tty2tft Soft & Hardware Add-On (shows core based pictures and videos on a color TFT display)

[RealLarry]

This is the big brother of the famous tty2oled device, to which I have been contributing for a long time.
The tty2tft is technically very similar to the tty2oled and is using parts of the more or less same code. The main differences are:

• ESP32 with "UNO socket" for nearly plug'n'play setup

• >=2.8" color TFT display (8 bit parallel bus, not SPI)

• Output of JPG pictures in (theoretically) any dimension

• Output of MPJEG videos in (theoretically) any dimension

• Output of sound (played through MiSTer)

• (In planning) Touch support Not possible yet

• Build-In FTP server

This project isn't finished yet, but almost complete, stable and ready to run - "It's done when it's done".
Therefore this is a plain anncouncement, preview and an invitation to participate to this closed beta. To participate to this closed beta, this requires a certain technically understanding, the will to solder (basic knowledge), to intensively test and report issues and bugs if there're any. Suggestions are always welcomed, but has to be sensible and not exaggerated. No flux compressor nor rocket sience will be accepted.

Project Page

Below are some impressions from the preplanning in 2021 and great progress in 2022.
If you are having any questions, don't hesitate to ask and/or discuss here or privately (for now) on Discord (RealLarry#7444)

Video - 1st Test / Feb 2022

Video - 2nd Test / Feb 2022

Video - Dual Display / Feb 2022

very_1st_tests_2021.jpg

very_1st_tests_2021-My_wife.jpg

cased_with_video.jpg

[ByteMavericks]

Oh awesome! Full colour marquees! Will get some bits together and try this

Kudos, great work

[aberu]

Why not a big big brother next? Marquees

[RealLarry]

Why not a big big brother next? Marquees

Hehe, I was already thinking about it, but haven't found a display in needed dimension (Marquee size) - and the ones I've found (with a approximate dimension) are WAY too expensive.

[aberu]

Search "1920x480 hdmi" on Aliexpress

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256802394669560.html

and then...

https://github.com/Wren6991/PicoDVI

If you want smaller resolutions

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256802394669560.html - 1280x480

You might be able to do low framerate 1280x720 with an hdmi converter for the esp32 from what I'm reading, so this resolution should be fine.

[RealLarry]

Search "1920x480 hdmi" on Aliexpress

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256802394669560.html

Oi! This is quite nice and cheap. But I had something bigger in mind for a/my MAME arcade setup, which Marquee is (dunno, have to measure) about 19"...?

[aberu]

Yeah that gets into more expensive territory, but why not!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256801434923521.html

[RealLarry]

Yeah that gets into more expensive territory, but why not!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256801434923521.html

Ah yeah! Thanks for that infos/links. I really appreciate this! I'll note this down for the next project.

[aberu]

In the future too... You could use the debug port, it's just serial, and you can parse the output to get the different games. I'm surprised pixelcade didn't do this either.

That way you can leave the SNAC port open.

[warham]

thank you RealLarry im up and running

[salamantecas]

Why not a big big brother next? Marquees

I think that would be the dream of anyone with Mister and recreational! I wish they were a little cheaper I'm looking forward to seeing projects based on them with people from this forum

Nice Job RealLarry

[warham]

If I understand right you are thinking this uses the snac port? This uses usb

In the future too... You could use the debug port, it's just serial, and you can parse the output to get the different games. I'm surprised pixelcade didn't do this either.

That way you can leave the SNAC port open.

[OnCor]

I'm interested in helping with the beta. I found the components below on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EUVJYME/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WFZCBH8/

Are these the correct ones?

[RealLarry]

I'm interested in helping with the beta. I found the components below on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EUVJYME/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WFZCBH8/

Are these the correct ones?

Yes, these are the correct ones. If your get the D1R32 from "elsewhere", they might be cheap(er) clones of the original Wemos. They are working good, but have problems to enter the flashmode and must be manually treaten with a pull-up resistor.

[OnCor]

I'm interested in helping with the beta. I found the components below on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EUVJYME/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WFZCBH8/

Are these the correct ones?

Yes, these are the correct ones. If your get the D1R32 from "elsewhere", they might be cheap(er) clones of the original Wemos. They are working good, but have problems to enter the flashmode and must be manually treaten with a pull-up resistor.

Thanks for confirming! I might pick up another screen/board from AliExpress at some point for my spare DE-10 unit and could have that flashmode issue.

[RealLarry]

Update time! Please run update_tty2tft.sh, test and if anything woes, report.
If you don't notice any change, congrats! That was the goal: Important internal changes that no one should note

Last changes:

• 220607 - Autocalculate positions of media depending on displays dimension

• 220606 - Autodefine display's width/height by used displaytype

• 220605 - Enable FTP only if WiFi is enabled too

• 220604 - Include a FTP server, change SD's directory structure, variables cleanups

• below: see Changelog at project page

[salamantecas]

very clean and I can't think of a better way to say it than this

[OnCor]

I've got my TFT display and the ESP32 device connected to each other. When I do the "Test" the flashing completes successfully through SSH, but the screen just shows as bright white with no graphics. I soldered the three wires as directed on the ESP32 and have that device connected to the DE-10 nano via a micro USB cable through a powered USB hub. I don't have any power going to the ESP32, but it looks like the micro USB cable must supply enough to make the screen turn on and allow for the flashing. I also have the SD card populated with the contents of the folder from Github and inserted into the screen. Any thoughts on what might be going wrong here?

