Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
A demo of the Keywest 840's crawl paired with a Sage ENDEC. I've shown footage of both in action before, however not one all by itself. This was captured by sending an alert as 'Crawl Only', which means the Sage will only interact with the CG and not send any alert audio.
To clear up any confusion, this is not exactly the same character generator used in such classic recordings as WBNX's EAS test from 2001 (youtu.be/6i1s_A902AQ). The fonts presented here look very different than that of the other recordings of it in action online.
It seems that at some point, likely after Keywest Technology's acquisition of Video Data Systems, the fonts on these systems were replaced from fonts resembling Geneva, Clarendon, Futura, (and whichever the "fixed pitch font" was based on) to those resembling Swiss (Helvetica), Cooper, Markerfelt, and MisterEarl, seen here.
Either as a result of the changes done to this particular revision, this CG cannot fully replicate the full-screen EAS slides some others may be familiar with: youtu.be/N9GtgtvfAsQ. It likely was possible on previous versions of the 840 under Video Data Systems, however I have yet to come across one in the wild.
2026 EDIT: Unlike what was said about full screen slides, it seems to be perfectly fine in Mode 2, where it uses a pre-existing page in memory for the background. I have uploaded a recording from back in 2018 (when I received the unit) where I did just that: youtu.be/_ipzU8yNjQ4
Recordings of this can be seen in action if you know where to look. The ones I've been able to find were WAWV's 2011 National EAS Test coverage (youtu.be/82VyP6OEd9o) and a talk from DEFCON '16 about the Emergency Alert System (youtu.be/sdmkTkWB40Q&t=2473).
The last recording I've ever done with this was in late-2018, however fairly recently I have been able to get it in a functional state again.
A demo of the Keywest 840's crawl paired with a Sage ENDEC. I've shown footage of both in action before, however not one all by itself. This was captured by sending an alert as 'Crawl Only', which means the Sage will only interact with the CG and not send any alert audio.
To clear up any confusion, this is not exactly the same character generator used in such classic recordings as WBNX's EAS test from 2001 (youtu.be/6i1s_A902AQ). The fonts presented here look very different than that of the other recordings of it in action online.
It seems that at some point, likely after Keywest Technology's acquisition of Video Data Systems, the fonts on these systems were replaced from fonts resembling Geneva, Clarendon, Futura, (and whichever the "fixed pitch font" was based on) to those resembling Swiss (Helvetica), Cooper, Markerfelt, and MisterEarl, seen here.
Either as a result of the changes done to this particular revision, this CG cannot fully replicate the full-screen EAS slides some others may be familiar with: youtu.be/N9GtgtvfAsQ. It likely was possible on previous versions of the 840 under Video Data Systems, however I have yet to come across one in the wild.
2026 EDIT: Unlike what was said about full screen slides, it seems to be perfectly fine in Mode 2, where it uses a pre-existing page in memory for the background. I have uploaded a recording from back in 2018 (when I received the unit) where I did just that: youtu.be/_ipzU8yNjQ4
Recordings of this can be seen in action if you know where to look. The ones I've been able to find were WAWV's 2011 National EAS Test coverage (youtu.be/82VyP6OEd9o) and a talk from DEFCON '16 about the Emergency Alert System (youtu.be/sdmkTkWB40Q&t=2473).
The last recording I've ever done with this was in late-2018, however fairly recently I have been able to get it in a functional state again.
