Success!
I finally got the software that I wrote to talk to a message board and display what I wanted it to display. There is still a lot to fix, and a whole lot more to actually implement, but things are on their way. I've finally got something tangible (or at least visible, since it's only a pattern of light emitted by the sign) to show for what I've been doing all these months. Well, aside from the Arabic solution -- but that's not yet finished either. Still, we did sell some message boards based on it, so that's still an achievement, I think.