I came across a video today of the TTL VGA32 dev board, which is a
pretty interesting toy.
Diving down the rabbit hole, I came across another video about the same
board... using it as a VGA *terminal*, demonstrated with an IMSAI 8080.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOhmlOyUw4w&ab_channel=AmateurTinkering
It should also allow you to connect a PS/2 mouse, and better audio than
the native Model T. Of course it would take some custom programming to
take advantage of the extra capabilities, but I don't think anything
beyond what people can program for it now.
It's been awhile since I've read up on the barcode mod for the M100, so
forgive me if this is Old News or I have my facts wrong, but this looks
like a great solution for RexCPM with a console display on a VGA
monitor. VGA to HDMI converters aren't that expensive, either. You could
even, I think, rig a USB powerbank for portable power, and connect a 5
or 7 inch VGA/HDMI display, to retain somewhat portability (in that
event you might want to 3D print an adapter to "clamp" it onto your
Model T when using it).
I continued diving, and came across *this* video of someone using the
same chip series to make a VGA card...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muuhgrige5Q&ab_channel=bitluni
It seems to me theoretically possible to connect this VGA adapter to the
modified barcode port and give the Model-T, with some custom
programming, actual VGA output. I'm even trying to think of a way I
could use this to give my Amiga custom RTG video output.
While on his Tindie site looking at this board (the link in the
description of the video is wrong; here's a link to his Tindie page:
https://www.tindie.com/stores/bitluni/ ), I came across his other
projects, including the Pico VGA, a tiny VGA adapter for esp32
development board... which, again, seems to me could work with the
barcode adapter to give the Model 100 VGA output.
If you use the "PICO-VGA" with his "TinyPICO" esp32 module, talking to
it via the M100, you should even be able to have 3D acceleration, based
on what I've read. But even just connecting the $15 Pico-VGA to the
Model T should give you some vga output capabilities.
I could be wrong in all of this or in some particulars, but I thought
I'd share the links so that the experts here could possibly make
something of it, or at least explain why I'm completely off-base with
this idea.
