World's worst video card gets better?

Рет қаралды 812,411

3 жыл бұрын

Schematics and more info: eater.net/vga
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Special thanks to these supporters for making this video possible:
Aaron Todd, Alexander Wendland, Andrew Vauter, Andrew Young, Anson VanDoren, Anthanasius, Armin Brauns, bapu, Ben Cochran, Ben Kamens, Ben Williams, Bill Cooksey, Binh Tran, Bouke Groenescheij, Bradley Pirtle, Bradley Stach, Brent Reusing, Brian T Hoover, Bryan Brickman, Bryan Glezerson, CaffeinatedClockmaker, Carlos Ambrozak, Christopher Blackmon, Dale Andrew Darling, Daniel Jeppsson, Daniel Tang, Dave Burley, Dave Walter, David Brown, David Clark, David Cox, David House, David Sastre Medina, David Turner, David Worsham, Dean Winger, Dissy, dko, Dmitry Guyvoronsky, Dušan Dželebdžić, Dzevad Trumic, Emilio Mendoza, Eric Brummer, Eric Busalacchi, Eric Dynowski, Erik Broeders, Eugene Bulkin, Frédéric Segard, George Foot, George Miroshnykov, Harry McDow, HaykH, Hidde de Jong, Ingo Eble, Ivan Sorokin, Jason DeStefano, Jason Specland, JavaXP, Jay Binks, Jayne Gabriele, Jeffery Springs, Jeremy A., Jim Kelly, Jim Knowler, Jim Van Meggelen, Joe Beda, Joe OConnor, Joe Pregracke, Joel Jakobsson, Joel Miller, Johannes Lundberg, John Fenwick, John Meade, Jon Dugan, Joseph Portaro, Joshua King, Kefen, Kenneth Christensen, Kent Collins, Koreo, Lambda GPU Workstations, Larry, Lucas Nestor, Lukasz Pacholik, Maksym Zavershynskyi, Marcus Classon, Martin Roth, Mats Fredriksson, Matthäus Pawelczyk, melvin2001, Michael Garland, Michael Tedder, Michael Timbrook, Miguel Ríos, mikebad, Mikel Lindsaar, Miles Macchiaroli, Nicholas Counts, Nicholas Moresco, Örn Arnarson, Paul Pluzhnikov, Paul Randal, Pete Dietl, Phil Dennis, Philip Hofstetter, Phillip Glau, PixelSergey, Randal Masutani, Randy True, Raoul van Prooijen, Ric King, Richard Wells, Rob Bruno, Robert Diaz, Roland Bobek, Ryan Trunck, Sabagmn, sam raza, Sergey Kruk, SonOfSofaman, SquirrellyCat.io, Stefan Nesinger, Stefanus Du Toit, Stephen, Stephen Riley, Stephen Smithstone, Steve Jones, Tayler Porter, TheWebMachine, Tom, Tom Burns, Tyler Latham, Vincent Bernat, Vladimir Solomatin, Walter Montalvo, Warren Miller, xisente, Yee Lam Wan

Пікірлер: 1 700

@Oxazepam65 3 жыл бұрын

I think I missed a few episode of Primitive Technology.

@CAME18471 3 жыл бұрын

Hahahahahahahaha omg!

@CAME18471 3 жыл бұрын

@@user-ug9nn seems like you missed the reference to another youtube channel called "Primitive Technology"... I guess the "dump" is not necessary 😉

@user-ug9nn 3 жыл бұрын

@@CAME18471 Ok sorry, I deleted my shitty comment...

@GerardMenvussa 3 жыл бұрын

He has invented speech at some point apparently :p

@strayling1 3 жыл бұрын

The secret is to bang the rocks together.

@akashkumar121213 3 жыл бұрын

All graphic cards are out of stock. Ben: Sorry what

@techleontius9161 3 жыл бұрын

I like how his video card costs similarly to some GTX cards

@weepgamer 3 жыл бұрын

@@techleontius9161 lol

@miallo 3 жыл бұрын

I thought the crazy hype about block-chain mining was over, but I guess Ben might be onto something here...

@galladeblade6001 3 жыл бұрын

Ben: Fine. I'll do it myself

@ethanpschwartz 3 жыл бұрын

@@techleontius9161 The VGA Kit or a Quadro P400. Sorry, Nvidia, my 6502 doesn't support PCI. Yet.

@blasterTC 3 жыл бұрын

i really love the "some assembly required" on the box.

@ianwyrdness1380 3 жыл бұрын

Ha, yes! In both senses of the word 'assembly'.

