Smooth scrolling IS possible...

[Janke]

Thinking a bit "outside the box" I figured out a way of getting really smooth scrolling on up to 8 MAX7219 modules.

The trick is this:

The modules are connected 90° rotated, i.e. with input at bottom, not left, and the modules are NOT connected in series, i.e. DOUT to DIN, instead, all DIN and CLK lines are connected in PARALLEL !

Then, each LOAD line (sometimes labeled CS) is connected to a different pin on the EzSBC1.

This means you can individually access every single column of 8 pixels in the entire display, and don't have to use NOP commands to skip modules.

Thus, you load each column with 16 bits, i.e. column address + data (two SHIFTOUTs), and then toggle the particular module's LOAD line with a quick PULSOUT command. The other modules will ignore the serial data sent simultaneously to all modules with DIN and CLK. Next, you advance one column, send address+data etc. After 8 columns, you toggle the next module's LOAD line, and so on.

IMPORTANT: Delete all unnecessary spaces and linefeeds from the code, and use single-letter variable names for a substantial speed benefit!

An additional benefit is that you can choose to scroll only part of the display, without having to update the rest.

You get a decent speed with 6 modules, 8 modules is a bit slow.

Refreshing 6 modules (8x48 pixels) takes about 50 ms, i.e. almost 20 refreshes/sec. The whole display scrolls right to left in 2.5 seconds.

Using several rows of modules, you need to have separate CLK lines to each row. With 4 or fewer modules, you actually need to insert a WAIT after each refresh!

Here's the core code:

REPEAT
FOR q=1 TO 8
t=o+q*8
p=29-q
FOR n=1 TO 8
SHIFTOUT (29,30,0,n)
SHIFTOUT (29,30,0,b(n+t))
PULSOUT p,1,1
NEXT n
NEXT q
o=o+1
UNTIL o>m

where:
o is the scrolling offset
29,30 are the data and clock pins respectively
p is the load pin for each module (21 to 28)
t is a temporary variable (moving some calculation outside the inner loop)
b(n+t) points to a byte in the pixel data matrix (previously assembled from an input string)
The last line stops the scrolling, m is calculated from the pixel data length.

Important: After outputting a static line, be sure to clock out a NOP command to all the line's modules, otherwise the last column of each module will change when other modules are accessed!

[Janke]

The above info has been updated, and the link to the rather poor video removed.