tty2oled Soft&Hardware Add-On (Shows Core based Pictures on a Display)

[Reg]

What do you think?
Is this something you like to support or is this something you say "no and never".

Well I did send you a postcard and a little shocked after all the work you do - only one other person have bothered here to be honest.

Typical "take take take" and give nothing back - people don't want to hear this, but they should be embarrased considering how this transforms the MiSTer.

For those that claim "no postcards available", my town didn't have a postcard - so I used an online service to make one and send one.

That being said... ...I don't mind if you do a geo-location check.

Your software gives so much transformation - anything to help.

[RealLarry]

News GSC pictures for the upcoming System 16 cores by Jotego (or NOW for his patreons):

• Sonic Boom, a 1987 vertical shooter

• Dunk Shot

• MVP, a baseball game

• Excite League, another baseball game

[Moondandy]

Looking good Larry!

I noticed this one isn't marked on the sheet, not checked if it needs renamed and uploaded or just missed on the sheet. Finalizer - Super Transformation

New game Finalizer Super Transformation

finalizr.jpg

[RealLarry]

I noticed this one isn't marked on the sheet, not checked if it needs renamed and uploaded or just missed on the sheet. Finalizer - Super Transformation

Thanks for the info! Just caught up for it...picture is already available, sheet updated.

[Moondandy]

Ah, nice one. Do you know if it is going to be possible to have the 2600 logo display when using the new 7800 core to play 2600 games?

[RealLarry]

Ah, nice one. Do you know if it is going to be possible to have the 2600 logo display when using the new 7800 core to play 2600 games?

Unfortunately no, at least not with the actual Daemon. Maybe later with an advanced Daemon and enabled log_file_entry in mister.ini

[LamerDeluxe]

signal-2021-11-20-104753.jpeg

TTGO T8 1.7.1 and 3.12" white display (I like the blue PCB), ordered from Aliexpress on November 6th, arrived on the 16th. Programmed and ready (will solder the connectors this weekend, and probably move the 4SPI display resistor as well).

The custom PCB, sold by gojira54 (and very kindly refunded by him, so I got it for free), ordered on November 3rd from the UK, payed almost 5 Euro in tax/duty (the PCB is worth 1 Euro according to them) on November 8th. Still stuck there. Never had to pay duty/tax for any of my Aliexpress orders BTW.

Seems like ordering from the UK takes as long as China used to and China takes as long as the UK used to.

Looking forward to finally being able to assemble and test it. The T8 responds with an ack message to tty2oled commands already. The instructions for programming the T8 are very clear and easy to follow.

It is just a matter of soldering all the connectors, using the custom tty2oled T8 PCB, right? Or do I still need to add any wires as well?

[RealLarry]

It is just a matter of soldering all the connectors, using the custom tty2oled T8 PCB, right? Or do I still need to add any wires as well?

Is it this pcb from the wiki?

tty2oled_esp32-ttgo-t8-v1.7.1_board.png

Then yes...just solder the connector of the oled and the relevant pins of the T8 and you're set. Or use pinheader instead for easy swapping, but this increases the distance between pcb and oled.

[LamerDeluxe]

It is just a matter of soldering all the connectors, using the custom tty2oled T8 PCB, right? Or do I still need to add any wires as well?

Is it this pcb from the wiki?
Then yes...just solder the connector of the oled and the relevant pins of the T8 and you're set. Or use pinheader instead for easy swapping, but this increases the distance between pcb and oled.

Yes it is. Awesome, thanks for confirming!

[RealLarry]

Yes it is. Awesome, thanks for confirming!

You're welcome. Should work at first shot as I'm the creator of the pcb. And the one you can blame otherwise

[LamerDeluxe]

Yes it is. Awesome, thanks for confirming!

You're welcome. Should work at first shot as I'm the creator of the pcb. And the one you can blame otherwise

Hahaha. Great, really looking forward to it.

[LamerDeluxe]

The edge connectors are now soldered onto the T8.

I can highly recommend actually moving the display's R6 resistor to R5, if you are really into wasting time on things that are both useless and mildly infuriating Man that SMD resistor is ridiculously tiny, I almost lost it at one point.

Kind of proud that I did manage to do it in the end though. If you don't enjoy torturing yourself, just remove R6 and bridge R5 with solder or something like a tiny wire or leg cut off a resistor.

Now everything is fully ready for the PCB to arrive.

[RealLarry]

If you don't enjoy torturing yourself, just remove R6 and bridge R5 with solder or something like a tiny wire or leg cut off a resistor.