@object-official 11 ай бұрын

@@ianwyrdness1380x86 and building

@lythd 4 ай бұрын

@@object-official its not x86, its 6502 assembly

@pvic6959 3 жыл бұрын

he talks like he knows EXACTLY whats going on 100% of the time. a true master, a legend

@akhilaryappatt7209 3 жыл бұрын

and explains each step to the last detail

@tombola9445 3 жыл бұрын

Editing is a wonderful way to do this. Not taking anything away from him, but editing allows him to get his ducks in a row before he adds the sound to his video. I do think this series is great though, as I design fpga's and I do what he's doing in a somewhat sw environment, but seeing it in hw in bread board format really gives a physical visual of what I have to map in my head.

@progamer1125 2 жыл бұрын

Man speaking full enchanting table

@geetanshgautam 3 жыл бұрын

You know that a breadboard is populated when eater doesn't neatly bend his wires

@DingleFlop 3 жыл бұрын

I absolutely love how cleanly he does these. I've been prototyping stuff recently and I'm trying to get them even a quarter as clean as he's doing. And I'm cheating and using an ESP32 so I've got about 1% the complexity of those two boards he's doing....

@AftercastGames 3 жыл бұрын

Yeah. Forget about selling the kits... I’d pay to just have my wires pre-cut to length and bent at perfect 90 degree angles. :)

@GRBtutorials 3 жыл бұрын

@@AftercastGames You can! Not bent, but you can buy precut wires for breadboards, I have a box of those. Just search for them on Aliexpress or similar.

@torade100 3 жыл бұрын

I liked how he tried to put his hands over the cables in an intent to make them tidier but then realized that was not possible.

@alfredorotondo 3 жыл бұрын

@@DingleFlop when I was doing telecommunications at school it was strictly forbidden to bend like this the cables because the teacher was dumb and hated them even if it makes the breadboard cleaner I wish i had Ben as teacher

@zv0n 3 жыл бұрын

Next couple of videos: - writing a C compiler for my CPU - running DOOM - porting Linux kernel - intro to quantum computation

@ReneSchickbauer 3 жыл бұрын

Quantum computer on a breadboard :-)

@Mauricetz 3 жыл бұрын

@@ReneSchickbauer A breadboard at nearly 0 Kelvin lol

@Bunkers-Boys 3 жыл бұрын

cc65 should work as a c compiler. A assume a library could be made with functions and resources for this computer.

@kas-lw7xz 3 жыл бұрын

@@d.6325 the java virtual machine runs on C++ which is based on C, so no, and also, the java virtual machine is unoptimized and slow, relatively

@wompastompa3692 3 жыл бұрын

HolyC is all you need.

@375-Productions 3 жыл бұрын

I love how you always solve the problems that appear during the video, rather than just making a video showing the final product. You show the entire process of the thing that you're making. Brilliant video as always!

@AntonyTCurtis 3 жыл бұрын

The BBC Micro had a cunning strategy of running the memory at twice the speed of the CPU so that the video and CPU accessed the memory on alternate cycles. This allows its CPU to work at full 2 MHz.

@2thinkcritically 3 жыл бұрын

The Dragon 32/64 computers certainly did that. I believe the memory access was controlled by the SAM chip so the CPU wasn't directly connected to the RAM.

@johndododoe1411 3 жыл бұрын

@Hans J Another fav technique was for the video card to only access memory once or twice every 8 pixels, hence the weird restrictions on number of colours in a small block of screen area.

@mojoblues66 3 жыл бұрын

The Apple ][ had this "cunning strategy" already, 5 years before the BBC Micro was introduced.

@akersmc 3 жыл бұрын

8 bit commodores did this as well I think?

@tonysofla 3 жыл бұрын

Commodore64 works like that, the VIC-II was created from scratch to be the master bus controller it even refreshes the cheaper dram in between cycles. 6510 is only locked out every 8th line when the VIC-II needs to fetch next block of background/foreground color data.

@dralfonzo24 3 жыл бұрын

Not done with the episode yet, but I'm eager to see you running doom on this soon.

@sadmac356 3 жыл бұрын

World's worst sound card first?

@richardlighthouse5328 3 жыл бұрын

@@sadmac356 Just a DAC

@techleontius9161 3 жыл бұрын

@@sadmac356 just a counter, memory, 8 KHz clock, 8 resistors, a bunch of logic to control it and you're good to go.

@jorenheit 3 жыл бұрын

How about crysis?

