Sidequest: VGA scan doubler

[Icky]

Nice. :thumbup:

That yellow is bright @Smonson. I had used it for the first Sparkalaphobia (Blitter) boards. Not sure if I would use it again. :)

Nice to see this project progressing but solderpasting at 5 degrees that’s the recommended storage temp of most pastes. No wonder you need it to be warmer.

[Smonson]

Nice to see this project progressing but solderpasting at 5 degrees that’s the recommended storage temp of most pastes. No wonder you need it to be warmer.

Yeah, even if I warmed it up it wouldn't stay warm for long enough!

[Icky]

Yeah, even if I warmed it up it wouldn't stay warm for long enough!

I was attempting to solder paste a few days ago with the voltera and it was 32 degrees here. I left the paste out a bit too long and it became very runny and was just pouring out the syringe without any pressure on it. I ended up putting it all away as it just made a mess.

[exxos]

@Smonson Any news on the new build :)

[Smonson]

The only news is that I'm lazy :D

Or more to the point, I haven't got so much motivation anymore since the CPLD that I used for this project was (temporarily?) discontinued by the manufacturer and I can no longer buy any more of them. Mouser has even deleted the product line from their site. Up until fairly recently it was showing something like "expecting more later in 2022" but now it just redirects you back to the search page. So I have no idea if Intel is even going to make these parts again in the future :|

[Smonson]

mouser-note.png

[Icky]

The only news is that I'm lazy :D

Or more to the point, I haven't got so much motivation anymore since the CPLD that I used for this project was (temporarily?) discontinued by the manufacturer and I can no longer buy any more of them. Mouser has even deleted the product line from their site. Up until fairly recently it was showing something like "expecting more later in 2022" but now it just redirects you back to the search page. So I have no idea if Intel is even going to make these parts again in the future :|

I think a lot of us are in similar predicaments. I have seen the Max10's go through the same pattern on Mouser. I think its going to be years before this sorts itself out and also it is my belief a lot of these devices will disappear as part of this current climate. Probably doesn't bode well for 5V devices.

[exxos]

Or more to the point, I haven't got so much motivation anymore since the CPLD that I used for this project was (temporarily?) discontinued by the manufacturer and I can no longer buy any more of them. Mouser has even deleted the product line from their site. Up until fairly recently it was showing something like "expecting more later in 2022" but now it just redirects you back to the search page. So I have no idea if Intel is even going to make these parts again in the future :|

If I can obtain them would it get the project going again ? If not, would you consider officially handing the project over to @Icky and me?

[ijor]

Hi Smonson,

Cool project. How are you doing?

Don't despair, it is very likely that these chips will be available next year, but almost certainly not before.

It does require a connection to HSYNC, which means soldering to a via near the GLUE. So it's not totally plug-and-play unfortunately. Without HSYNC, it can't tell where to begin the scanlines.

You can infer HSYNC from DE and make this a solderless plug-in upgrade. It might be difficult in those few cases that alter SYNC. But these programs that alter SYNC will fail to display correctly in many, perhaps most, modern displays anyway.

You would still miss BLANK for a perfect display in very few demos. But I'm sure most people would prefer something plug-and-play than something perfect. And you can still have the best of both worlds. There is no reason to not make these connections optional. You can easily and automatically detect if the signals are connected. If they are connected you use them for a perfect display. If not, then you infer HSYNC and still works perfectly in 99.9% of the cases.

Edit: Seems to me we talked about this before?

[Smonson]

If I can obtain them would it get the project going again ? If not, would you consider officially handing the project over to @Icky and me?

I don't think we need to go that far, this was my side-project to give me something achievable to do while you guys did the hard stuff on the HDMI one! :lol:

There aren't any technical problems to solve anyhow, it's just a case of waiting for the parts.