🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <kennehra.718415785@craft.camp.clarkson.edu>, kennehra@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Rich"TheMan"Kennehan) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> Hi!  Thanks for your reply!!!  I have a few questions for you:
|> 
|> 1)  What courses did you take in order to be able to have the technical
|>     knowledge to build a VGA card?  I would LOVE to be able to do that!

(?) None that I know of.  I just sort of wandered around in bookstores until I found
books that were of use.  I see no reason why anyone should not be able to 
do the same!

|>    
|> 2)  Can you recommend some good books on video cards that contain
|>     skematics diagrams?

Hmmm.  That's a tough one.  No one book that I know of contains schematics,
but a look at databooks from companies that manufacture video chips should
give you all the information you need.  Mainly from the companies that 
manufacture graphics chips.
  
|> 
|> 3)  What kind of equipment do you need to test and debug the circuits
|>     involved in the video cards?

Probably an oscilloscope, that would be nice.  I know that I would love
to use a logic analyzer, but I just don't happen to have $10,000 lying around.
  
|> 
|> 4)  How much does do the parts cost in general? where do I special 
|>     order chips?

Oh, maybe a few hundred.  Maybe a bit less.  You can probably get "special
order chips" (by which I mean non-7400/4000 series) as free samples from
companies.

|> 
|> I've been doing alot of thinking about the "sprite engine"  Here are
|> the features that I'd put in if I could build one:
|> 
|> 1)  I'd make it comaptible with all IBMs (except the IBM pc jr.) from
|>     the lowly 8086 to the 80486...basically, if you have a card slot 
|>     and its an ibm, it'll run. 

Agreed.  Anyone who has an 8086 deserves it!
 
|> 
|> 2)  I'd have some on-board memory for defining the sprites.  Would a
|>     megabyte of ram do it?

Seems right.  You need to calculate the maximum number and average
size for sprites.
  
|> 
|> 3)  I'd have some scaling and rotation features for the sprites (this 
|>     can come later...and is just wishful thinking :)

That requires some thought...
  
|> 
|> 4)  It should be able to output to a regular VGA monitor

I'll say!
 
|> 
|> 5)  Definitely an atari 2600 joystick port!!  (for those arcade style
|>     gamers!)

(?) I'm not familiar with the atari 2600 joystick.  Does it have a joystick
and a button on it?  If so, an IBM joystick will do just as well, and can
be attached to the game port.
  
|> 
|> That's all I can think of right now...I'll post the source code to my
|> pascal program once I go back to my room and get my disk.  See ya!
|> 
|> - Rich
|>   kennehra@logic.camp.clarkson.edu
|> 
|>