@weepgamer 3 жыл бұрын

@@jorenheit nah, doom is cooler

@ScottiStudios 3 жыл бұрын

43:25 so glad you showed us the comparison in processing time without that extra blanking interval being used or it would have left a big hole in my life 😂

@HKlink 3 жыл бұрын

Definitely thinking the same! I was really hoping for it, and it made me very happy that it happened.

@ikatib 3 жыл бұрын

Me too ahahahah

@shanesgettinghandy 3 жыл бұрын

Me too! I was getting anxious until he did it. Thank you!

@GanUnita 2 ай бұрын

Another way to do the video signal is to put the VGA Hsync and Vsync on the least significant bit's and the rest for the color on the address bus.

@MsMaciek 3 жыл бұрын

I can't wait for "World's worst video card gets raytracing support"

@DaedalusYoung 3 жыл бұрын

"World's worst video card surpasses all other video cards"

@akersmc 3 жыл бұрын

Ben: and you see now that the reflections are kind of slow, but if I move this jumper over to the output of the RTX enabled NAND gate...

@the-pink-hacker 3 жыл бұрын

Ascii ray tracing is a thing.

@Arctic_silverstreak 2 жыл бұрын

Dude don't go that high yet, I'm gonna be blown out if he can make a "smooth" 12fps animation @640x480p with this kind of thing

@progamer1125 2 жыл бұрын

If he adds raytracing support I'm buying this for my pc

@tihmstar 3 жыл бұрын

once video card is done, he should build a soundcard next

@ownpj 3 жыл бұрын

The via chip he uses for the lcd has a square wave output

@ReneKnuvers74rk 3 жыл бұрын

There have been a lot of sound card designs based on R2R networks connected to a parallel port. That would be an easy hack to control. Although timing would become difficult. An autonomous sound card that works similar to the videocard would be relatively easy as it would be the same as this videocard but with a clock at 10kHz and without all the pixel counting. The output stage would be very similar and it should read only a single byte of memory. Maybe set a flag in memory that the sample has been read. A 'sample and hold'-circuit will set and keep the poormans DAC at a value for the length of a sample. Feasibility: doable.

@stargazer7644 3 жыл бұрын

@@ReneKnuvers74rk that’s a lot of hardware overhead for nothing because the cpu still has to keep that memory location populated and you somehow have to time it. You simply need a timer periodically interrupt the cpu 8000 times per second (or whatever sample rate you want) and the cpu writes the next sound byte to a parallel port and you use a resistor ladder to drive an audio amp. Easy.

@wizdude 3 жыл бұрын

Build an RTR network mapped to an output port. With a D2A converter you can synthesise multi part audio in software. I did something very similar on my TRS-80 many years ago based on a design from my father. Granted the Z80 was running at 1.77MHz but the original implementation was done on an 8080 running around 1MHz so it should be totally doable on a 6502 with this design. As long as the processor isn’t paused so often :-)

@user-ir2fu4cx6p 3 жыл бұрын

I did sound card on ATtiny 85 and stm32 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rMyTdtOC3qjYcZc.html

@TimothyChapman 3 жыл бұрын

Alternate title: "How to get two independent computers to share the same set of system resources without fighting over them.

@DingleFlop 3 жыл бұрын

"....Too much..."

@dubbynelson 3 жыл бұрын

nice profile picture

@pqrstzxerty1296 3 жыл бұрын

CPU offloading..... Ngpu Vgpu AGPU APU. Offloading is the key.

@josugambee3701 3 жыл бұрын

It's certainly much easier to do with computers than with people.

@shinyhappyrem8728 3 жыл бұрын

What I don't get is why he doesn't just remove the CPU clock and use the 10Mhz clock and a counter to clock the CPU.

@farhanyousaf5616 3 жыл бұрын

Every time he jiggles the bus jumpers, I panic a little bit...

@skellious 3 жыл бұрын

He uses good quality breadboard, they hold the pins well.

@bob2859 3 жыл бұрын

Ben: Insightful process demonstration on creating a computer-controlled graphics device from components Army of commenters: D O O M

@demian5631 Жыл бұрын

First Doom, then Crysis

@greglilly3866 9 ай бұрын

Ben... I started out my career in Electronics and Engineering building a lot of circuits like you demonstrate here... a lot of the time just for my own learning, so I'm very familiar with how most of this works that you're doing. But, the way you present this information makes it so interesting to watch even when I know what you're doing and how you're doing it, it's captivating the way you present it. Thank you for making these videos... brings back so many memories. I may even get one of your kits just to play around with and remind myself how much fun it is to build something so rudimentary and see it work.

