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When a customer requested a project that involved a LED display I figured I might as well have some fun with it. So I programmed it with the classic coin-up game Frogger.
Frogger is an old arcade game where you need to manoeuvre a frog across a river full of logs, crocodiles and lots of other dangers. The frog leaps from log to log, trying to get across the river safely - avoiding drowning and being eaten by crocodiles.
While the game of Frogger is quite fun, the actual LED display suffered from the fact that it could not
display real graphics, only characters from the OEM charset - limiting the sprites to scruffy looking
glyphs and even then only 256 to choose from. Naturally, the display only had one colour: red.
Still the game has all the well-known features, such as the
snapping and diving crocs, bonus flies and the increasing time preassure.
The game was thrown together in an hour or two, so don't expect wonders. The connection between
the PC and the LED display is a simple TCP/IP connection. The PC (client) simply pushes the raw screen
contents to the device in a single upload stream. The game can be played without the LED display connection
since everything is simulated on the Windows client first. Use the cursor keys to control the frog.
So is it of any use? Well, I did consider the possibility to put this code onto the customer's system. Then port the client code to my Pocket PC (PDA), and with a little luck it should be possible to stand outside the shop, connect to the main server through a WiFi connection and take over the display, playing Frogger while people walk by, marvelling at what's going on...
Source Code Dependencies
Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0Microsoft WTL 7.5 Library
See Also
Writing a Windows SideShow deviceDownload Files
 | Source Code and executable (122 Kb) |
