DE0 Nano VGA Output

           After my Masochist's Video Card project won 2nd place in the 7400 contest, I got to choose one of many prizes being given away by Dangerous Prototypes. The prize I chose was the DE0 Nano FPGA development board, which, it turns out, is a pretty beefy little thing, despite its tiny size.
           This article will look at how to build the same functionality that the Masochist's Video Card (built only with 7400 logic IC's) had, however this time we will use the DE0 Nano development board to complete the task, instead of wrist-breaking, pain-staking, masochist-loving wire-wrapping.


DE0 Nano VGA Output - Demonstration

DE0 Nano VGA - Thanks DangerousPrototypes!

Purpose & Overview of this project
           The goal for this project is exactly the same as the Masochist's Video Card. We want to be able to output 8 unique colors in a predefined sequence and at specific intervals. A breakout board for the VGA connector will be built since there is no VGA connector on the DE0 Nano board.
           To duplicate the VGA output seen in the Masochist's Video Card project on the DE0 Nano development board, we will first need to choose a development language: Verilog or VHDL and secondly we'll need to install the altera development studio (Quartus II) onto a computer. For no particularly good reason, let's use VHDL to reach the goals of this project.