@marvintpandroid2213 3 жыл бұрын

Nand gates, when they go low we go high.

@wolfpriest6954 3 жыл бұрын

underrated

@bugglest0n 3 жыл бұрын

I will buy this t-shirt

@_c_e_ 3 жыл бұрын

*YOU* [QR_CODE_LINKING_TO_SUPPLIER] *HIGH_IQ* Address(bool): push rbp mov rbp, rsp mov eax, edi mov BYTE PTR [rbp-20], al cmp BYTE PTR [rbp-20], 0 je .L2 mov BYTE PTR [rbp-1], 1 movzx eax, BYTE PTR [rbp-1] jmp .L1 .L2: .L1: pop rbp ret *MID_IQ* bool Address(bool high) { if (high){ bool flying = true; return flying; } } *LOW_IQ* Dope!

@user-me7hx8zf9y 3 жыл бұрын

@@_c_e_ 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@tootaashraf1 3 жыл бұрын

you can make a computer with *only* nand gates

@jonathanfaber3291 3 жыл бұрын

Ben's getting some real Bob Ross vibes in this one

@genjii931 3 жыл бұрын

“and here we'll just use a happy little nand gate...”

@kuhljager2429 3 жыл бұрын

@@genjii931 there are no such things as bugs, Just happy little circuts

@ChristopherBergSmiet 3 жыл бұрын

It's not a bug, it's a happy little feature

@nxtktube 2 жыл бұрын

@@kuhljager2429 Just happy little interferences

@bassett_green 3 жыл бұрын

Through this series, I was initially surprised how relatively uncomplicated it was to get the video card running with the ROM image. Now I'm even more surprised that having it use the RAM was so much extra complication.

@misaalanshori 3 жыл бұрын

I love the "Some assembly required" on the box, makes it sound like there is just a bit of assembly needed, you know some cable here and some cable there...

@renakunisaki 3 жыл бұрын

Some assembly language required.

@techleontius9161 3 жыл бұрын

This phrase reminded me of Portal 2.

@object-official 11 ай бұрын

maybe some x86

@pspdsRobin2 3 жыл бұрын

This is such a great series! When you feel done, you should design your own PCB, with this setup, and talk us through some design decisions :) Order it and solder it together! It'd be really cool if you later published those PCB schematics as well!

@poptartmcjelly7054 3 жыл бұрын

yeah i think this would make a great computer kit, sort of like the Gigatron.

@xentropian6341 3 жыл бұрын

I would love that. Especially if he walks through the design process (Fusion 360 or similar). Would be cool to see how he'd approach it!

@Rx7man 3 жыл бұрын

@@xentropian6341 would probably be done in Eagle or Kicad

@xentropian6341 3 жыл бұрын

@@Rx7man I thought Fusion360 has Eagle now built-in? Could be wrong!

@Rx7man 3 жыл бұрын

@@xentropian6341 I hadn't heard of it, but possibly.. I just say Eagle because his current schematics look like they're done in Eagle

@flightvision 3 жыл бұрын

When seeing a 100x64 pixel screen, I think everybody just screems "SNAKE"! :) . Absolutely wonderful to follow this series. Thank you!

@dan_loup 3 жыл бұрын

I bet it is already fast enough for snake/tetris

@jonnypista52 3 жыл бұрын

@@dan_loup you won't even need timing, when it done drawing, then draw the next move, maybe with some optimization so it only writes to places which change it would be faster, but like this it would be playable

@user-me7hx8zf9y 3 жыл бұрын

@@jonnypista52 some people have even built minecraft redstone snake machines :)

@Fogolol 3 жыл бұрын

@@user-me7hx8zf9y well people have built computers that are legitimately stronger than this one using redstone in minecraft Which is actually really amazing

@victordonchenko4837 Жыл бұрын

I can already imagine how it could work. There could be a circular buffer holding the coordinates of each pixel of the snake, and each move the back pixel would be erased and removed and a new front pixel added and drawn. Then it could check for collisions by reading the video buffer back, lol.

@SirFloIII 3 жыл бұрын

BROKE: getting a widescreen monitor WOKE: chopping off the bottom 11 pixel to make your aspectratio wide

@_c_e_ 3 жыл бұрын

WOKE: chopping off the bottom 11 pixel to make your *black pixels matter*

@donosudono1597 3 жыл бұрын

What is a woke? Woke up?

