[HN Gopher] Reverse-Engineering a Scoreboard Display
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Reverse-Engineering a Scoreboard Display
Author : ryukoposting
Score : 90 points
Date : 2024-01-31 14:26 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hardfault.life)
(TXT) w3m dump (hardfault.life)
| ben7799 wrote:
| If you've ever had the pleasure of running a Daktronics
| scoreboard... Holy cow is there some bad UI there!
|
| Looks like a 1970s military interface. With cards that you
| overlay on the controller for different sports, but the schools,
| etc.. lose the cards.
|
| So many operations require strange & confusing sequences of
| button presses.
|
| At least with basketball professional referees often understand
| the UI well and can help out in a pinch, but these things are
| really really hard for volunteers to figure out.
|
| There are some newer ones that are self contained where the
| computer & scoreboard are integrated and sit on the desk with the
| scorers and timekeeper. Those have the lovely design that the
| horn/buzzer is right in the unit and it blows everyone's ears out
| when it goes off.
| ulf-77723 wrote:
| Not sure if there are a lot of different producers in europe,
| but I know that it's not much easier to use the boards in
| german gyms. Have seen a couple of them so far. The interesting
| thing happening here is that the boards stay in place but they
| get new interfaces to use them with smartphone apps.
| roamerz wrote:
| For the last few years they have had a bluetooth controller and
| a companion phone app. The other beauty of these is they have a
| data out port that is able stream the data for other
| applications such as overlaying the score on a live broadcast.
| I know because I retrofitted a sports park a while back with
| steaming audio/video/scoreboard data. The people at Daktronics
| were super easy to work with and what a super fun project.
| toast0 wrote:
| I only interact with these at ice rinks; they've all got
| laminated cheat sheets pasted to to score table; and the
| control box is fixed in place. not like in a high school gym
| where the control box has to come and go.
|
| Our home rink was built in ~2000 and had a "high tech" system
| with a palm pilot driving the scoreboard. It got replaced by a
| computer running a java webserver and internet explorer maybe a
| decade ago. A lot more friendly for a novice, but the daktronic
| wired remote switch to start and stop the clock is a lot nicer
| than having to hit a small click target area. And I could see a
| skilled operator getting to the point where they could touch
| type the control box; gotta have eyes on the screen for the web
| based system (no hotkeys; or at least they're not known by the
| team parents)
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| If you're gonna go screen and keyboard might as well go the
| CLI route. So people could touch type.
|
| You can still have the web based display and click targets,
| and have them send the commands to an in-browser
| terminal/command log. This allows people to learn the CLI
| while exploring the GUI.
| owlninja wrote:
| I have been volun-told to keep score at a few youth baseball
| games on these. The first time I definitely fumbled around
| keeping the count straight - which was always quickly pointed
| out to me from the stands :)
| tyingq wrote:
| If this is something you want to play with, but these high end
| Daktronics units are too expensive, search AliExpress for "gas
| station price display".
|
| Here's, for example, a 12 inch 7-segment high single digit for
| ~$38, including shipping:
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802774192337.html
|
| You can use their driver boards, or just scale up a cheap
| 7-segment driver with a few extra parts to drive the 12v it wants
| for each segment.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| If you ever see a car hit a light pole with a crosswalk sign,
| you can also ask the city if you can take it home; they have
| very similar stuff inside, including a double seven-digit
| display.
|
| It's not really "programmable", though - the only thing you can
| set is the duration of the walk/stop cycle, and how long the
| warning countdown lasts, and iirc it's powered by some pretty
| high voltages. But nothing is stopping you from connecting to
| the LEDs directly, via some pins that you can use a ribbon
| cable to connect to.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Interesting I've recently noticed these popping up _all over_
| at those independent gas stations that are somehow
| substantially cheaper than national chains. This type of
| display must have just become easily available or made 10x
| cheaper or something.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| I love these stories of "reverse engineering [insert name here]
| display," there's so many of them.
| hinkley wrote:
| I wonder what fraction of Arduino/RPi displays are purchased
| with plans to interface with all of these proprietary video
| displays.
| TheWizardOfUgh wrote:
| I love seeing stuff like this. It almost makes me want to try to
| reverse engineer the one at my uni. It's just sitting unused. It
| would be cool to try to reverse engineer it and get it working
| again.
|
| The again the one I want to try actually displays video? So it's
| probably way harder. I wish I could find more documentation about
| how daktronics systems work.
| MeteorMarc wrote:
| But what was the purpose of the ninth input pin mentioned?
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| The bane of these systems are these wirings. Somehow we have to
| nuke the wires. It would help tremendously if it's governed by
| software.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| >Please excuse the horrendous SMD soldering work. I haven't done
| any SMD soldering in quite a while, and this was my first time
| ever trying to hand-solder teeny-tiny 0603 components. It won't
| be my last time, either - I ordered 50 of them, and I only needed
| 10 to assemble this board.
|
| You should touch up the joints with external flux.
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