watch futurama on an 8x8 pixel screen

Step 3 Circuit overview: led matrix

this particular led matrix has a green and a red led in each of the 64 positions. if you light them both at once you get a sort of yellowyorange color.

the only thing special about this matrix is that it is the one i had when i did this. a HUGE improvement in the final result would be to use an RGB led matrix and an additional shift register, but i don't have 64 RGB leds lying around.


moving on:


say the green shift register outputs some fancy pattern like 10110011, that would light up the matrix like this:

g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g
g x g g x x g g

(x means off)

as long as all of the ground pins were held low. same deal with the red register.

so to achieve animation, just hold all of the ground pins high except for the one that is on the line you want to draw to.

x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x
g x g g x x g g
x x x x x x x x
etc.