And for those who are in doubt in removing resistor R6 and bridging R5 by a solder blob or bridge: Yes, R6 isn't a real resistor but an 0-Ohm "resistor type thingi", so you're totally ok with that

[venice]

The Arduino Code got a minor update.
The new Code includes a command which you can use to get the Hardware Type and Software Version from tty2oled.

There is no need for you to update as the next release will include this code as well.

[Teddy]

Is there any way for someone, who let's say maybe isn't as well-versed in hardware, to get their hands on one of these things?

[rbz]

As I wait for my boards to arrive to build my own tty2oled (this project is one of the main reasons I decided to finally jump into MiSTer after years of watching progress), I decided to attempt to give something back to the community. I have always wondered what most of the XBM images, and now the GSC images would look like, so I decided to write a small web app that uses just Javascript and CSS to display all of the images. There is no stored images on this app, the images are being rendered on the fly.

The viewer can be found here: https://www.synthtc.com/MiSTer_tty2oled_Pictures/

@venice I would be happy to show you how you can incorporate this into the official repository as there is an accompanying GitHub Action that will rebuild the image list that drives the site whenever a new GSC or XBM file is added to the repository. The site is also hosted with GitHub pages so there is no hosting cost.

If there is interest I can also add a feature to render a pasted in GSC or XBM for previewing generated images.

Screenshot 2021-11-25 151153.png

[RealLarry]

Is there any way for someone, who let's say maybe isn't as well-versed in hardware, to get their hands on one of these things?

Tell us some details, ie where you're located? If it's "not so far far away from europe" then I'm sure that we'll find a solution...

[RealLarry]

As I wait for my boards to arrive to build my own tty2oled (this project is one of the main reasons I decided to finally jump into MiSTer after years of watching progress) ...

That's very nice to hear that we are a "decision maker" now

... I decided to attempt to give something back to the community. I have always wondered what most of the XBM images, and now the GSC images would look like, so I decided to write a small web app that uses just Javascript and CSS to display all of the images. There is no stored images on this app, the images are being rendered on the fly.

Welcomed! I love that! Even the displays colours are correct.

[venice]

As I wait for my boards to arrive to build my own tty2oled (this project is one of the main reasons I decided to finally jump into MiSTer after years of watching progress), I decided to attempt to give something back to the community...
The viewer can be found here: https://www.synthtc.com/MiSTer_tty2oled_Pictures/

Really really cool, many thanks for this. And yes @RealLarry, "decision maker" sounds good
I added the link to the Wiki.
One question, is there an sort order?

@venice I would be happy to show you how you can incorporate this into the official repository as there is an accompanying GitHub Action that will rebuild the image list that drives the site whenever a new GSC or XBM file is added to the repository...

Send me an PM with the details.

If there is interest I can also add a feature to render a pasted in GSC or XBM for previewing generated images.

Yes please.

[LamerDeluxe]

As I wait for my boards to arrive to build my own tty2oled (this project is one of the main reasons I decided to finally jump into MiSTer after years of watching progress), I decided to attempt to give something back to the community. I have always wondered what most of the XBM images, and now the GSC images would look like, so I decided to write a small web app that uses just Javascript and CSS to display all of the images. There is no stored images on this app, the images are being rendered on the fly.

The viewer can be found here: https://www.synthtc.com/MiSTer_tty2oled_Pictures/

Fantastic! I love that you can select all the different display colors as well.
Some of the images are (wrap around) shifted right a bit at the moment, like the Commodore 64 one.

[venice]

Hi tty2oled users,
RealLarry, d.ti and me are proud to present the new All-In-One tty2oled "Flash-Update" release.
The new version of the Installer/Updater includes now flashing of your connected tty2oled device.

During the install or update procedure the script tries to identify the connected tty2oled device hardware and firmware.
If a detection is not possible, because your tty2oled firmware Version is too old and doesn't contain the needed functions,
you get a menu where you need to choose your hardware (using Keyboard or Controller).

Flash_Update_Hardware_1.png

Flash_Update_Hardware.png

We support these three device types/boards
1) ESP32 TTGO-T8 or the d.ti-Board which uses the "ESP32 Dev Module" Board Settings in the Arduino IDE
2) ESP32 Wemos Lolin32 or Devkitc V4 which uses "WEMOS LOLIN32" Board Settings in the Arduino IDE
3) ESP8266 NodeMCU which uses the "Node MCU1.0 (ESP12E-Module)" Board Settings in the Arduino IDE
If you don't want to update your firmware chose "Exit now".

After you have chosen your Hardware you need to answer Yes or No (using Keyboard or Controller) within a few seconds
to start flashing your tty2oled device with the latest stable firmware version.
If the countdown is over without pressing any key nothing happens.

Flash_Update_YesNo.png

Disable flashing?
You can disable the flashing part of the updater script by setting the new INI Option TTY2OLED_UPDATE to "no" (see also below INI File).