@mariocamspam72 3 жыл бұрын

@@_c_e_ sh

@nathanjohnpalaogaming4872 2 жыл бұрын

@Abstractism my tablet's gpu 24/7 be like

@sheik124 3 жыл бұрын

I love how you in a way arrived at one of the workarounds they used in Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis. I think transparency effects in that game were done with some clever palette swapping during the VBI, and on a monitor with a small enough amount of overscan you can see some colored dots towards the bottom of the screen that are framebuffer artifacts of that palette swap. This was the coolest 2-3 hour detour I've ever taken on KZfaq.

@wolfe_864 4 ай бұрын

I thought the transparency was just dithering 😅

@adityadhar1358 3 жыл бұрын

This man troubleshoots his invigilator during exams

@remyterjanian8602 3 жыл бұрын

YES! I'm so excited for this, I just got myself the VGA kit!

@ReidCaptain 3 жыл бұрын

Haha was thinking of getting it too!

@first-last557 3 жыл бұрын

@@ReidCaptain quick word of advice for the coilgun: a high current relay might be good for a power switch, but I'm not sure.

@charlesjmouse 3 жыл бұрын

An awesome series, thank you very much! For anyone interested: This scheme for only processing in the blanking intervals is what you might call the standard "retro" method for sharing RAM access between CPU and "GPU". Commonly used in early home computers because the implementation is reasonably straightforward and not too costly in parts. As Ben alluded to there are others ways. A few of the more common alternate options to consider: -Costly: Use dual-ported RAM then the video and CPU can have their own RAM bus and won't clash - great for speed - old-school workstations -Custom: Give the "video processor" it's own RAM - no clashes and more system RAM but communication is more complicated - eg Ti9918 -Fast RAM: Clock the RAM twice as fast as the CPU and "GPU" and give each access on alternate cycles - eg BBC Micro Most "classic" micros used either a variant of Ben's approach or one of the schemes I've mentioned. These days as SRAM is cheap and fast if I were smart enough to make a VGA board such as Ben's I'd use the last option and run everything off one crystal for easy synchronisation... ...or if i were interested in something more "retro", especially if hacking colour GFX in to a Z80 system, I'd absolutely use a Ti9918 or one of it's variants. P.S. I particularly like using Ti's chips to augment B/W CP/M systems as all you need to do is make a Ti-based GFX board, choose some appropriate ports to accesses it, and run the machine's native output through the Ti chip's built-in mixing feature. The normal output becomes a layer in the Ti chip's output and you can use the Ti chip to add further colour GFX and sprites as you wish - I never understood why a Ti GFX board wasn't an option for many such machines, I have kind-of done the reverse with my COLECO ADAM to give it 80 col CP/M functionality.

@crazythunderchief 5 ай бұрын

The TI chip won't allow you to draw pixels directly though...

@grrey01 5 ай бұрын

It was very common in Arcade machines.

@UnidayStudio 3 жыл бұрын

The best part of my IT graduation is that I can watch and enjoy this master piece of a video. Amazing work, keep it up!

@randomd2146 3 жыл бұрын

In 20 years in the future How to build a gaming pc from eprom chips

@n00blamer 3 жыл бұрын

FPGAs are now affordable to any hobbyist.. next: cheap ASICs, you just "order" 100x faster clocked ASIC of your design for $50 (still expensive per chip, but incredibly cheap per chip also.. paradox..) Then 10 years later you can print the ASIC at home with Samsung Print-A-Chip that costs $220 .. that'll be cool, and I'll be dead by then but at least someone will have fun...

@jamesparker8529 3 жыл бұрын

@@n00blamer wait, you can get ASICs that inexpensively? From which company?

@n00blamer 3 жыл бұрын

@@jamesparker8529 We were just having thought-play what it'll be like 20-30 years from now... ASIC is more like 100 grands and up.. and if you need more than 1 round, well, better have deep pockets.. cya in Rev.B, mate..

@jamesparker8529 3 жыл бұрын

@@n00blamer ah, I thought you were saying that you could get custom asics at that price now.

@akshanshkmr 3 жыл бұрын

After watching his complete video without skipping, I feel like I have grown new brain cells 😂

@dan2800 3 жыл бұрын

Wait thats illegal

@Meskalin_ 3 жыл бұрын

@@dan2800 wait thats an outdated meme and it doesnt even fit, good job fam

@Gamer-uf1kl 3 жыл бұрын

I think you are always "growing" them. They die and reproduce all the time.

