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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : [MM] 3 bit colo(u)r MaxiMite
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donmck Guru  Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
http://www.quantenbit.de/#/teach/Technical/electronics http://hackaday.com/2012/05/18/a-color-maximite-for-glorious -3-bit-basic/ Cheers Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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jman Guru Joined: 12/06/2011 Location: New ZealandPosts: 711 |
Hi This looks really interesting I think i might just give it try wih a mini John |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2914 |
Lads, Lassies, I wonder if there is much of a performance loss with color enabled? I assume it reduces the amount of program space and the internal ram drive but it looks great from the little bit I have seen so far is great... Now to read the articles in full detail. Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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Nick Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 512 |
That's brilliant! I can see a Maximite 2 coming up! So, if I'm seeing it right... A small mod to the existing MM and the rest of the mod is a firmware update which provides 8 colors from the Video Driver? If that's so, is there still spare cycles to add sprite support? 
Nick |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3801 |
I had a look but can't see details of what changes were made and what effect they have (such as on memory available). Did I miss them / anyone know more? John |
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djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
Tonights Project will be to hack/modify/adapt/convert 1 of my maximites. Photos and description will be posted when done. VK4MU MicroController Units |
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Sumit Newbie  Joined: 13/09/2011 Location: Posts: 23 |
I didnt find any supporting documents or modified/new commands to manipulate colours. Did I miss anything ?? Sumit |
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| djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
The 1st page linked to in don's original post has the modded schematic and also has a link for downloads of the modded .HEX files. N.B. The schematic / Files are for the ORIGINAL Maximite and Clones. VK4MU MicroController Units |
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| Gadget Regular Member  Joined: 22/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 70 |
it took me a minute or two to see the changes the mod to the circuit involves adding two 120ohm resistors and two diodes from pins 51 and 32 of the pic and the other end going to pins 3 an1 of the vga connector |
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vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
@Gadget wants to say that modifications are sketched directly on the "ORIGINAL" Maximite schematic. Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
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Geoffg Guru Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3194 |
This was developed by Dr Kilian Singer in Germany. He has a brilliant idea for generating colour which only requires 4 extra components. The speed of MMBasic is not affected and it is backwards compatible with programs written for the standard Maximite. There will still be some work needed to make it into a working colour MM. Kilian's method will work with a 64 pin chip but it really needs a 100 pin chip (which means a new PCB) and a modified version version of MMBasic. The only issue is that with eight colours you have just 33KB memory left for program and variables - OK for general use but not much for games. However, Kilian has proposed a MODE command so that you can switch between monochrome, four or eight colours enabling you to tune the memory requirement. It will be interesting to see where this leads to. Geoff Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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| Nick Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 512 |
If I were asked what the next enhancement to the Maximite should be, I would have to say the video driver firmware. If you have only seen the Maximite running on a LCD monitor and not on an old CRT (tube) display, then you will not realise how much better the Maximites 480x432 resolution is on this older technology. LCD looks c*ap in comparison. On the CRT, every pixel is the same size whereas LCD monitors tend to scale the image to match the panel display or native LCD resolution. Unless you have an LCD which lets you turn this off (very few do), I'm afraid we are stuck with this inferior display with pixels of varying size. An enhancement to the Maximite video driver firmware should include video output resolution that matches the native panel display of the LCD. This is difficult because there are so many but maybe supporting a few of the most common ones. A 1024x768 (15" LCD) or 1280x1024 (17" LCD) would be ideal. This lays rise to problems with wide screens which now seems to becoming the norm now. Fear not! I have a solution! 
Whatever resolution is chosen, add "padding" to the video output to fill the unused parts of the display. Effectively create black pixels to make up for the differing screen dimensions. This idea means you could keep the Maximites 480x432 resolution (and keeping compatibility) and, based on a setting that reflects your LCD screens native res, create equally spaced black padding pixels to keep the screen happy and the Maximite's image centered and correct aspect ratio. And (to bring the topic back to colour) also add colour as we've seen here, although this does involve a hardware hack to implement and so may not become commonplace enough. |
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| jman Guru Joined: 12/06/2011 Location: New ZealandPosts: 711 |
Hi I have done the hardware mod to a Maximite and I now have a Maximite that can Draw circles and lines in color I assume they are or will be a command the will let you set the text color? Maybe something like Font #nbr, scale, color If I set the Maximite to composite video out it still works but the video is cutoff on the left by about 10 characters John |
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| Nick Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 512 |
Good work. Now Geoff (or someone) needs to write and submit an article for Silicon Chip that outlines the mod clearly for Maximite users to implement. The more modded Colour Maximites, the greater the chance of seeing colour software written. Maybe even a colour version of MaxMan. Nick |
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MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
Would that not mean that the "pixel rate" of the vga signal has to be higher, therefore having less cpu time for the program? Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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| Sumit Newbie Joined: 13/09/2011 Location: Posts: 23 |
jman: Good to know that it works for you. What "colour" specific commands did you try ?? Sumit |
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| jman Guru Joined: 12/06/2011 Location: New ZealandPosts: 711 |
@Sumit The circle and line commands allow you to set the color CIRCLE ( x, y ) ,r [,c [,F]] Setting the value of c from 0 to 9 will change the color of the circle John |
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| Nick Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 512 |
Is it possible to rewrite the video driver firmwareto output the sepaate VGA (RGB) signals via 3 available I/O pins? The idea is to have a plug-in colour option that doesn't require modding of the Maximite in that way, offering a colour option for more people. The more people who have access to colour, the more likely software will be written for it. Everyone already has a colour VGA monitor, adding colour to the Maximite is the missing link. Nick |
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| jman Guru Joined: 12/06/2011 Location: New ZealandPosts: 711 |
@Nick The hardware mod is to difficult to do So I think a lot of users could go color real quick and easy I can post some pics of the mod if you like Next step a new PCB or a new PCB with 100 Pin version Regards John |
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| MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
I am busy with something that might work, it uses double buffering so it would be great for making games. What would be the minimum resolution/color depth and frame rate that would be acceptable? My personal goal is 800 x 480 16 colors and because no games are needed for it a framerate of 1 would be enough. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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