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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Siicon chip HTML display unit
| Author | Message | ||||
| zeitfest Guru  Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 482 |
The new issue of SC lists a HTML serial keyboard/display. Anyone know what the resolution is ? There is a description of resolutions/options but they seem to be much less than a typical HTML display |
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phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2135 |
For HTML I guess you could add a PicoW ;-) Full HD HDMI is beyond a Pico, so it's standard definition via DVI-D through a HDMI socket. It's effectively a 3 Pico version of Geoff's ASCII Terminal using a USB keyboard. |
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| zeitfest Guru Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 482 |
Doh ! !!! i meant HDMI ..  |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2350 |
absolutely brilliant!!  "Boot-to-BASIC computers like the Micromite and PicoMite are an easy way to learn about programming, but they can still leave you tied to a fully-fledged computer as a way to communicate with them. Alternatives like the VGA PicoMite can stand alone but require legacy gear such as a VGA monitor. With this project, you no longer need a PS/2 keyboard or VGA monitor". this is exactly what i have been saying for ages, that VGA and PS/2 are older interfaces that were (sadly) abandoned ages ago and will continue to fade away over the next few years until such monitors and keyboards become completely unobtainable. "[The project] uses a [...] Digital Visual Interface (DVI) set of supported resolutions that are supposed to work with all HDMI-compatible displays [...] the Terminal has worked successfully with all HDMI-equipped displays we have tried. We considered calling it “I can’t believe it’s not HDMI!”" again, as i have said before, DVI over HDMI is a perfectly valid way forward and is supported by the majority of modern monitors. i'm guessing the firmware is a variation of the one here: https://github.com/dhansel/VersaTerm although a few other folks seem to have similar projects, with most based on the same core library. the features listed are quite interesting: the mention of working with "other USB-serial capable boards" makes me wonder if it can also act as a USB host and so connect to a non-VGA, non-USB picomite via the picomite's (CDC) USB port, as can No0ne's HID2CDC: https://github.com/No0ne/hid2cdc if so, this may get us back on track for a dual-pico boot-to-basic computer - unfortunately, when the picomite USB came along and usurped No0ne's efforts, he pretty much walked away. cheers, rob :-) addendum: just noticed the text confirming my suspicion: "We have also implemented a USB host interface to communicate with the virtual USB-serial device on boards like the ... PicoMite". Edited 2024-03-01 23:19 by robert.rozee |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 9115 |
3 picos to replace a cheap and readily available VGA to HDMI converter and a display that won't show graphics - hmmmmmm |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2350 |
Peter - in good part, it is called 'proof of concept', combining all the functions into a single pico would be relatively easy. and with plenty of spare onboard RAM, graphics (as you already know) comes for free. cheers, rob :-) |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3801 |
rob, Is the DVI (over HDMI) code simple, doesn't require any extra RAM, PIO, timings, etc, i.e. would just drop in instead of the current VGA code? I'm guessing anything but!! John |
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stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2128 |
This an interesting thread. my 5 cents. "nobody" uses basic anymore. my 9 year old grandson uses html using an on line designer. smarter than me |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2350 |
it would be a 'starting from scratch' exercise, but quite a few other folks have already gone through the process - for example see: https://github.com/dhansel/VersaTerm the question then becomes, could mmbasic (the non-VGA, non-USB variant) be 'dropped in' to VersaTerm once the VT100 core had been stripped out? based upon Geoff's original design goals, i believe the answer is yes. however, the concept i was interested in pursuing with No0ne was of splitting the tasks across two picos: one running mmbasic, the other as a co-processor running video, keyboard, mouse, SD card, sound, RTC, etc. and the two then linked via a their USB ports through a USB2.0 hub chip. the co-processing pico would have most of its 264k of RAM available as a video buffer, and the mmbasic pico would be running Geoff and Peter's code 99.9% unaltered. the mmbasic pico would also have most (if not all) GPIO pins free for the user's BASIC program to make use of. cheers, rob :-) |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 6786 |
If you are happy sending a modern equivalent of the ANSI display codes to another Pico to get a display then fine, but the whole point of having a frame buffer display handled by a second CPU on the same internal bus so that DMA can be used is that you can work on the frame buffer and have virtually instantaneous update of the display. Terminal systems (like those using ANSI codes) are very limited in both speed and flexibility. You can build a HDMI display that uses ANSI codes relatively easily. Use a Raspberry Pi Zero - don't bother with a Pico it's too much like hard work and is doomed to failure. However, you still have a serial display. Even if you use SPI it's still serial and it still doesn't support dynamic graphics of any complexity. If this stuff was easy you wouldn't be able to move for good implementations by now. VGA and PS2 (or USB) isn't ideal, it's true, but it's practical on a device that's supposed to be an embedded controller. You can have USB and HDMI on a Raspberry Pi, but you may need to learn Python to make the most of it. Remember, you *can't* have a decent HDMI display with a 264K frame buffer - and you can't have all that. If I worked it out right you need 115200 bytes for a mono 1280x720 display. in 8 colours that's 345600 bytes. When you only have 264000 bytes ... Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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