@RealAndroidTurorials 3 жыл бұрын

@Sin Midani bs check it out, things have evolved

@user-me7hx8zf9y 3 жыл бұрын

@Sin Midani neurogenesis definitely can occur.

@Hobbitstomper 3 жыл бұрын

You have secured yourself a seat in the doomsday bunker. If there's an apocalyptical event and humanity needs to restart with a handful of people that have in-depth knowledge about everyday things, you sir are needed!

@Aithan83 3 жыл бұрын

This might be one of the most interesting video series I've ever seen on KZfaq. Hope you'll keep them coming for a long time!

@opendstudio7141 3 жыл бұрын

Check out Sabastian Lague as he explores computers. Interesting since he's a programmer. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h8CnociDx5PeoXU.html

@theshosher 3 жыл бұрын

The ending with you using the extra processor time was a really cool visual representation of how much slower your processor runs with that less time. Very cool!

@bertholtappels1081 3 жыл бұрын

This is extraordinarily good content, both entertaining and informative. There’s no equivalent out there. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

@thefrub 3 жыл бұрын

25:05 I recognize this pattern. This is what my screen looked like when my video card died. But it was this pattern overlaid on the regular image

@will5948 3 жыл бұрын

My ATI 4850 died that way. Actual video playing but green spots all over the screen.

3 жыл бұрын

After a workday doing stuff in much higher languages, cloud and basically nothing which feels hand crafted anymore, this is so relaxing to watch. Thank you! I've seen a cable stripper machine built with an Arduino the other day. Now I have an appreciation for why it's a cool thing to have. So many tiny wires with exact lengths.

@celsowebber7252 2 жыл бұрын

Your videos are always inspiring, Ben! I am really impressed about how you make it simple to comprehend the very inner concepts of what happens inside a modern computer. I really love your linking from a logic diagram to the physical logical chips in the breadboards. Congratulations!

@nickroach6270 7 ай бұрын

Pressing play on this video invoked the same feeling as opening a Christmas present when I was 8 years old

@devonmcnealy8900 3 жыл бұрын

Love the project! Just watched from start to here, I feel like this is a better format to learn basics than any school lol, I appreciate the recapping of everything I needed it. Keep up the good work!

@MrOnosa Жыл бұрын

43:00 I am glad you switched the configuration to show the cleaner but slower processing method. I was really wanting to see that. Fantastic video series, thank you.

@smbrown 3 жыл бұрын

How about RC on reset? charging capacitor holds reset low long enough after power is applied. Pressing reset button isn't difficult, I find the RC reset more elegant.

@Taurickk 3 жыл бұрын

It's amazing seeing the issues you ran into building this and realizing how much work went into the computer I'm typing this comment on. Also really cool seeing the CPU bottleneck here and an explanation of how/why that happens.

@killerguppy2988 3 жыл бұрын

Another absolutely amazing video. Informative and entertaining. Can't wait to see what you do with this next!

@crazyivan7884 3 жыл бұрын

Every time you post a video there's a little bit of joy that bubbles up in me. As ever - great video. The waiting time between each is really worth it. I wonder if you will ever couple this to your 8-bit breadboard computer.

@Sparkette 3 жыл бұрын

42:57 If the CPU is halted 70% of the time, you'd be getting 30% efficiency, not 70%, right?

@Fogolol 3 жыл бұрын

man built an entire computer, he's tired so he stumbled on his words

@tonysofla 3 жыл бұрын

70% inefficiency.

@DanielCharry1025 3 жыл бұрын

Please consider using the VIA timer for a buzzer or something. This absolute unit is ready for a videogame.

@GeertKok 3 жыл бұрын

I am glad you took the challenge to connect the projects. Very wonderful to see you solve the issues

