Question about a really old piece of hardware
 

Ok, i got this old peice of hardware here off my old Socket 7 pc.
http://terick0505.home.mchsi.com/led1.jpg
http://terick0505.home.mchsi.com/led2.jpg
http://terick0505.home.mchsi.com/led3.jpg
http://terick0505.home.mchsi.com/led4.jpg

I relize the pics suck..

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows of a place where there might be instructions on how to use it. I did some googling, but I found nothing.

I searched for many variants of "three-character LED display" and 188 LED display and other things of that sort.

Thx

Oh man...

I couldn't read the instructions that came with the cases let alone be able to tell you where to start :)

First task would be to find the V+, which a safe start would be 5v, and see what it is setup as currently. Cause those jumpers dictate what LEDs light up on the display. After awhile you'll figure it out.

I had my CPU display saying OC back when I had a case with one. Made another system display HAL.

5v is what almost all of those things use, you'll need to find the power and ground pins first. Once you've done that you'll need to do a lot of experimentation to get the display to show the thing you want it to

As a tip, try using a voltmeter. I've tried reconfiguring one of those before, but ended up shorting a trace, which burned.

If you can look at the traces, you should be able to figure out the proper pinout. Each segment is labeled with the letters A through G.

It does indeed run off of a 5 volt source. You might try an alternate supply of a couple of AA batteries, just to get things figured out.

I wish the ones I had were labeled...

Was there any sticker or anything indicating proper positions? The case I had had a little sticker stuck on the inside.

You probably did check, but doesn't hurt to make sure.

Sticker would be nice...mine came with folded up instructions which I eitehr loss or eventually became ripped into several pieces.

Well, the only way out is to test each pin. Use a 3V (2 x AA) source, and a resistor (about 120 Ohms), or 5V source with 220 Ohm.

Get to it!

The way the jumpers are lined up top and bottom like that is reminicent of the older style of Common Anode/Cathode LED numerical displays. I remember configuring one of these on a system about 6 years ago, and (If I remember correctly) each of the jumpers represents one 'section' of one number. Ya know, each digit is 7 LED's, etc, etc. There are no obvious components mounted on the board, so my guess is that it's designed for either an 'on mobo' chip to drive it, or (more likely if memory serves) it just takes a basic DC input, and feeds it to all the jumpers, the closed jumpers using the voltage to illuminate the LED's.