How does it work?
We run a external build-server-system which creates the needed binary files for our tty2oled devices if a new software version is released.

Note!
If you use our tty2oled firmware updater, you can't use OTA any longer.

Changes
Arduino Code:

• Most of the "Options" in the Arduino Code to enable/disable tty2oled features are now history.
  If you choose the correct hardware device type within the Arduino IDE you are good to go
  if you still want to program your tty2oled device by yourself.

• The Arduino Code includes up from now code to identify hardware and firmware.
  These values are used by the updater.

• The Arduino Code uses our own Library for the MIC184 Temperature Sensor.
  You need it if you use the TTGO-T8 or the d.ti Board even there is no MIC184 on your Board.
  Get it from here (see Releases): https://github.com/venice1200/MIC184_Temperature_Sensor

INI File:

• The INI File was splitted into the tty2oled-user.ini file for user settings and the tty2oled-system.ini file supporting our scripts.

• The tty2oled-user.ini file got the new Option "TTY2OLED_UPDATE" (default = yes) to enable/disable firmware updates done by the updater.

Other:

• "update_all" has now an option (see under Misc) to download our "updater script"

And finally our user map
https://umap.openstreetmap.de/de/map/tty2oled_19436

Report Problems here...

[Teddy]

Is there any way for someone, who let's say maybe isn't as well-versed in hardware, to get their hands on one of these things?

Tell us some details, ie where you're located? If it's "not so far far away from europe" then I'm sure that we'll find a solution...

I'm in the UK!

[gojira54]

I'm in the UK!

I have a PCB left & am in the UK - send the OLED & TTGO to me and I'll build it for you if can't solder

@venice - amazing update!!
Good boy, your hardware is up-to-date
LOL

[rbz]

That's very nice to hear that we are a "decision maker" now

Really really cool, many thanks for this. And yes @RealLarry, "decision maker" sounds good

No thank you all for such a great project!

One question, is there an sort order?

I added a case insensitive alphabetical sort.
I will also work on adding in the paste/render feature.

Some of the images are (wrap around) shifted right a bit at the moment, like the Commodore 64 one.

I noticed this as well, I don't have the parts to make my real tty2oled yet so not sure if that is how they actually are or if there is some weird condition causing them to wrap. If it was an issue in the code I would assume every picture would show this error. Can someone confirm if the pictures that show them being offset happens on the real device or not?

[rbz]

@venice I would be happy to show you how you can incorporate this into the official repository as there is an accompanying GitHub Action that will rebuild the image list that drives the site whenever a new GSC or XBM file is added to the repository...

Send me an PM with the details.

I can't send PM's yet but I did open a Pull Request on the pictures repo that has the info

[venice]

Some of the images are (wrap around) shifted right a bit at the moment, like the Commodore 64 one.

I noticed this as well…

I think I got it.
Some Pictures have 6 bytes (=12 Pixel) in Line 3 of the gsc file. Normally this line should not contain any data bytes.
As our script is sending gsc picture data starting from line 4, the picture on the tty2oled display is looking fine .
If the pixviewer can do the same it should be Ok.
If not we have to find a way to check all gsc’s and remove these 6 unnecessary bytes.

Example:

F4A87E08-41AE-4A2B-82A7-E260EB844B64.jpeg

[rbz]

Some Pictures have 6 bytes (=12 Pixel) in Line 3 of the gsc file. Normally this line should not contain data bytes.
As our script is sending gsc picture data starting from line 4 the picture on the tty2oled display is looking fine
If the pixviewer can do the same it should be Ok.
If not we have to find a way to check all gsc’s and remove these 6 unnecessary bytes.

I will check this out and see if I can compensate for the extra bytes

[rbz]

Some Pictures have 6 bytes...

That was the issue, if the file had more than 8192 bytes I just use the last 8192 and that fixed the alignment issue. New PR is up with a fix and a few other changes

[venice]

Many many Thanks for your pixviewer.
The Website is now online at https://venice1200.github.io/MiSTer_tty2oled_Pictures/#

Just a question about picture counting.
GSC contains (if my Windows is OK) 657 gsc files (including 60 alternative files "_alt" = 597 core files).
The pixviewer shows 609 gsc files. Any idea about the difference?
XBM is OK (373).

//Edit
Got it...
We have 609 "real" Pictures and 48 Symlinks in the Repo.
Means 609 is correct.

[RealLarry]

GSC contains (if my Windows is OK) 657 gsc files (including 60 alternative files "_alt" = 597 core files).
The pixviewer shows 609 gsc files. Any idea about the difference?

Symlinks aren't countered but displayed.