@williamsquires3070 3 жыл бұрын

Hi Ben, this is an interesting series, as I learned 6502 assembler on an Apple ][+ way back in ‘78/‘79, so the 6502 has a special place in my heart. Some alternate strategies for this: 1) use a dedicated “video/CRT-controller” chip to do the heavy lifting (ex: the Vic II (Commodore Vic 20/C64), TMS9918 (TI 99/4A), Propellor (PE6502 kit), PPU (Nintendo NES), or 2) interleaved frames so only every other line gets drawn, giving the 6502 more processing time.) (used by the Gigatron) 3) a separate RAM chip that shares the same address bus, but it’s data bus is used solely by the video circuitry. This would require some sort of video synchronization buffer that would take write requests from the 6502 in the range $2000-$3FFF and stuff the data into a FIFO buffer, then - in the time interval currently used by the current design - the bytes would be taken out of the FIFO buffer and stuffed into the video RAM while the video circuitry isn’t drawing anything (end of each horizontal line.) This way, the 6502 can) run at full speed; a problem with the current design as it’s questionable what would happen if an interrupt (NMI or IRQ) were to happen while DMA-bar was asserted, halting the 6502. 4) bite the bullet and use dynamic RAM instead of static RAM; then the video counters could be used to generate the RAS/CAS lines needed by dynamic RAM, and you could interleave memory access between the 6502 (clock phase 0), and the dynamic RAM refresh/video circuitry (clock phase 1). On a related note, you could use a 74LS90 decade counter to divide the video clock by 10 to get the CPU clock! This would eliminate the 1 MHz crystal oscillator, and synchronize the two clock signals.

@Icelink256 3 жыл бұрын

That comb effect is common, when you write Atari 2600 games, that do just a little too much, per scanline. The most well-known game with that artifact, is Atari's own Pac Man.

@eekee6034 2 жыл бұрын

Good point! It's odd no-one else brought that up.

@nickstuffinc 3 жыл бұрын

I would love to see the "game of life" on here.

@Roxor128 3 жыл бұрын

The required double-buffering might be a bit tricky to implement, though.

@user-me7hx8zf9y 3 жыл бұрын

Conway would weep.

@ianwyrdness1380 3 жыл бұрын

@@Roxor128 You can do it without double buffering. Back in the 80's, I wrote a quite efficient version in Motorola 68000 assembly that avoided the need for double buffering by only redrawing the cells that had changed.

@MrMaxeemum 3 жыл бұрын

I absolutely love this video series. I find It is so easy to follow your electronic explanations but I fall behind a bit with the software side, I understand eventually but I find "8-Bit Show And Tell" easier to understand which I think is due to the pace rather that the different architecture. But I still love your work. Thumbs up.

@michaelwoods7144 3 жыл бұрын

I just recently found your channel and I love your content. It also makes me really appreciate that we used Logisim instead of breadboards when I took computer organization and architecture!

@joejia1410 3 жыл бұрын

Ben must have seen the stock on other graphics cards, pooped himself, then proceeded to make his own. Neatly.

@no1leader135 3 жыл бұрын

What an amazing video. I love how you combined this video card with a 6502 and little bit of electronics.

@WalterMiller 8 ай бұрын

Old video cards always struggled with full memory re-writes. That's why they used things like sprites, tiles, and palette effects. You should add in a colour palette then do some fun animations with colour cycling.

@ScientificSolutions 3 жыл бұрын

Love this video stuff, thanks for the nice descriptive tour! Hmmm, I don’t see enough decoupling capacitors though; there should be one at every chip.

@lemonglataitor2123 3 жыл бұрын

I have been watching for years now and i think i finally need to get one of these amazing kits this christmas!

@leobottaro 3 жыл бұрын

This is awesome Ben! as a embedded system developer, I am amazed with what you achieved! Please program pong in it :)

@xxlabratxx01 3 жыл бұрын

Well worth the watch. Diagnostic section in particular. Thank you

@anthonyortiz7924 Жыл бұрын

Ben, this is amazing stuff... I love these videos, keep up the great work!

@Myndale 3 жыл бұрын

Ben: what kind of keyboard are you using? Sounds like a good programmer keyboard.

@Artillect0 3 жыл бұрын

It sounds a lot like an IBM Model M, but it could be a keyboard with blue switches. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me about mechanical keyboards could tell you exactly what it is

@roninkoi 3 жыл бұрын

I have a Model M replica, but this doesn't sound like a Model M. The sound is too high and clicky

@simeondermaats 3 жыл бұрын

It definitely sounds like a keyboard with blue switches. I find browns a bit nicer for typing, but that's mostly personal preference.

@Setsuna_Kyoura 3 жыл бұрын

I think it's definitely an IBM Model M. I have an original Model M from 1987 (gray badge) and it sounds EXACTLY like his in the video.

@der.Schtefan 3 жыл бұрын

I could listen to him for hours, and every time an episode ends I panic and want more ;)

@user-ld7vl9sk4s 3 жыл бұрын

same

@AlexanderMLarsen 2 жыл бұрын

Ive been looking for this channel for so long!

@bugmuff 6 ай бұрын

This blows my mind. So awesome. I’ve learned so much from your videos, and every time I re watch I learn more. Could you ever run basic on this, and output a Commodore 64 style user interface?

