Gert's VGA Board

[simplesi]

Gert's VGA out for the Pi - £5 - no brainer

http://kck.st/1oe0I6D

Simon

[riklaunim]

But you loose all of the GPIO pins of B+.

[simplesi]

Agreed
But its just £5

£5 is my price to have a play with something - maybe the I2C pins are still free and we could use them?

Some people have suggested using less pins for less resolution (I have no idea is this is tru/will work but fro £5 I'll have a play)



Simon

[mahjongg]

many applications don't need any GPIO's, they may just want add a PI to an old via monitor to get an awesome media player, they can buy a second pi if they want to play with the GPIO's.

[Joe Schmoe]

many applications don't need any GPIO's, they may just want add a PI to an old via monitor to get an awesome media player, they can buy a second pi if they want to play with the GPIO's.

Besides, it's not permanent, is it?

I mean, you can always snap it off, if you need to do something that involves GPIOs, right?

[mahjongg]

yes, if you don't need a monitor a the same moment, but you also need to disable the VGA driver, or it would interfere with your GPIO driving program.

[Burngate]

Surely, any reputable GPIO library would:
(1) note the pre-existing GPIO setup - including the ALT2 required by the VGA driver
(2) set the GPIOs as required for whatever needs to hijack the GPIOs
(3) afterwards cleanup, which will re-apply the original setup including ALT2 for the VGA
So nothing should notice the hijacking in the middle

[toxibunny]

I thought it just used *most* of the gpio pins, and that there were still about 3 or 4 left over..?

[DirkS]

I thought it just used *most* of the gpio pins, and that there were still about 3 or 4 left over..?

From Gert's docs at https://github.com/fenlogic/vga666:

How many GPIO pins does it use?
It uses the GPIO pins 2-21. Thus you only have 6 GPIO pins left: 22..27.

[riklaunim]

I have this board: http://www.suptronics.com/RPI.html which converts HDMI to VGA and doesn't block GPIO... but I didn't tested it yet

[PiGraham]

Backed.

[Joe Schmoe]

I have this board: http://www.suptronics.com/RPI.html which converts HDMI to VGA and doesn't block GPIO... but I didn't tested it yet

I'm curious why you haven't tested it yet. I was very interested in that board; if I had one, I'd not waste any time putting it to the test.

Two questions come to mind:

• 1) Does it work with the B+ (the web site says specifically that it works with the B) ?
  2) Does it work as "multi-monitor" (like the Gert VGA board does) ?

[DirkS]

1) Does it work with the B+ (the web site says specifically that it works with the B) ?

Can't see a reason why it wouldn't work electronically, but there are some mechanical problems:
* Can't use the mounting posts
* HDMI ports don't line up, so you can't use the adapter. You'll need a cable (that will stick out quite a bit)
* USB ports probably don't line up, so again, you can't use the adapter
* GPIO header on B+ has moved slightly. The board will stick out on one side.

[PiGraham]

Two questions come to mind:

• 1) Does it work with the B+ (the web site says specifically that it works with the B) ?
  2) Does it work as "multi-monitor" (like the Gert VGA board does) ?

The answer to 2 is NO. It has an HDMI->VGA converter so VGA is only what the standard HDMI puts out.Strictly single screen.

[Joe Schmoe]

The answer to 2 is NO. It has an HDMI->VGA converter so VGA is only what the standard HDMI puts out.Strictly single screen.

Ah, yes. Obvious when you think about it.

Silly me…

[riklaunim]

I have this board: http://www.suptronics.com/RPI.html which converts HDMI to VGA and doesn't block GPIO... but I didn't tested it yet

I'm curious why you haven't tested it yet. I was very interested in that board; if I had one, I'd not waste any time putting it to the test.

I was waiting for the servo connection cables, or just being lazy to connect it It has an servo controller for big amount of servos and 2 or more continuous servos could make a driving robot move

As for VGA there is also this: http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/serial-vga - it's not a real display VGA but you can draw basic gui on your own via serial connection and board API

[mahjongg]

I have this board: http://www.suptronics.com/RPI.html which converts HDMI to VGA and doesn't block GPIO... but I didn't tested it yet

I'm curious why you haven't tested it yet. I was very interested in that board; if I had one, I'd not waste any time putting it to the test.

I was waiting for the servo connection cables, or just being lazy to connect it It has an servo controller for big amount of servos and 2 or more continuous servos could make a driving robot move

As for VGA there is also this: http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/serial-vga - it's not a real display VGA but you can draw basic gui on your own via serial connection and board API

That's in fact a complete serial ("green screen") terminal with VGA output based on the brilliant parallax propeller multicore microcontroller. Its complete in the sense that it is also possible to connect (with minimal logic) a PS/2 keyboard to it, the parallax forum will tell you how.