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Product:
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MTB Exclusive: VL System L.I.S 2 Blue Eye |
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Price:
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$92 (CAN) / $70 (U.S)
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Supplied By:
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VL System
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Author:
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DrMobius
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Date:
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February 16th, 2004
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Rating:
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Click image for larger view
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L.I.S Control Center
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After connecting the power, fans, and USB cable you can power on the system. Upon powering up, the L.I.S. 2
displays a screen showing it is receiving power. The installation of the hardware controllers varies
depending on your operating system, but when the OS loads it will have detected the new hardware and
will launch a wizard. The drivers can be found on the CD included with the L.I.S. 2. Both a USB to
serial converter and a USB driver will be installed. I use Windows XP, when the wizard came up I told
it to search the CD for drivers and it installed both without any further intervention. Users with many
peripherals will want to check the port settings and make sure your USB to parallel converter is set on
a vacant COM port. For my particular configuration, it installed and loaded by default on COM3, which
was vacant, so no further intervention was required. If you experience any problems installing the
hardware, VL System has some downloadable instructions to changing the COM ports and installing the
drivers on different operating systems available through .PDF download off their website. Once the
hardware and software install is completed, the L.I.S. Control Center will appear as well as an icon in
the system tray.
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Click image for larger view
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L.I.S Indicator Auto Update
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In our previous VL System LCD display review by Hi-TEK,
the software included on the CD was already out dated and he had to download the updated software. The
software included with the L.I.S. 2 has been through many revisions including a software auto updater.
To access the auto update, as well as change the skin of the control center, edit the L.I.S. 2’s preferences,
or quickly change display modes; right click on the icon in the system tray. The auto update feature
works using your existing Internet connection, simply chose auto update from the menu and it will check
VL System’s update servers to see if you are up to date. If an update is needed, the text will turn red
and tell you what updates you need; to download them click the auto update button.
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Click image for larger view
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Click image for larger view
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To customize the display settings for the Blue Eye, right click on the icon in the system tray and choose
preferences. The first screen is the module setup screen. Here it lists the possible size selections for
the characters and available controller choices, as well as options for choosing what COM port the L.I.S. 2
is operating off from. Also in the module setup screen are customizable user messages, one for starting
and one for ending. This is helpful for testing the communication with the actual unit. For a test, I
changed my starting message to "FEED ME A STRAY CAT" which is a quote from the movie American Psycho. The
starting and ending messages are displayed through the auto user selection by adding it to the list of
things to display. At the bottom of this screen is also a place where you can type in the location of a
new skin for the control center.
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