Here is a comprehensive document of all the JVF 2010-A info I could find online. I used all the sources that im sure many of you have found and tried to sum them up so Most of the credit goes to them. Im just trying to simplify getting familiar with the sign and starting up.

First you need :

JVF 2010-A Sign (must have a floppy drive on the left side)

Windows PC

Floppy Drive (and you thought they were outdated)

Old ps1 keyboard (it has the Large Connector on the cable)

2010A.zip get from website)

The keyboard is absolutely necessary if you want to be able to edit your sign without a computer.

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The 2010-A is a 128 x 48 "pixel" led display that runs a "slide show" program consisting of individual slide files. Apparently, there is an earlier version called simply the 2010 that connects to a computer with a 25-pin cable (that I assume is an old fashion Serial Com Port interface), but as I have not been introduced to one of these, I can't comment any more on it.

The 2010-A displays these slides in a basic IBM CGA compatible structure where 1 byte (8 bits) = 4 pixels with these possible values:

00 Black (LED OFF)

01 Cyan (LED 1/3 ON, also called "half intensity")

10 Magenta (LED 2/3 ON)

11 White (LED FULL intensity or "bright")

(Magenta value is not visibly that much different than White, so is rarely used)

The general hardware structure of the 2010-A is (again, speculation) based on an IBM XT compatible motherboard with a floppy drive controller and BIOS set for booting from this floppy. It (based on my own experiment with DOS MEM) has 2MB of RAM. The unit I work with also has a 5-pin DIN connector which I'm guessing is either a keyboard jack or a modified serial connector, but who cares? The actual drive circuits for the led's are unknown to me, but a fellow curiosity seeker speculates that there is a programmable DMA that scans a chunk of ram to raster to the led matrix. For me, as long as the software works, who cares?

When power is applied and a short delay expires, the 2010-A attempts a normal boot load from the floppy. This results in DOS (yes, that is correct - DOS Ver 5.0 or 6.22) being loaded. The CONFIG.SYS file then loads HIMEM.SYS (which allows access to the entire 2MB of ram) followed by RAMDRIVE.SYS (which creates a "fake" Hard Drive C: in memory of about 800KB). The AUTOEXEC.BAT file then proceeds to copy the display program, the display program "control" batch file (.SHW) and the various "slides" (.DSN and .BLK) to this ramdrive. Control then switches to the ramdrive and the display program and the show begins. The disk can be removed and the show can run as long as power remains present.

Source: talon

****DO NOT RUN JVFF.EXE or AUTOEXEC.BAT ****

I am having problems running jvff.exe while in windows. When I double click jvff.exe, my computer restarts and tries to boot as if it was the sign. Then to make matters worse it will sometimes overwrite my autoexec.bat and config.sys files in my c:\ directory. Not good. Not good at all. Also I think my ramdrive file is messed so I took that part out of the autoexec.bat file. So I don’t think the files are loading to the virtual c: drive but it doesn’t matter cause after the show plays once through all the data is in the ram anyways. This may be a problem if you start creating very large shows but I have yet to have a problem with shows consisting of 40 dsn files

Now then. To get started extract the 2010a.zip file to a new directory on your desktop. (directory is just a folder also called dir for short.)

Put a floppy disk in you computer and run 2010a.exe

Put into Sign and turn the sign on and wait 30 sec or so.

It should have loaded up a circle that appears to spin choppy like but then, after loading, should run smoothly.

The 3 main files types we will deal with:

.DSN Files are the image/graphic files

.BLK Files are the "animate-able" graphic files (I’ll get into this more)

.SHW Files are the script files

DSN- These are 128x48 bitmap consisting of 4 different possible colors

0 = black

1 = 1/3 power/intensity

2 = 2/3 power/intensity

3 = full power

We can create these on our computer using utility.exe or on the sign

BLK - These are 128x48 bitmap consisting of 4 different possible colors

0 = black

1 = 1/3 power/intensity

2 = 2/3 power/intensity

3 = full power

These are Difficult to create as of now. And the ones we can make get stretched so they aren’t that great. Must be made on the PC

SHW – The main script or Program. This is loaded at boot up and is editable on the pc or sign alike.

Color 2/3 power isn’t visibly different then full power so it is useless. Which makes it basically a 3 color sign. Black, light red, dark red. But you’ll be surprised how much the light red helps make your dsn files more detailed.

Always put your dsn files into the dsn dir and the same for your blk files. But the show files stay in the A:\ directory.

Example of locations

A:\dsn\example.dsn

A:\blk\example.blk

A:\example.shw

Create a new bitmap image in MS Paint.

Change attributes to 128 wide x 48 tall

Make it all black

Draw with any tool

1 pixel in paint = 1 LED (A LED is 1 "light bulb" on the sign the sign has 6144 LEDs)

Use color black to draw off dot

Use color white to draw full power dot

Use color light red to draw 1/3 power dot

Save as….

Enter short file name. not more then like 8 letters

And change save as type to 16 color bitmap

Save in the same directory as the utility.exe

Open utility.exe and press option 4

Enter the filename and the extension

Example: Pic1.bmp

Youll see a preview of it then it will create a file with the same name as the bmp file but will now have the .dsn extension.

Drag this dsn file into the a:\dsn folder

Your image is now ready to be put in a show

This part is not final yet. Im still trying to find a better way to do this part. As of now im using paintshop pro to create a 64x64 pcx image in 256 colors mode. Then save that pic to the same dir as the pcx2blk.exe program. Then, with the folder that has the 2 files in it in front of all other windows go to start. Go to run and type pcx2blk.exe example.pcx

After the pcx has been created

Open utility.exe and select the option to view a blk file

Type example.blk to preview it

Copy the blk file and put it in the A:\blk folder

The 2010a has a built in operating system. Which is accessible if you have a keyboard. Plug in keyboard and press Escape (ESC) ONE TIME and wait 2-10 seconds. If you press esc when at the main screen it basically unloads jvff.exe and you’ll need to turn off the sign then back on, very annoying. To create a dsn on the sign go to edit image then type a short name and it will say new file. Draw something then press esc. It’ll ask you to return save or quit. if you press quit it wont save the file. The sign is not y2k compliant so set the year to 1985 or something, cause I dunno what will happen if the clock tries to go to 2000. maybe the bios will Write and error to itself and break the sign? Only the years 1980 to 1999 work.

You can also edit your shw files from the os.