Das Blinkenlights
So, in the IEEE room at the U of MN, which is one of the main hangouts for EEs at the U, they've got a collection of debris from former senior design projects. They clean up a bit more than I like, but wone thing I think they'll keep until someone uses them are the 5 8x16 LED boards that are wired up in a neat little grid. There was some talk of using them to create an animated sign, but few people associated with that project understood electrical scanning, so nothing much came out of it.
I have decided that I'm going to build a programmable sign using that and 74LSXX series logic. There will have to be some CMOS for the USB programming interface, and probably a 555 or 3, but mostly TTL, and probably a diode-grid rom for storing a default display when it's powered on.
It will be wire-wrapped, it will be insane, and that's the point.