Thanks  robtillaart, similar question, how do I get intermittent single bytes into this as opposed to the predetermined string?

That also looks very interesting,

So if I get a signal from my decoder,say "int door" which I convert from bcd to dec, how do I imput it to the routine

fifo.enqueue = door;   ?

and to get the first queued number out

resultant = fifo.dequeue;    ???

I also have just one number coming in every minute , or ten minutes, or perhaps two different ones in 2 seconds,

It must play that first numbers audio, and wait for the next, or take from the queue if something came in while it was playing..............

The other problem might be that I want to add this code to the micro that does the lookup and refresh of the video shift registers every 20 uS, so I think I should perhaps do this with an interrupt  routine so that it doesn't run every loop?  just when a new command comes in.........?

Or I can do it on the other chip that does the SD card reader and DA with the waveHC library, but I did get the idea that it was also pushed for time ???

OK great,  thanks guys, I will give it a go

If I set my data ( 1-9 ) as val,  then run that sketch, I get out the first value of val?  or must I call enqueue and dequeue?
I am not sure of the usage...

Thanks Korman, and Paul,

I will see if I can get that going, I only have values of 1 - 9 as the data, so I wont need long.

I will make up a small sample sketch and see if I can run it..

Thanks Paul,       Whoops,,  I have obviously bitten off more than I can chew here, despite my wonderful 3 stars, I am still a newbie, and nowhere near on that page yet .

I was so chuffed when I synced the overlay to the vga, but thats more in my realm of experience.
My software is very crude , and I am moving one step at a time through the Arduino experience. and having progressed past the flashing LED, your post has bought me crashing back to earth !   ;D

Perhaps I will stick 8 shift registers in parallel and clock it through  

[outdoor]

I seem to have hit a wall trying to understand some of the queuing examples a search threw up,

I have a decoder giving a 1 - 9 integer output called outdoor.

I want to announce this number from my waveHC SD card reader , and  display this number on the HD vga overlay screen for the duration of the announcement (wave.isplaying)

The audio and video sections are working fine, but I just have to control them from a simple queueing routine.

If I have 6 queueing positions Q1 to Q6, would something like below work?

Code:

 if (Q1 ==0) {
  Q1 = outdoor;     } // put number into first empty Q position
  else
  if (Q2 ==0) {
    Q2 = outdoor;         }
  else
    if (Q3 ==0) {
      Q3 = outdoor ;            }
    else
      if (Q4 ==0) {
        Q4 = outdoor ;                }
      else
        if (Q5 ==0) {
          Q5 = outdoor ;                    }
        else
          if (Q6 ==0) {
            Q6 = outdoor;                         }

  exit=Q1;  // number to display/announce

  playshow ()  // routineto display and announce the exit number "exit"

  int i = digitalRead ( playingPin ); // from wave.isplaying   from the sd card
  if (i== LOW )  // when its finished first announcement
  {
  Q1 = 0;
  }

  if (Q1 == 0)

  {
  Q1 = Q2;
  Q2=Q3;
  Q3=Q4;
  Q4=Q5;
  Q5=Q6;
  }  // shift all down the queue

Those boxes look really space age, we have a company called Plastics for Africa here that has all sorts of boxes, I will have a look with a new eye when I get a chance.
I was wondering how you balance the current through the LEDs in the same segment if they are in parallel, but I think nowadays the Vf is pretty matched in a batch when you buy them ,and I can't see much difference in your photos.
Your sport certainly seems to lend itself to electronics ( right back to the days of the Russian guy disqualified at the Olympics :-)
It must have been hard for a judge to see who hit who first before electronics!
My wife plays lawn bowls, not much scope ( or lightning speed ) there..

The TPIC6B595 is cheap, although it has no current limiting, but I find a resistor to each segment makes the track layout so much easier, its like a free jumper ( I waste hours trying to layout my boards without jumpers just due to pride, I should just let the autorouter do its untidy best )

There's none so blind as they that do not Google !

Perhaps I should look into a fencing scoreboard when I catch up !

I have never tried LEDs in parallel, does each have its own resistor? I don't see any on the pics.
The enclosures look very interesting , what are they sold as ?

I have a day job as well, and thats where I am finishing off a vga overlay unit that also has an announcer with the SD card, which was my third arduino project, I now have to get both cards to queue in case several buttons are pressed while the first is playing ...  keeps me off the streets !

That's an interesting project, I don't know if anyone fences here in South Africa, perhaps I can put some micro-switches in the Zulu fighting sticks...
Sounds quite a complicated system, I definitely wouldn't try all that with cmos !

I have been doing mainly cricket, hockey, basketball and soccer/rugby boards, www.scorebauds.co.za and had my little niche of 7 segment numerical only displays, but it was when demand made it that I had to have team names as well that I looked at micros and found Arduino.
I am still using the Holtek ht12 remote chip for the encoding/decoding, and can handle up to 32 digits with one chip, but now I want to do some real comms.

I like the idea of using the Tone example for the sounder, I have had hassles with hooters and piezo things, so perhaps I will have a small 20 watt amp and a horn speaker. It would be nice to record the traditional horn sound at the end of a rugby match here, and save it as a wav file perhaps?

Good luck with your fencing device, I would like to see the photos when its done.

Ok  I will try it and see , but I need to choose a chip I can get regularly, as I manufacture scoreboards, so I have to consider the price....

Wow, what are you paying for the MAX7221 there btw ?  ( the TPICs I bought 100 of for that price )
It sounds like the way to go when I eventually drag myself into the 21st century  
I also saw that some of the chips available test for open and short circuit LEDs, and you can even fine tune the brightness to match LED batches - wonderful stuff.
Samples would be nice if I knew I could get a better price if I switched to the chips, but its a bit of a commitment having boards made etc.
( I must fit my dremel to my first Arduino project ( a 2 axis machine ) and make my own prototype boards )

Look at that, I am nesting brackets in paragraphs since I found it works for  switch / case functions

One reason I want to use 4 of the TPIC6B595s is that I get them for less than 50 cents US, whereas the MAX7221 is over $12 there , so probably over $20 by the time I got it  here.
 I am also using 4 chips because I want to avoid multiplexing the displays, ( I latch them )
This is a hangover from my existing scoreboards, where I get incredible range on the Radiometrix 433 Mhz link.
The link is as near to perfect as you can get, line of sight, across a field, to a receiver with an antenna mounted high, and nowhere near any interference or buildings.
I did experiment with adding a multiplexed text display and it severely reduced the range that the remote would work, so its no sweat latching the displays.
There are some practical reasons too, but I might try it again when I get all my current projects wrapped up.

I have read that some of the better mux chips round off the switched waveforms to the LEDs to reduce the interference, but at the moment I have a simplex link with no error checking ( apart from repeating the data three times and compare it ) and it is working very well.
Thanks for the code though, the data link will be my next challenge in modernising my systems