Using the Propeller to provide VGA output for the Arduino - has anyone done this???
ElectricAye
Posts: 4,561
Never thought I'd ever get sucked into the plaguey Arduino thing, but it's happened thanks to some school kids. Okay, so the Arduino looks good enough for some kids to play with but then when I considered using it for some of my own stuff, I immediately noticed it can't do VGA. At least, I don't think it can. And to my amazement, I can't find anything attractive (to me) that can easily link the Arduino to a VGA (except I've seen some people congratulate themselves by contorting a second Arduino for VGA, or some thing from the Czech Republic or the Gameduino, blah blah blah...).
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems to me that the Propeller could make an excellent interface for VGA, so is anybody working on that? A "shield" or whatever?
While I'm on a rant, it seems to me that the Propeller could be used to make all sorts of awesome shields for this feeble-duino (FeebduinoTM) culture. Since they don't seem to know how to do anything without interrupts or whatever, the parallel processing could help a lot. True?
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems to me that the Propeller could make an excellent interface for VGA, so is anybody working on that? A "shield" or whatever?
While I'm on a rant, it seems to me that the Propeller could be used to make all sorts of awesome shields for this feeble-duino (FeebduinoTM) culture. Since they don't seem to know how to do anything without interrupts or whatever, the parallel processing could help a lot. True?
Comments
>> Propeller could make an excellent interface for VGA
Would that be like a Serial to VGA interface?
Keyboard and VGA to serial. I don't know how the arduino works but it probably could devote two pins to serial via a shield and with a max232 convert to RS232 signals. Or, given it is TTL to TTL anyway, leave out the max232 on the pocketterm.
The pocketterm has been used by the retro community for a few years now to provide the display and keyboard for old computers. It has brought a few of those people into the propeller too, along the lines of "if the propeller can do VGA and keyboard, why not emulate the whole retrocomputer?".
Something similar could happen with the arduino. Build a cool propeller shield and people will start tinkering with the propeller part...
Jeff
That's what I was thinking.
But doing this sort of thing is way beyond my pay grade. So if you're looking for a new niche in which to flex your Propeller-based knowledge muscle, maybe this could be it. But I wouldn't try to make shields that were "all things to all people." Keep the shield functions specific, distinct, just TV and VGA, at least at the start.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see any/much competition in this area. You brainiacs should look into it. Pleeeeease?
Martin,
maybe you can team up with somebody who can handle that part of the job?
I have no idea what I'm talking about. All I know is that the Propeller can do VGA in its sleep, but even the Arduino mega boards apparently can not. And considering there are so many "artistes" drawn toward the Arduino, I'm guessing there would be a good market for a VGA shield of some sort. So, wag whatever you want, but I'd be shocked to discover nobody here has built such a device (yet).
Yes there is a market for VGA among Arduino users. The Prop gurus should have had VGA board 3 years ago for them. It's a perfect niche market. But certain hostile attitudes prevail among the guru set and one of which is seeing the Arduino as a piece of garbage instead seeing them as a potential market. Now the gameduino(FPGA based) and the upcoming EVE from FTDI is going to have that market segment to themselves.
It's a valid point, and yet, the process makes customers happy. At EFX-TEK, the biggest seller on the controls side is the Prop-1 (BS1-based controller). And the most popular "slave" devices for it are the Propeller-powered AP-16+ (WAV player) and HC-8+ (high-current DC IO extender).
For customers that want to give up the BS1, we have a whole section in our forum called "Hacking the HC-8+." Still, there is comfort in a simple programming language which is why EFX-TEK sells so many Prop-1 controllers and that the Arduino market -- with the help of good marketing, 3rd party documentation, and products -- has exploded.
It looks interesting, but couldn't something smaller and cheaper be made that provides only the basics for VGA? Or would this be a case of "Moving an inch costs the same as a mile"?
Personally, I like using the Propeller for my own projects, but I'm increasingly under pressure to help people with Arduinos. Arduinos seem to have a reputation even among 12-year olds, and no amount of my scoffing seems to affect their affections for it. But shields seem to be an open market. Frankly, I don't get the obsession with Arduino being considered "open source" whilst other things "are not". Very few people seem capable of actually hacking into the opensourciness of these things anyway. But, like the Harlem Shake, Arduinos seem to be a cultural phenomenon rather than a technical one. I'm just trying to figure out how best to straddle these different worlds right now.
Got one - soon as I saw it could do vga I thought - at last I can get rid of PC based boards and convert my qbasic stuff rquiring VGA etc etc.
Didn't happen
I guess there's Vga - and ther's Vga
I wanted bit mapped 640x480 colours etc to do lines circles bitmaps and so on - I didnt expect to have play with tiles....
I should have read more before buying.
Not that there is anything wrong with the Chameleon - what it does it does very well but... it wasn't what I expected.
The same with the RPi. Great graphics, good power, cheap - whats not to like? eerrr Linux thats what. - bloat, slow boot, Python (Yuk)
Never mind there's 'bare metal'
Nope - its all too complicated, with hidden graphics abilities, barely useable usb etc etc.
