Homemade VGA Adapter Using Atmega644

Introduction

Motivation

The goal of our project is to create a VGA video adapter. This “homemade video card” should be able to connect to any monitor that subscribes to VGA standards with a standard connector and display the desired material reliably. The challenges involved here stem from adapting a general use microprocessor that we are familiar with to a specific task that it may (or may not) be suited to. The project required the researching and understanding the VGA standard of how a picture is displayed on a computer screen, identifying the shortcomings or advantages of the MEGA644 processor in accomplishing this, development and fabrication of the necessary hardware to interface with the screen, and in converting images to a format that can be stored in memory and displayed on the microprocessor.
Homemade VGA Adapter Using Atmega644
We divided our goals for this project into a progression of three different tasks, each building off of the previous one.

  • First, we wanted to display color bars on the screen, by means of direct output from the microcontroller to an analog circuit that transformed pin outs to VGA output.
  • Next, we wanted to display color bars or a static image to the screen, by means of triggering RGB outputs from static random-access memory (SRAM).
  • Finally, we wanted to render an animation or video to the screen, by means of triggering outputs from SRAM but also writing to SRAM live data simultaneously.

Our ultimate goal, originally, was to stream a live CCD camera to VGA output using our device. However, upon delivery of the CCD camera and studying its output, we observed very quickly that its transmitted signals were not suitable to be converted to VGA in the scope of the remaining time in our 5-week project. This will be described at greater length after a brief background about the standards and parameters relating to VGA.
While this is a “solved problem” by industry standards, it poses a number of interesting challenges to the inquiring student.

  • The clock speed of the processor versus the needed clock speed of the VGA standard (overclocking).
  • The onboard memory the MEGA644 has versus the needed memory (external memory).
  • The exact timing needed for the VGA output standard (cycle accuracy).
  • Fabrication of appropriate hardware to address shortcomings of the processor for the above tasks or in simply building hardware filters/interfaces for the VGA standard.

Research

Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video standard devised by IBM for their PS/2 computers in 1987. The widespread adoption has since made this the baseline for all displays and is still the baseline for operation today. The standard specifies a set of screen resolutions, operating modes, and minimum hardware requirements.
There are five signals in the VGA connection that we are most interested in: two for timing conditioning and three for colorization.
For conditioning, the vertical sync pulse is a digital active low signal whose negative edge triggers the monitor moving focus to the topmost line, leftmost pixel of the screen to display RGB; the horizontal sync pulse is a digital active low signal whose negative edge triggers the monitor focus to the leftmost pixel of the next line down from where current focus is. When not in the presence of sync pulses, the monitor moves focus to the pixel to the right of existing focus, one pixel per clock cycle on a 25.175 MHz clock.
The other three signals with which we are concerned are for Red, Blue, and Green, which are each analog signals sent to the monitor. Thus, since we store values (like the colors in an image) as digital elements in the MCU, part of the hardware for such a device would require a Digital-to-Analog conversion.
Given these five signals, we can divide each line into four distinct sections. During the first section (Vertical and Horizontal Syncs), the necessary syncs are driven low and RGB must be set to digital low, as well, for the monitor to observe the syncs correctly. To skip ahead to the third section (RGB), this is when the syncs are kept high and the RGB signals are of variable output depending on screen colorization. The two other sections (the second: Back Porch, and the fourth: Front Porch) are spare cycles that keep the syncs high and RGB low, with the direction (Back, Front) referring to the location of the porch relative to nearest sync section of relative magnitude.
During observation, we noticed that the porches can be used for additional computation and preparation time for the next line to be printed; however, the syncs need not be as long as shown in the diagrams above. Rather, if one wanted to, they could trigger RGB immediately following the positive edge of the horizontal sync and drive it low immediately preceding the negative edge of the horizontal sync—so as to maximize the length of color printed to the screen.

