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Digital in-club information system

Since 2000 the Drum'n'Bass club "Depot" in Tübingen features a cool information display system, which I programmed for the ATARI ST platform in GFA-Basic 3.0.

You can watch the prices for drinks in pixely letters showing up with a blinking cursor on three large TV screens, as if you would be connecting to a BBS via a slow modem. TVs and ATARIs have been put into steel boxes soldered by Jürgen Eberhardt, one of the dudes that also runs the club.

Inside the Depot it looks like this.
The monitor above the bar.
One of the screens showing prices for juices
Averna 5.00 Deutschmarks
A security advice concering too loud music
"DEPOT Hardcore Style" in ASCII graphics
Have you played Atari today?™
The third screen to the right of the bar
Developed and compiled with GFA-Basic 3.0

The software called Ticker is written in GFA-Basic. The most challenging task was to put the Euro symbol into the system font and to make everything start automatically when power is switched on (Zero Administration!!).

The displayed texts and colors (eight classic combinations are built in) are controlled with a text file. You may want to read the manual (German language).

There is an article on the Depot's 4th aniversary (German language).

MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE

2012-09-14

The club was closed in 2007.

I thought I was extra-clever at the time documenting all this with just the Gameboy Camera … now I am craving some color photos or even a crappy MPEG1 video.