Let's build a circuit that displays an image on a VGA monitor [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7rce6IQDWs

by marbu • 7 years ago

255 43 7 years ago

exar0815• 7 years 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

jaak• 7 years ago

Not 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• 7 years ago

Also, his video makes it seem rather easy aswell. The scanline circuitry is quite simple.

mrob3• 7 years 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.

userbinator• 7 years ago

Generating 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/

dotancohen• 7 years ago

Even 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.

Lowkeyloki• 7 years ago

Depending on the definition of the word "image" in this context, I'd love to see people play the electronics component version of code golf to see what the fewest number of basic components would be required to put an "image" on a screen. No SOACs allowed.

forgotmypw3• 7 years ago

Let's just cut out the middle and build the minimum required board to project an image onto a retina. Or a signal into optic nerve ))

makapuf• 7 years ago

Id try with a led illuminating the back of a pcb ? Still, nice project. The code golf fewest components to display a face is tempting ...

jacquesm• 7 years ago

Or a signal into optic nerve ))

That you can do with a single LED.

Cheyana• 7 years ago

Nah, let’s cut that out too and go even further: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/blindness-cure-br...

rasz• 7 years ago

You can get this to display "image" by just adding one wire between clock source and one/all of VGA analog inputs. It will be a random checkerboard, but still an image.

benj111• 7 years ago

Isn't 'random checkerboard' an oxymoron?

Or do you mean the top left square is randomly black/white?

TheRealPomax• 7 years ago

Why isn't this titled "let's build a video card [youtube]"?

mepian• 7 years ago

Because it's not a video card yet, it's a circuit that syncs the monitor.

glouwbug• 7 years ago

Why not with an AVR? https://youtu.be/sNCqrylNY-0

tyingq3• 7 years ago

Somewhat related, here's a video card for a MAC SE done with a BeagleBone and it's microcontroller like PRU secondary processors: https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video

atum473• 7 years ago

I've been following ben eater for about 2 years now. I've learned so much from his well explained well illustrated videos. Right now it's kinda hard for me to get my hands on every component he uses, but soon I'll take a shot at building a 8 bit computer as well. I'll may start with a full adder built with transistors only.

dreamcompiler3• 7 years ago

That's gonna take a lot of transistors. I suggest doing it with gates instead. Using transistors is like programming a computer with machine language; using gates is more like a good macro assembler.

Building yourself one NAND gate with transistors and resistors would be a valuable learning experience, but building 100 of them won't teach you anything new.

atum473• 7 years ago

I see, I just think it will be cool to have one on my desk. Take a look a this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xISG4nGTQYE) I got the idea from it.

lnsru• 7 years ago

Hi, I don’t know your background, but why are you not building your 8 bit computer in FPGA? There are many nice cheap boards like MAX1000 from Arrow or Lattice. It’s really cool learning project! Transistor only design will have many problems: transistors are bigger than you think and small ones in VML0806 package are almost impossible to solder by hand.

atum473• 7 years ago

I'm a software engineer undergrad, I do most high level stuff. I took digital circuits on college, cause I like electronics. One day watching videos on YouTube I saw ben eater project and loved it. I thinker with Arduino and Raspberry pi, but never built anything cool like that. I just want to give it a try, I guess

rkagerer2• 7 years ago

Am I the only one frustrated with how difficult YouTube makes it to find Part 2? Am I missing something obvious?

xorfish• 7 years ago

Part 2 isn't out yet

rkagerer2• 7 years ago

Thanks. It took way too long for me to figure that out :-).

peter_d_sherman• 7 years ago

Designing a VGA card precursor on breadboards -- Brilliant!

Should be the very first video any would-be VGA card designer views... (I want to design one in the future...)

Let's build a circuit that displays an image on a VGA monitor [video]

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