Reconsideration of Project Scope

Now, with the insight about how VGA signals and timing works, we return to the original proposal of CCD camera live display to VGA. Upon learning more about a sample WiseCom miniature camera and its limited accompanying documentation, we learned that output is a single signal consisting of sync pulses for each line and rapidly changing RGB values in between the sync pulses at a notably higher voltage. The signal appeared to be compliant with NTSC standards, which has a period of 50 uS between sync pulses (versus 31.78 uS for our VGA output).
Because of this time difference, even with implementation of a buffer and additional digital circuitry, our VGA screen could change at most once every two samples, as a result of the timing difference, making the change from NTSC to VGA functionally insignificant in terms of quality. Moreover, having to isolate the sync pulse and decode RGB values from a single signal would add to the complexity of this goal. Though possible to convert NTSC to VGA through precise edge-based interrupts, timing, sampling, and buffering, that goal seemed incredibly unlikely and also risky for the amount of time that had been remaining, and would likely have entailed in entire project in and of itself.
To replace the live camera feed as our ultimate goal for VGA display, we needed to choose another application, and, at that, one that could exhibit real time memory loading and animation during porch time. An added goal was to include user-interactivity, which would, in turn, require the use of more ports than we have availability, thus needing a design solution to address the limited number of ports.
We decided to implement a ‘Paint’-like application, to accompany the already existing Image Mode functionality, where the user loads a static images to memory. In Paint Mode, the device would take advantage of the image the user loaded previously, storing this as the background. Using a joystick, the user would then move a colored cursor around the screen, painting their choice of 16 4-bit colors superimposed on the background.

In addition to allowing for user interactivity, more ports than available, and real-time updated animation functionalities, Paint Mode would require the use of multiple memory blocks, having the image stored more than once, because we need to preserve the color of the background image that is obscured by the cursor to be replaced once the cursor moves away. This added design capability would not be necessary if there did not exist a “clear” paint color that the user can select to move around the screen without painting on top of the background, thus affording an addition functionality.
Aside from working to develop a VGA driver on an MCU that is not intended to have the memory or speed to drive such a device, the most significant takeaways from this project are the understanding of VGA as a precision data vehicle and the achievement of creating a standalone and self-sufficient application to fulfill these goals. As mentioned in the initial project description, our goals, including VGA output and, now, creating Paint, are not broaching on uncharted technological territory; however, implementing these functionalities in something as low-level as assembly has the potential to offer greater optimization capabilities (and as such, reward and satisfaction at the end of the day).

High-Level Design

System Organization

In order to meet the requirements of our final design—including display of both painted and loaded data images, we needed to implement three different programs, each executed for a different purpose.
Firstly, to display an image to the screen, we need to have a data point for each pixel in the image to display. We used a storage scheme of dividing our 8-bits of color data into 2-bit pairs for the colors Red, Green, Blue, and also 2-bits for shading, representing different brightness levels. For this, we created a Java application that samples, analyzes, and averages RGB data from a user-provided image for processing it into our 8-bit styled RGBS format and exported as a file.
The contents of this file can then be loaded into program memory of a second application which writes the data to SRAM, saving the pixel colors to memory for later use. After loading completes, this application displays the loaded image to the VGA monitor in 8-bit color. To display an image to the monitor at high enough of a resolution, the pixel data for the image will exceed the storage capacity of the MCU. Thus, a series of files are created for each image that is processed, which can be loaded into SRAM over the course of numerous program executions. This procedure represents Image Mode.
A separate application affords the user the functionality of the Paint Mode application described above.
On the hardware side, the necessary connections need to be made between the MCU and memory. Furthermore, MCU and SRAM output are digital, but VGA color input is analog, requiring a Digital to Analog Converter circuit. Finally, a Tri-state stands between memory and the VGA so as prevent memory’s RGBS output pins to be sending to the monitor when our sync pulses are low, so as to not interfere with pixel alignment and ruin the integrity of the signal and image.
Other important considerations and high-level design tradeoffs regarding port assignments, timing, and implementation are described in more detail below.

