Posts

Afbeelding
- Cobbling Prototyping - In the previous blog entry, I talked about old computers, how the user input and output evolved, and why I decided to build my own terminal. I wrote how I remembered the FabGL library , how it did SVGA, had an AnsiTerminal as example, and how Just4Fun made a serial terminal using that FabGL library . I then set out my goals and stretch goals, tools to be used, and just started. Ancient Dutch wisdom: "He who saves something, has something"   The first thing I wanted to do was to cobble together prototype something that would resemble the  LILYGO VGA32 board . When I work on prototype projects, I always try to see if I can make reusable components. From an old project, I had a board that combined a 5V power supply with an RS-232 level converter (MAX232). And from another (FPGA) project, I had a board that would take 5V from a USB and provide 5V and 3.3V supplies, PS2 keyboard and mouse ports, and R2-R networks connected to a VGA connector for VGA outp...
Een reactie posten
Meer lezen
Afbeelding
- On Terminals - In the dark ages of computer times, computers did not have video screens and keyboards. There were computers, there were keyboards (typewriters), and there were video screens (televisions), but nobody had thought yet about combining them. Probably they were too busy to make computers work in the first place. The first computers used switches, lights and bells to communicate with their users ( and some modern old computers too ). But some time in the 50's, somebody thought that it might be nice for a user to actually be able to type in letters and numbers, and receive information in human-readable in return. Teletype Corporation was already making teletypes to let people communicate with each other in text over telephone lines. So through a serial connection, a teletype was interfaced to a computer, and from that moment on the user could tell the computer their opinion in plain text, and the computer could bang letters back on a piece of paper to hammer down what ...
Een reactie posten
Meer lezen