ISA / PCI cards Controlled by a pic/picbasic pro ?

[magicmarty]

Hi all,

I'd like to control a VGA card, or sound card etc using a pic+picbasic pro.

I figure rather than trying to get a pic to generate vga signals (or sound etc) why not just drive a isa/pci card.
( why should i waste time hunting for the chip(sets) and build them up, when theyre all around me for $5 a piece ;-)

For the moment, i'm happy to drive simple 8/16 bit isa cards, but i have even been asked if the vga card could be a 3dfx card, so the resulting output (onscreen menus etc) may even have some nice shading & 3d effects, and this is something the vga card should do, not the pic ;-)

thanx in advance for any forums, links, projects that you can provide.

Marty (downunder Oz)

[Luciano]

Do you have any experience with hardware level VGA programming?
(Low-level VGA programming without using the VGA BIOS support).

[magicmarty]

Hi There,
I havent tried to do anything at low-level, such as directly driving the chipset etc. (and that raises another issue about buying chips(sets) etc, when i can simply use a $5 2-4Mb vga card, and plug into a isa/pci slot on my pic board.

i have tried a few experiments with driving the vga connector directly from a pic (also via eprom) but is is far too time consuming to calculate each line, timing, position etc.

I think it would be far easier to let the vga card all the scanning/timing work, while i simply control the address,data,control pins on the isa/pci connector to make a vga card start displaying my data or menus.

Marty ;-)



Originally posted by Luciano
Do you have any experience with hardware level VGA programming?
(Low-level VGA programming without using the VGA BIOS support).

[Luciano]

Hi Marty,

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough in my post.

Using a PC/AT, are you able to write low-level code that will control the VGA card plugged into its own ISA bus? (Without using the VGA BIOS support, accessing the VGA registers directly).

Before you interface a VGA card to your PIC micro board, try first to write low-level VGA code on a PC running MS-DOS.


Luciano

[magicmarty]

Hi Luciano,

I havent done any low level control like that before with a p.c. accessing the registers etc.

Is there any info/sites you can reccommend where i should start researching the vga registers etc?

thanx again,
Marty.





Originally posted by Luciano
Hi Marty,

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough in my post.

Using a PC/AT, are you able to write low-level code that will control the VGA card plugged into its own ISA bus? (Without using the VGA BIOS support, accessing the VGA registers directly).

Before you interface a VGA card to your PIC micro board, try first to write low-level VGA code on a PC running MS-DOS.


Luciano

[Luciano]

Hardware Level VGA and SVGA Video Programming Information Page
---Home---
http://www.osdever.net/FreeVGA/home.htm


Hardware Level VGA and SVGA Video Programming Information Page
---Introduction to Low-level Programming---
http://www.osdever.net/FreeVGA/llintro.htm


Hardware Level VGA and SVGA Video Programming Information Page
---VGA Chipset Reference---
http://www.osdever.net/FreeVGA/vga/vga.htm


Best regards,

Luciano

[NavMicroSystems]

Marty,

Your question was already posted on Jan 11th. in the "Off Topic"
category. why are you posting exactly the same question a second time in the PBP category?

As it is not PicBasic related (so far) it was perfect in the Off Topic Category.

Click here (http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1094)

Please help us to keep the categories as clean as possible and try to avoid redundancy.