Hi,
I taking an rss feed from the internet, breaking it down into individual characters and sending it from processing to the arduino to be displayed on an led matrix. I have got it working ok, its just that the entire feed is sent to the led matrix in a split second. How is this slowed down, is it using a buffer? Here is th code I am curently using for processing and arduino.

PROCESSING:


import processing.serial.*;
Serial port;
String buffer = ""; // Accumulates characters coming from Arduino
int twit = 0;

void setup(){
 size(500,150);
 println(Serial.list());
 String arduinoPort = Serial.list()[1];
 port = new Serial(this, arduinoPort, 9600); // connect to Arduino
//download cable com5 - 1
//data cable com8 - 4
}

void draw(){
int startingPoint = 0;
Twitter twitter;
int myFriendsCount;
User[] friends;
String username = "********";
String password = "*********";
twitter = new Twitter(username,password);
String myTimeline;
int tlLength; // string length of the timeline passed from twitter
PFont font;



 // Setup font
 font = loadFont("CourierNew36.vlw");
 textFont(font, 18);

try
{
java.util.List statuses = twitter.getUserTimeline();
 //List statuses = twitter.getUserTimeline();
   
         Status status = (Status)statuses.get(0);
         println(status.getUser().getName() + ":" + status.getText());
                         
         size (500,150);
         background (0);
         text((status.getText()), 20, 25);
         //tlLength = status.getText().length();
        //println (tlLength);
        myTimeline = new String(status.getText());
       // println(myTimeline);
        // send to pic LED display
        charToSerial(myTimeline);
}
catch( TwitterException e)
{
// catch error here
}

//println("more?");
//exit();
delay(10000);
loop();

//println("more again");
}

void charToSerial(String str1)
{
 int strLen;
 strLen = str1.length();
 for (int i = 0; i < strLen; i++)
 {
   println(str1.charAt(i));
  port.write(str1.charAt(i)); // send data to Arduino




 if (port.available() > 0) { // check if there is data waiting
   int inByte = port.read(); // read one byte
   if (inByte != 10) { // if byte is not newline
     buffer = buffer + char(inByte); // just add it to the buffer
   }
   else {

     if (buffer.length() > 1) {


       buffer = buffer.substring(0,buffer.length() -1);
delay (1000);
              twit = int(buffer);

       buffer = "";

       port.clear();
     }

 }
 }
 }
}



ARDUINO:

//I'll save you raking through all my sprites and just give you the imprtant bit.....


void setup() {
 // initialize serial communication:
 Serial.begin(9600);

}

void loop() {
 // see if there's incoming serial data:
 if (Serial.available() > 0) {
   // read the oldest byte in the serial buffer:
   incomingByte = Serial.read();
      if (incomingByte == 'a'){
        while(pointer<6){
          buffer[pointer]= Serial.read();
          delay (500);
          pointer++;
        }}


Does anyone hve any suggestions?