There are some clever guys chewing the bare metal midnight oil, and in time they'll no doubt get there.
But then there is the......
PROP 2
Whoopee
Hopefuly that will tick all MY boxes especially if it will run 'Basic' or we can cross compile Basic to run on prop - ah heaven.
(Tried the arduino - I must have twenty or more 'C' routines I've developed to interface all manner of displays, temp sensors, motors, etc etc and every time I start a new project I stare at the 'C' code and try to remember which bracket, whether to terminate with semi-colon, the difference between logical and bolean and, or sintax, the for loop sintax, and on and on - who designed this nightmare language??!!)
Ah sorry about that got on to a bit of hobby horse there.
I am waiting more eagerly for prop 2 than any other toy I can think of.
Dave
AndreL from Xgamestation also had a plan to make an Arduino shield with the Propeller. There is a thread about that in this forum, I just don't remember the name of the shield.
Also PropGFX was planned in form of an Arduino shield, but got not realized.
I think the Propeller has not enough RAM to make a competitiv shield, and there are a lot of even cheaper processors which can do VGA (PIC32 with 128kB RAM for example).
I would wait for the new Propeller 2 for such a shield. The possibilities are not comparable to what we have now on the Prop 1.
Andy
Edit: I see tritonium has the same idea
Great to see another British Propeller user.
You won't be disappointed with Prop 2, it's fantastic!
As for a board that will do what you want, watch this space ;-)
Was able to reuse the butchered proto board though.
I understand -- and get the same all the time. I don't have anything against the Arduino, but there is no way in Heaven or on Earth I could do what I do with lighting control using an Arduino. Yet, when someone sees my Propeller Platform stack, or a new LED controller stack (on a QuickStart) I did for a project (and feature in my May N&V column), the first words from their mouth are, "Hey, is that some kind of new Arduino?" For the moment, anyway, they are winning the marketing war.
BTW... my standard response is, "No, because 'Arduino' is Italian for 'junk!'" I have a laugh, tell them I'm kidding, then explain that Arduino -- as cute as it is -- does not have the muscle to handle my lighting control projects. Like this dude that has 93 RGB LEDs that are being updated every 3 milliseconds!
Those LEDs are in the sphere ("spell globe"). The controller is also running two lightning simulation cogs on six high-brightness LED channels. If this could be done with the Arduino, I'd love to see it. I'd also love to have the programmer work with my friend, Steve Wang, who has the idea that writing code is as easy as pushing around clay or paint. Using the Propeller (and a solid base of high-quality objects), that's nearly the case.
Getting back on topic, with so many Arduino users out there, it does make sense to give them Propeller-powered add-ons -- they want "easy" so make it easy.
Okay, so when will you start making these? And how much will you be selling them for?
Grab your favorite Propeller board with some prototyping space and a VGA connector, grab a 3.3v Arduino Nano, hook the two together (Serial?, I2C?, SPI), start working on a communication protocol/interface to let the Arduino describe the VGA graphics to be rendered by the Propeller....I think this last part could be the trickiest part. Coming up with a graphics API that the Arduino can use to describe and render graphics in a way that gives you "snappy" displays.
*snappy is a relative term to be defined by the user.
Ah, I didn't know he had gotten that far with it. Oh well...
Am I missing something...Andre got it to work...the chameleon board uses spi and does exactly what is being described in this post
An arduino shield using a propeller with all of its VIDEO / AUDIO should be marketable.
I should have 10,000 done tomorrow and they'll be $0.99 each.
Grab a propeller shield http://mghdesigns.com/propeller-asc-arduino-shield-compatible-1.html
and a VGA adapter http://mghdesigns.com/rgb-adapter.html
and if you want, you could add the keyboard/mouse adapter as well. I don't know which pins exactly the arduino uses for serial but I think they are described here http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/serial
In any case, it is just two pins in the end, and both are 3.3V logic so really it is just two arduino pins talking to two propeller pins. Maybe that is a small hardware hack?
There are other solutions too. Get a RS232 sheild http://www.cutedigi.com/arduino-shields/rs232-shield-for-arduino.html and a Pocketterm.
But I think the MGH shield offers more flexibility.
For the software, much of what you need is already in the obex. It is a matter of plugging it all together. So if you want text only, there is the VT100 VGA driver the pocketterm uses. Or for graphics, you can define some simple commands the arduino could send eg point(x,y,color) and circle(x,y,radius,color) and line(x1,y1,x2,y2).
Yes, and with exactly the parts you described. Somewhere on the forum is an example of an ASC plugged into an Arduino and counting the Arduino's heartbeat pulses on pin 13 and displaying the count on a monitor. You have to replace the headers on the ASC with stackable headers, and the stack gets pretty tall if you're using all three of those boards plus another Arduino shield. And using an ASC+ would be considerably more expensive than just a dedicated shield that does VGA out and nothing else.
At the very least, I may send off a prototype to OSH Park just for fun.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10593
I have one, have not played with it yet.
Also:
http://www.microvga.com/
Don't have one of those.