Basic Arduino VGA

           VGA which is short for Video Graphics Array is a video display protocol that is commonly found in the world of electronics. VGA uses a single 'pixel clock' and follows predetermined timing to output video data horizontally, line by line until the whole frame has been output and then it starts over again.
           In the past I have built many, many VGA based projects, but never with Arduino and so, in this article, we will use the Arduino UNO platform to simulate VGA signals using straight C code. This doesn't even come close to how video card designers do it, but it's a fun exercise in seeing how well we understand the timing of the Arduino and AVR microcontroller as well as the VGA protocol.

Basic Arduino VGA - Demonstration

Basic Arduino VGA - Project Setup

Purpose & Overview Of This Project
          The purpose of this project is to use an Arduino UNO to output a standard Red, Green and Blue color pattern on a VGA computer monitor. In addition to an Arduino UNO I will use the small VGA connector breakout board I made in the Masochist's Video Card project to make it easier to connect to the monitor.
          In order to output the Red, Green and Blue pattern to the VGA computer monitor, we have to agree on what timing resolution we'll be attempting to simulate. Since 800x600 uses nice round numbers, becaues of it's 40 MHz pixel clock, we'll shoot to simulate 800x600 resolution VGA and to output 200 lines of Red, 200 lines of Green and 200 lines of Blue. Since the Arduino UNO uses a 16 MHz clock, there is no way to have access to each pixel, thus we'll just focus on full-line lengths of color.