berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (07/22/88)
You should be able to do what you want with a simple UART. Basically
you need to convert your rs232 output from the computer to TTL with
an RS232 receiver chip (National LM1489, TI 75189), use that as the
input to a UART (TR1602, COM2502, etc.), and use the 8-bit output
from the UART to drive your LED matrix decoder. The UART will also
require a baud rate generator or fixed-rate clock at 16x the speed of
your serial data. You might reduce chip count by using a UART with
baud rate generator built-in (like an 8250), but you want a fairly
dumb chip that can be programmed by sense switches and doesn't
require a bus interface, so a straight UART might be the best choice.
Mike Berger
Department of Statistics
Science, Technology, and Society
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
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