5 ms·

Let's add this one (warning large images): http://debuginnovations.com/TTL_Terminal/home.html http://debuginnovations.com/TTL_Terminal/home.html Last year I tr

Let's add this one (warning large images): http://debuginnovations.com/TTL_Terminal/home.html http://debuginnovations.com/TTL_Terminal/home.html Last year I tried to get a VGA card for Arduino, like Gameduino. Sadly they are all sold out. The closest thing that I have found was https://www.tindie.com/products/petrohi/geoffs-vt100-terminal-kit/ https://www.tindie.com/products/petrohi/geoffs-vt100-termina... which is based on this project https://geoffg.net/terminal.html https://geoffg.net/terminal.html (already mentioned by other comments). This is good for text UI but not so good for games. I was thinking about using real 8-bit ISA graphic card, but it turned out they are now considered collector items and have very high prices (at least where I live). In the end the only sensible choice was to switch to ESP32, there is a module with PS/2 and VGA connectors and audio output I used it to run PCEmulator via FabGL library (https://blog.marcinchwedczuk.pl/fabgl-pcemulator-on-ttgo-vga32-14 https://blog.marcinchwedczuk.pl/fabgl-pcemulator-on-ttgo-vga...), but it is also suitable for programming simple games. Even better you can just put it in a small box with power socket and voila you have a working portable console for 8bit games. The only problem that I had with this last approach is that you need to do some magic to connect NES controllers to it. I haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking about repurposing PS/2 IO ports.

guerrilla 5y ago
Oh thanks for that first one! That's so neat and such a pretty board too.
lixtra 5y ago
> In the end the only sensible choice was to switch to ESP32 I understand and appreciate the fun to get something working on minimal hardware. But unless you are going to mass produce a stronger dev platform gets my project going much faster. For example, I have ESP-WROOM-32 project that is ultimately aimed for an ESP-01. In any respect, this last step is only justified price wise, if I were to build dozens of devices. I do it once for intellectual curiosity but after that I don’t plan to spend much time on saving 5 bucks in hardware. For games, I would definitely start with a pi zero at least.
boondaburrah 5y ago
As far as the gameduino goes, I believe there was one iteration (perhaps the first) based on the FTDI FT800 chip. the FT810 series can do up to 800x600, but they output as parallel digital data so you gotta feed the R,G,B bytes into a resistor ladder dac or something. I finally got one but I haven't managed to make it work yet. The other Gameduinos were FPGA based.

guerrilla 5y ago

Oh thanks for that first one! That's so neat and such a pretty board too.

lixtra 5y ago

> In the end the only sensible choice was to switch to ESP32 I understand and appreciate the fun to get something working on minimal hardware. But unless you are going to mass produce a stronger dev platform gets my project going much faster. For example, I have ESP-WROOM-32 project that is ultimately aimed for an ESP-01. In any respect, this last step is only justified price wise, if I were to build dozens of devices. I do it once for intellectual curiosity but after that I don’t plan to spend much time on saving 5 bucks in hardware. For games, I would definitely start with a pi zero at least.

boondaburrah 5y ago

As far as the gameduino goes, I believe there was one iteration (perhaps the first) based on the FTDI FT800 chip. the FT810 series can do up to 800x600, but they output as parallel digital data so you gotta feed the R,G,B bytes into a resistor ladder dac or something. I finally got one but I haven't managed to make it work yet. The other Gameduinos were FPGA based.