8 ms·
I can only recommend the "Veronica"-Series of Quinn Dunki, where she builds a complete graphics card for her 8-Bit-computer, as well as the computer itself htt
by exar0815 7y ago
I can only recommend the "Veronica"-Series of Quinn Dunki, where she builds a complete graphics card for her 8-Bit-computer, as well as the computer itself
http://quinndunki.com/blondihacks/?page_id=1761 http://quinndunki.com/blondihacks/?page_id=1761
- jaak 7y agoNot to take away from Quinn Dunki's accomplishments, one big difference is the Veronica used an ATmega 324PA - basically an 8 bit 20 MIPS RISC CPU. Generating a VGA signal is trivial for this powerful chip. Entire retro game consoles have been built with similar ATmega chips alone Ben Eater is building a VGA card from discrete components, a somewhat more difficult task. The first part covers building the H/V timing sync circuit (no programmable clock source here!). It's worth taking a look if you're into this kind of thing.
- kazen44 7y agoAlso, his video makes it seem rather easy aswell. The scanline circuitry is quite simple.
- mrob 7y ago>Ben Eater is building a VGA card from discrete components From 7400 series devices, which are very simple integrated circuits by modern standards, but still integrated circuits.
- tyingq 7y ago"From 7400 series devices, which are very simple integrated circuits by modern standards" So it's clear, a 74xx is just a bunch of NAND gates. Nothing at all higher level than that.
- yitchelle 7y agoAmong my group of SW engineering circle, we had a running joke that software is a series of 1s and 0s, it is the sequence that is important.
- mrob 7y agoAlthough NAND gates are universal gates (any combinatorial boolean logic function can be built from nothing but NAND gates), in practice it's usually more space efficient to use a mixture of different gates.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoAnd usually more power-efficient and faster in execution speed.
- metaphor 7y agoExcept they're not. He's using 74161 counters; that's a MSI device, not just primitive combinatorial logic and flip flops.
- tyingq 7y agoAhh, good catch. I was distracted with the 7400 description. Though a 4 bit counter isn't terribly high level either.
- pas 7y agoCounters are a series of flip-flops anyway, right? And a few latches for reset and load. https://easyeda.com/normal/74161X2-4qkCwOIZh.png https://easyeda.com/normal/74161X2-4qkCwOIZh.png
- userbinator 7y agoGenerating a VGA signal is trivial for this powerful chip. Entire retro game consoles have been built with similar ATmega chips alone For comparison, a slightly less powerful microcontroller can do this: https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/craft/ https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/craft/
- dotancohen 7y agoEven more amazing, after watching Ben's video, I was thinking too myself "That wasn't so hard". Other than a few Arduino projects I've never used an IC, but I was able to follow along with Ben completely. In fact, I think that a tutorial dedicated just to explain the VGA standard, the same length as Ben's tutorial, would have been less clear and informative.