Building dynamic LED signage

[mr101]

hi
i am a super beginner. so forgive the stupid questions.
i want to build LED signage that interfaces with the computer, ie. it need to read in dynamic graphical data, and would always be connected.
It seems like the B48CDM, from Nexus, is a good place to start. but now i'm stuck.
there's a BIFQ2 decoder, but this seems only for alpha numeric.
1. what other things would i need - a microprocessor
2. some kind of serial interface
3. what languages could i programme in, specifically on a mac.
any help would be appreciated.
thanks

 

[techie]

See the following

 

[mr101]

yea thanks i did look at that. let me add some details/rephrase:

I've looked at Basic Stamp and am very close to purchasing one. I've also looked at, and quite like, though they are pricey, the B64CDM range from Nexus
**broken link removed**
which have chips built into them.

so my question is this:
can i use java to interact directly with the LED matrix if i have control over the serial port. or do i need to use something else, like assembler or if i use Basic Stamp, then their Basic language.

And if there is a way to use java, do i still need to address each pixel/LED seperately, or is there a way of animating them by some sort of screendump. I've been experimenting with taking a series of gifs, then converting them to a binary series of 1s and 0s. but surely there must be a more efficient way to animate.

do i rather build my own boards, using a LED 8x8 matrix and max7219 chips, which seems pretty scary.

or how would i go about this? what's the simplest and most cost-effective solution. ideally i would want my LED matrixes (i need to build 5) to be 64x32.

any help would be greatly appreciated
thanx



Btw. if you hadn't guessed yet my electronics knowledge is pretty shoddy to say the least