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[on:]

Hi,

  is it possible to connect Arduino to some VGA card or interface such as http://www.microvga.com/ ? Has anyone tried this? According to their spec it should be possible to do it via serial port.

[Reply #1 on:]

It should be possible - it seems to use rs232 type serial at TTL levels which the AVR chip can do, ither with the UAT, or one of the soft-serial libraries.

According to the website, it isn't available yet, though.

Mike

[Reply #2 on:]

I like the sound of it and the price is a lot lower than I would have expected.

I'd just like to see something graphical.  Even without a render engine at least a frame buffer with basic "setpixel" or "drawcircle" type commands would be nice.  (Though a render engine would be better).

[Reply #3 on:]

check out littlescales site, he is the only person i know of to have got the arduino running with the 4D systems uVGA boards, i'm awaiting delivery of one for myself!

http://little-scale.blogspot.com/2008/02/impossible-buildings-ableton-live.html

[Reply #4 on:]

Quote from website:

"MicroVGA is low-cost Microcontroller to VGA interface providing 80x25 16 color text mode "

so as i read it, it's a text only interface, there's no graphics mode at all.

[Reply #5 on:]

Maybe this is more like what you are after?

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8541

[Reply #6 on:]

I will reply to myself :-), I've got it working with PIC18 microcontroller, but it should work with Arduino too. The only issue was with CTS/RTS handshaking. For more info see documentation http://www.microvga.com/docs. Advantage of using PIC18 was that free "turbo-vision-like" user interface library is available (http://www.microvga.com/conio-lib).

[Reply #7 on:]

Hi guys, I found it very easy to connect my 4D systems board to the arduino, it was just connecting the 5V, the ground and the TX pins of the arduino to the appropriate pins on the uVGA. I have to be honest and say that I actually completely ignored the handshake aspect of it - but I did not run into any issues.

[Reply #8 on:]

Any documentation of pictures of this?

[Reply #9 on:]

Hi

The MicroVGA works great with the Arduino.  It also provides PS2 keyboard input.

In stock here @ http://FunGizmos.com

[Reply #10 on:]

Why not use the Batsocks TellyMate shield?

http://www.batsocks.co.uk/products/Shields/TellyMate%20Shield.htm

[Reply #11 on:]

I don't think the Batsocks shield will drive a VGA monitor, if that is what the OP wants to do. But it works great if you have a video input on your display device.