the aj blog

An application I created to control a USB7 from a computer's serial port.

The USB7

Quite a while ago, I discovered the USB7. It wasn’t until recently I actually thought I would have a use for it if I were to buy it. I was working on a website project due at midnight on a particular day. I was thinking how awesome it would be if I could have a bunch of LED 7-segment displays counting down the days, then hours, then minutes, then seconds, and finally hundredths of seconds. That was when I remembered it, the USB7. The USB7 is a relatively inexpensive, usb-controlled kit with six 7-segment displays. I haven’t seen many popular projects for it, though, so what does one do when there’s a need for something but it doesn’t exist? You make it! I bought a kit online, so it’ll arrive sometime later.

The Programming

Turning to Visual Studio Express 2008 and my brain’s Visual Basic abilities, I created this super-simple application that continually updates the display with the time remaining, fitting as much data as possible. For example, it can show up to 99 days, 24 hours, and 60 minutes when there’s more than 24 hours left. When there’s less than that, but still more than an hour, it’ll display a 2-digit hour code, a 2-digit minute number, and a 2-digit second number. Once you’re down to minutes, it shows minutes, seconds, and hundredths of seconds. Down to seconds, it’ll drop the minutes. Finally, once the timer’s up, it plays a crazy alarm sound and flashes constant zeroes all across the display. Now just to wait until it arrives!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 8:17 pm and is filed under fun, interesting, programming, random, software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.