[RealLarry]

I've got my TFT display and the ESP32 device connected to each other. When I do the "Test" the flashing completes successfully through SSH, but the screen just shows as bright white with no graphics. I soldered the three wires as directed on the ESP32 and have that device connected to the DE-10 nano via a micro USB cable through a powered USB hub. I don't have any power going to the ESP32, but it looks like the micro USB cable must supply enough to make the screen turn on and allow for the flashing. I also have the SD card populated with the contents of the folder from Github and inserted into the screen. Any thoughts on what might be going wrong here?

Hmm, i have to check the test binary, there were some huge internal changes the last days/weeks, maybe the test is broken.
EDIT: test is working again, was indeed broken.
Any USB connection to the MiSTer should be okay and tty2tft/display is drawing <=200mA
Anyway, just skip the test for now and tell me your ESP's MAC address

Type in the following line:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ojaks ... staller.sh -O - | bash -s -- IDENTIFY
This gives you the MAC address of your ESP device. Tell me that MAC address. Keep the session/console open.

so I create your personal binary of the complete tty2tft to give you my OK

After my OK type in
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ojaks ... staller.sh -O - | bash -s -- FORCE
which will download and flash the ESP firmware. You should see a welcome screen after the reboot of the ESP.

[OnCor]

Thanks RealLarry. Good to know it was probably the test program and that my setup isn't borked. I will continue playing around with this tonight when I get off of work. By the way does it matter how the SD card is formatted? I believe I am using exFAT.

[RealLarry]

Thanks RealLarry. Good to know it was probably the test program and that my setup isn't borked. I will continue playing around with this tonight when I get off of work. By the way does it matter how the SD card is formatted? I believe I am using exFAT.

You're welcome. But please format the SD to FAT32 for now. I'd love to get exFAT working (specially to use symlinks), but am having some difficulties to reflect this to all used libraries. Used lib is SD and the wanted is SdFat.

[OnCor]

Thanks RealLarry. Good to know it was probably the test program and that my setup isn't borked. I will continue playing around with this tonight when I get off of work. By the way does it matter how the SD card is formatted? I believe I am using exFAT.

You're welcome. But please format the SD to FAT32 for now. I'd love to get exFAT working (specially to use symlinks), but am having some difficulties to reflect this to all used libraries. Used lib is SD and the wanted is SdFat.

Excellent information. I will reformat the card to FAT32. Thanks again!

[RealLarry]

Small update to the install process: It's now possible to get the "graphics test" for both, the ILI9341 (320x200) and ILI9486 (480x320).
Also see documentation on project page

[RealLarry]

--- this is just a test...please ignore ---

[FDA]

hello Larry, just sent my MAC in pm

[tear2u]

hello Larry, I sent the my Mac to the discord DM yesterday. Thank you.

[RealLarry]

hello Larry, I sent the my Mac to the discord DM yesterday. Thank you.

Pardon, but haven't got any message from you there. Send me your MAC and display type (ILI9341 or ILI9486) through a PM here...

[annette]

Wow thanks for this a new project to build for me. I am thinking it looks great so far!

[salamantecas]

Hi

I have some questions with possible situations

1.- If I have configured a screen with an sd in the Mister and everything has been executed well, if I wanted to do it with the same screen in another different sd, we simply execute the installation of:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ojaks ... tty2tft.sh -O - | bash
which downloads and setup the software (init and daemon).??

2.- In the event that someone executes a configuration with 2 screens, either tty2oled and tty2tft or even 2 tty2tft, a udev rule is needed, but I have verified how in certain routes it is difficult to write files, I do not know if it is because of the permissions or because of windows or another reason . would it be possible to implement a wget command that streams the 80-ttyusb.rules file to the correct path directly using the ssh command?
this would make the job easier

I hope I have explained myself well, greetings and congratulations for this great project!!!

Grog! Grog! Grog!

[RealLarry]

Hi

I have some questions with possible situations

1.- If I have configured a screen with an sd in the Mister and everything has been executed well, if I wanted to do it with the same screen in another different sd, we simply execute the installation of:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ojaks ... staller.sh -O - | bash
which downloads and setup the software (init and daemon).??

Correct and is stated in the documentation

2.- In the event that someone executes a configuration with 2 screens, either tty2oled and tty2tft or even 2 tty2tft, a udev rule is needed, but I have verified how in certain routes it is difficult to write files, I do not know if it is because of the permissions or because of windows or another reason . would it be possible to implement a wget command that streams the 80-ttyusb.rules file to the correct path directly using the ssh command?
this would make the job easier

Not correct You can setup a pair of tty2oled and tty2tft without an udev rule, but then you are bound to an USB port order for the appropriate tty* device. For example tty2oled is plugged in to MiSTer's USB hub port #2 and will become ttyUSB0 (1st found device). tty2tft goes to USB port #4 and will become ttyUSB1 (2nd found device). You have to keep that in the way that tty2oled has to be plugged in to an USB port < the next tty device.

The udev rule can be used to differentiate the named devices, e.g. ttyUSB0 (tty2oled) will become ttyMYNAME and ttyUSB1 (tty2tft) will become ttyOTHERNAME. That way you can swap both devices USB ports at MiSTer and are still having your named device at ttyMYNAME and ttyOTHERNAME.

Needless to say, regardless of the solution chosen, this must be taken into account in the appropriate INI files.

For two tty2tft devices (same for two tty2oled) udev doesn't work as there aren't enough different device data udev could read out from the devices - the are practical identical to all devices of the same type.

But remember that these are many (very technical) details we were already talking about by PM. If in doubt, you have to do some research and learn about udev and Linux' devicename scheme.
Also remember that we were already talking about the 80-ttyusb.rules. Create one in the folder /media/fat/tty2tft (you can use 80-ttyusb.rules.example as a template) and run update_tty2tft.sh. This routine will detect that you want use an udev rule and copies that file to the correct place and also ensures to keep that file there because a more complex MiSTer update could delete your udev rule.