-ROM available providing you have an EPROM burner. (fstresp.hex 28K binary)

I find that I'm limited in trying to do advanced real-time features with the sign. Has anyone thought of improving the protocol?

    Yes. I've submitted an enhanced protocol that should be backwards compatible to Pro-Lite. So far, I have heard very little about it. My suspicion is that Pro-Lite believes people use their computers to upload a message to the sign and then they let it play all day. I've been trying to gain weight that there are needs where the sign is updated live by a computer. It wouldn't take much to provide a lot more features that would kill Pro-Lite's competition beating them to the home computer market first.

Will the Pro-Lite remote work with other signs?

    If you are wondering if you can walk into your local movie theater or airport and change their signs, probablly not.

    The remote controls are generic and send a code to the sign in numerical format ranging from 0 to 31.

    It is then up to the sign to map those codes to actions using look up tables and a state machine.

    New Pro-Lite remotes have a different keyboard layout, but old signs will honor the remotes -- the only catch is that the functionality is button position dependent, not label dependent. (Pressing Y on a new remote is like press ESC on an old one -- both are the lower left key.)

    While it's possible the remote may do something with other signs, I'm not aware of any that obey the remote.

Can I put a Pro-Lite in my car to send messages to other drivers?

    You'd need a cigeratte to 120v converter, a way to hook up a laptop, and you'd have to mount it. And, with all that trouble, the thing isn't visible at all in daylight. This is a project you'd want to avoid (however, if anyone does it, send me a photo).

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