If you need more blinkenlights than Pin 13 can provide on its own, it’s time to build an LED matrix to make the most of the few pins that you have! In this video, we’ll take a look at a simple transistor-based LED matrix and how it can be driven by an Arduino Nano. It’s all part of Project Hawthorne for element14 Presents!
In the late 1970s-early 1980s, we didn’t have fancy touchscreens or dot matrices with stereo sound, we had an LED matrix and a handful of 7-series logic chips AND THAT WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR US! In this video, we’ll teardown the iconic Coleco Electronic Quarterback handheld game and see just exactly what makes it tick. Later, as part of Project Hawthorne on element14 Presents, we’ll build a new LED handheld game from scratch and attempt to repair this one, so stay tuned!