Hi, I use these nice cheap little ESP32 modules because they emulate ANSI VT-52, VT-100, ADM-3A, Hazeltine 1500 and more terminals: https://www.lilygo.cc/products/fabgl-vga32
I also made a 3D printable box for them that allows for access to all the ports including the microSD card: FREE to download the .STL files and print yourself! https://pinshape.com/items/115750-3d-printed-lilygo-ttgo-vga32-v14-controller-ps2-case Find some odd-ball BASIC programs in the Lost Altair Software Library: I'm sure many can be easily converted to the TRS-80 computers: https://www.brainless.org/Altair/ ============================================================================================== C U L8r, °|° Walt Perko °|° "Kids ... teach them the good stuff, and they still learn the bad stuff on their own." http://www.R2Pv1.com/ RoboGuts™ Intelligent content for 3D printing making S.T.E.A.M. education better, easier and more affordable Experiments to learn how to use various Electronic Components, Structured Computer Programming, Phonemes for Speech &Song in any language, and Art. "The World Needs a New Economic Model" ============================================================================================== Sent from the Cyber7 -----Original Message----- From: M100 On Behalf Of Hiraghm Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2023 10:49 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [M100] Model T VGA Display, or VT100 Terminal 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.
