A Look Back On The VGA Test Box
It Works!! The VGA Test Box fulfills the basic requirements for displaying text & objects on a CRT monitor but there is ample room for improvement. Here are a few examples of why this project is good & where it could be improved.
Resolution Improvement
Screen resolution could be improved greatly with a faster clock speed. The Horizontal Sync timing is the major drawback of this project. The PIC can go up to 40 MHz. This has the potential to change resolution from 26x480 to 260x480. Still not super great but still impressive for a device that is so small.
Different Colors
In order to display various intensities of color either a very fast digital to analog voltage converter (DAC) is required or you could use a voltage divider with resistors off of various other ports on the PIC.
Further Research
A few other types of further places this project could be taken is to create a small video game or to improve the video output so that it isn't just static but so that it can change dynamically for smooth transitions. This is difficult to do since its all done in assembly & there is little extra time to execute instructions between screen refreshes, however it can be done.
Conclusion
So once again, It works! The VGA Test Box does what we wanted, so we've reached our goal for the project. This project could definetly continue further to create some cool stuff, but we'll stop here at the beginning point and let you move on with this information. Good luck to all your other Pyros out there!
It Works!! The VGA Test Box fulfills the basic requirements for displaying text & objects on a CRT monitor but there is ample room for improvement. Here are a few examples of why this project is good & where it could be improved.
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Resolution Improvement
Screen resolution could be improved greatly with a faster clock speed. The Horizontal Sync timing is the major drawback of this project. The PIC can go up to 40 MHz. This has the potential to change resolution from 26x480 to 260x480. Still not super great but still impressive for a device that is so small.
Different Colors
In order to display various intensities of color either a very fast digital to analog voltage converter (DAC) is required or you could use a voltage divider with resistors off of various other ports on the PIC.
Further Research
A few other types of further places this project could be taken is to create a small video game or to improve the video output so that it isn't just static but so that it can change dynamically for smooth transitions. This is difficult to do since its all done in assembly & there is little extra time to execute instructions between screen refreshes, however it can be done.
Conclusion
So once again, It works! The VGA Test Box does what we wanted, so we've reached our goal for the project. This project could definetly continue further to create some cool stuff, but we'll stop here at the beginning point and let you move on with this information. Good luck to all your other Pyros out there!