Very nice work. I've recently been "playing" with some PIC24 chips and I'm now inspired to try something like this as a project on one of those. From a brief look at what you've done I see no reason in principle why it wouldn't work.
@Yarral1 Thank you! One of the first things that got me thinking about software-generated video signals was Rickard Gunée's PIC game system, which manages to run Pong and Tetris on a PIC16F84 - so I'm sure you can do something suitably impressive with a PIC24. :-) Jakub Trznadel's website may also be of interest, as he managed to generate colour PAL signals with an AVR. Good luck!
Sorry to deceive you - there is no BASIC interpreter. The control codes are modelled after those used on the BBC Micro, so I started the demo with something that looked like BBC BASIC. In retrospect, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
Source code for the demo and the library can be found on the website.
What has PAL done to hurt you? ;-) Living in the UK it made sense to stick with the TV format we use over here, though I daresay the code could be modified to use NTSC instead.
Projects and libraries written for NTSC seem rare in the US because there's not a lot of people, from what I've seen while looking for examples, who use video as a project variable. You folks over the pond seem to use it more than we do for whatever reason. Though most of the projects I've seen can be, and only be, converted through hardware not software. It's just a pain in the neck when I want to test a project and have to convert everything, basically redoing everything to get it to work.
I've had a quick look to see what NTSC support would entail - am I right in thinking that it uses -0.4V for sync, 0.075V for black and 1V for white? I can see that that would require a more complex DAC as well as software modifications (part of the appeal of PAL may be its relative simplicity). Generating RGB video with NTSC or PAL timings should be relatively simple (see the AVGA project) though if you wanted composite output you'd need an RGB to composite converter.
Very nice work. I've recently been "playing" with some PIC24 chips and I'm now inspired to try something like this as a project on one of those. From a brief look at what you've done I see no reason in principle why it wouldn't work.
Yarral1 1 year ago
@Yarral1 Thank you! One of the first things that got me thinking about software-generated video signals was Rickard Gunée's PIC game system, which manages to run Pong and Tetris on a PIC16F84 - so I'm sure you can do something suitably impressive with a PIC24. :-) Jakub Trznadel's website may also be of interest, as he managed to generate colour PAL signals with an AVR. Good luck!
benryves 1 year ago
The work you made with the tetris and snake game is amazing , congrats.
jeroavf 2 years ago
Thank you! :-)
benryves 2 years ago
Where can find i more information about this AVR Basic interpreter shown in the initial screen ?
jeroavf 2 years ago
Sorry to deceive you - there is no BASIC interpreter. The control codes are modelled after those used on the BBC Micro, so I started the demo with something that looked like BBC BASIC. In retrospect, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
Source code for the demo and the library can be found on the website.
benryves 2 years ago
DAMN YOU PAl!!!!
k313k 2 years ago
What has PAL done to hurt you? ;-) Living in the UK it made sense to stick with the TV format we use over here, though I daresay the code could be modified to use NTSC instead.
benryves 2 years ago
Projects and libraries written for NTSC seem rare in the US because there's not a lot of people, from what I've seen while looking for examples, who use video as a project variable. You folks over the pond seem to use it more than we do for whatever reason. Though most of the projects I've seen can be, and only be, converted through hardware not software. It's just a pain in the neck when I want to test a project and have to convert everything, basically redoing everything to get it to work.
k313k 2 years ago
I've had a quick look to see what NTSC support would entail - am I right in thinking that it uses -0.4V for sync, 0.075V for black and 1V for white? I can see that that would require a more complex DAC as well as software modifications (part of the appeal of PAL may be its relative simplicity). Generating RGB video with NTSC or PAL timings should be relatively simple (see the AVGA project) though if you wanted composite output you'd need an RGB to composite converter.
benryves 2 years ago