Microcontroller VGA Interface Projects

This had me thinking it would be a comprehensive list of Microcontroller VGA interface projects but it's not. In fact, there was a store involved?

After all these years I still think this is the most impressive demo of generating a VGA signal on a microcontroller: https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/craft/

Ben Eater has a good VGA series https://eater.net/vga

Let's add this one (warning large images): http://debuginnovations.com/TTL_Terminal/home.html

Last year I tried to get a VGA card for Arduino, like Gameduino. Sadly they are all sold out. The closest thing that I have found was https://www.tindie.com/products/petrohi/geoffs-vt100-termina... which is based on this project https://geoffg.net/terminal.html (already mentioned by other comments).

This is good for text UI but not so good for games. I was thinking about using real 8-bit ISA graphic card, but it turned out they are now considered collector items and have very high prices (at least where I live).

In the end the only sensible choice was to switch to ESP32, there is a module with PS/2 and VGA connectors and audio output I used it to run PCEmulator via FabGL library (https://blog.marcinchwedczuk.pl/fabgl-pcemulator-on-ttgo-vga...), but it is also suitable for programming simple games. Even better you can just put it in a small box with power socket and voila you have a working portable console for 8bit games.

The only problem that I had with this last approach is that you need to do some magic to connect NES controllers to it. I haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking about repurposing PS/2 IO ports.

> In the end the only sensible choice was to switch to ESP32

I understand and appreciate the fun to get something working on minimal hardware. But unless you are going to mass produce a stronger dev platform gets my project going much faster.

For example, I have ESP-WROOM-32 project that is ultimately aimed for an ESP-01. In any respect, this last step is only justified price wise, if I were to build dozens of devices. I do it once for intellectual curiosity but after that I don’t plan to spend much time on saving 5 bucks in hardware.

For games, I would definitely start with a pi zero at least.