Port Assignments

Both Image Mode and Paint Mode will be displaying data from SRAM to the screen, meaning that they will each require 18 address bits as outputs (to point to a location in SRAM). Overall, SRAM has 19 address bits, but we need not use all of them. The distribution of these bits is described in more detail under the Memory Loading heading of the Software section.
Both modes also share a need to have an enable bit for the Tri-state, a Vertical sync pulse to signal the monitor for a new screen, a Horizontal sync pulse to signal the monitor for a new line, an SRAM write bit, and an SRAM output or read bit—all of which are active low.
With 23 bits occupied in each of our modes, we are left with nine to use.
In the Image Mode, it is critical that we load 8-bits of color into SRAM, allowing for 256 different colors to be sent to VGA. This leaves only one vacant port which will go unused.
In the Paint Mode, the user needs to be able to interact with the application via joystick and button, thus requiring 5 inputs and leaving 4 remaining. In order for the cursor in paint to move about the screen (and thus be written and re-written to SRAM), we need output ports from the MCU. However, in order to restore the portion of the image obscured by the cursor once it has moved, we also need to have input ports to read from SRAM.
This point represents an integral design decision in our development process where more bit functions exist than there are ports. To resolve this, we first considered the different applications of the ports in demand. Realizing that we do not have space for 8 inputs and 8 outputs for SRAM I/O RGBS data, we decided that—solely for the paint application—colorization will be reduced to 4-bits instead of 8-bits. While the Image Mode will preserve 256 colors, the paint modes pigment selections will be limited to just 16.
After this decision, we have need for 4 SRAM inputs, 4 SRAM outputs, and 5 joystick inputs (for four directions and a button), but only nine pins exist to fit these. Seeing that there are nine inputs, including two groups of four (for joystick directions and SRAM I/O), we decided to multiplex these together. Using the horizontal sync (which goes low for ~70 clock cycles per line displayed to the screen) as a multiplexing control bit, we can read the joystick inputs while the horizontal sync is low, and otherwise read the outputs of SRAM on those pins. This allows the joystick button and the outputs to write to SRAM to receive their own (un-shared or un-multiplexed) pins, unperturbed.

The final choice came to distribution of the pin assignments. The first 16 bits of SRAM address are kept together in PORTA and PORTC, so as to be easily incremented. We then wanted to put the five input pins alongside other bits that could be changed in isolation without altering them all at once (since we should not be reassigning port values for the input bits, so as to enable pull-up resistors and potentially alter our circuit conditions; meanwhile, other operations to affect a cluster of bits in a single port but not others will be more costly in terms of time, which is disadvantageous to us in this project).
Homemade VGA Adapter Using Atmega644
Thus, the input pins were matched alongside the Horizontal and Vertical sync in addition to the Tri-state output enable—each of which is assigned as an individual bit and independently of the others—on PORTD. It was beneficial to leave the four related data RGBS outputs to SRAM I/O on another port that could be assigned as a cluster (along with the remaining two address bits, and SRAM’s write- and output-enable bits) since we note that, when looking at the library of available assembly instructions, a cycle cost of 1 is assessed for reassigning a port’s entire 8-bit value simultaneously, but a cost of 2 is assessed to alter each individual bit in isolation, making it a poor decision to have put these four data bits that are assigned to all at once alongside the input values, and instead put them on PORTB.

Parts List:

For more detail: Homemade VGA Adapter Using Atmega644


About The Author

Ibrar Ayyub

I am an experienced technical writer holding a Master's degree in computer science from BZU Multan, Pakistan University. With a background spanning various industries, particularly in home automation and engineering, I have honed my skills in crafting clear and concise content. Proficient in leveraging infographics and diagrams, I strive to simplify complex concepts for readers. My strength lies in thorough research and presenting information in a structured and logical format.

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