2 Questions about OI

[theCowboyKnight]

I have a couple of questions about the operator interface that I cant seem to find the answer to, and this seems to be a great place to get some help. SO:

1 - We are trying to use the LED output bits provided by the control ports - that is fine and dandy. The one thing that we can seem to find out is the power outputs from the ports (specifically the LED pins on ports 1 & 3). Does anyone have any info about the supplied voltage?

also 2- We are looking to use a set of matrixorbital 4x20 VFD displays to relay information back to our pilots (basically a custom version of the dashboard). One option is to program something like a Basic stamp to take output bits from the LEDs and convert them into pre-programed statements to appear on the VFDs. The other is to use the Mini controller to directly output realtime data to the displays by porting it to the OI (Im still not sure how it works, but my programming team seems to like the idea). So basically my question is 1. can we even use this concept (refering to rules and such) and 2. Which system would work better.

Thanks for your help.