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

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