@AsraelDragon 2 жыл бұрын

Seeing this system go from "ultra basic" to "dynamically drawing onto a screen" has been quite a journey! It really makes me feel like I'm in the pioneering age of computers again.

@phip1611 3 жыл бұрын

Hi Ben! Greetings from Germany! I just want to say thank you for your high quality content! I'm a cs student from TU Dresden. The courses are generally pretty good, but nothing compared to the kind of videos you make. So thanks! :)

@Anvilshock 3 жыл бұрын

A CS student who voluntarily exposes his identity on the internet. Maybe change your field into Applied Arts and develop the next Fontus, why don't you?

@phip1611 3 жыл бұрын

@@Anvilshock thank you for your good proposal. I definitely going to think about it ;)

@user-ld7vl9sk4s 3 жыл бұрын

finally a normal commenter

@WistrelChianti 3 жыл бұрын

Fantastically explained! Loved the step by step discussion of how how to investigate and solve the problems.

@stylesoftware 3 жыл бұрын

I've been watching a while, I enjoy your videos. It actually helps me under programming VGA for FPGA's, which im new at, very cool.

@AL_O0 3 жыл бұрын

Could using the “back porch” signal for getting control of the bus rather than using the vertical blanking signal be a better way of dealing with the artifacting at the start of each scan line, or would that be too impractical?

@rickdearman9992 3 жыл бұрын

Yeah that is what I was thinking.

@josugambee3701 3 жыл бұрын

Seems like you could divide the graphics clock down to drive the CPU. That way you can decode the pixel counter and halt the CPU when the graphics card is about to grab the bus.

@cezarydudek6156 3 жыл бұрын

@@josugambee3701 Would it be appropriate then to call this a CPU with integrated video card, or rather a video card with integrated CPU?

@shinyhappyrem8728 3 жыл бұрын

@@cezarydudek6156 It becomes one system with integrated CPU and graphics card.

@ronaldddoooo 3 жыл бұрын

@@cezarydudek6156 2020: integrated graphics card 2030: integrated CPU

@weepgamer 3 жыл бұрын

I've been checking your channel so much recently to see when this video comes out, and it's finally here!!!

@dudeyouhavenoidea 3 жыл бұрын

I always get motivation from this channel, man I love you ❤

@carloslavrado 3 жыл бұрын

Only channel that I receive notifications from. Amazing work

@simonscott1121 3 жыл бұрын

I didnt think you could instantly silence a 6502 like that Ben, the c64 has a bunch of logic around it (for sprite DMA that occurs on the first half of the cycle, and also reading the character pointers) because the 6502 will only pause on the next *read* cycle.... if it is writing, it will continue. In fact, the writes may be 1-3 cycles, depending on the instruction that is completing, which would kinda match what you're seeing on the left hand side of the screen? Also, might be easier to divide down the video clock to run the CPU??? Awesome series man, loving it.

@pseudocup2848 3 жыл бұрын

This new Dr. Stone episode is looking epic

@sebastianweigand Жыл бұрын

Thanks! Love the content! I'd love to see a follow-up video that updates the output protocol from VGA to DVI, just to show the evolution of electronic standards. Might be annoyingly difficult, but then again, so is building a computer and video card using breadboards!

@KirbyZhang Жыл бұрын

my guess is it will have much faster timings than 6502

@SytheZN 3 жыл бұрын

Loving this series! Please add dedicated video memory and buffer it in so the cpu and vpu can work (mostly) simultaneously

@bustaballs 3 жыл бұрын

Next video: Ben is thrown on a desert island and has to make a computer from scratch purely out of the resources available on the island.

@Fuartianer 3 жыл бұрын

I think Ben is just short for "beding all these cables". Nice video!

@Tims_Projects 9 ай бұрын

Love your channel, I'm a few years late, but you have done grate work. You made it verry easy to understand.

@NickDeFrangh 3 жыл бұрын

This is super interesting, love the video series!

@charlesjmouse 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for this interesting and enjoyable series, much appreciated. If you happen to develop this theme further might I suggest a version where the RAM is driven twice as fast as the VGA logic and CPU, the two synchronised to the same clock? CPU and VGA can then alternate access to RAM so simplifying the logic and allowing the CPU to run at full speed... -Current design a method for sharing access where RAM/ROM is slow (typical of more basic retro systems) -Suggested scheme being one method to simplify / gain efficiency where RAM is fast enough (BBC Micro an example) -It might then be a "fun" jumping-off point for what to do if RAM is fast enough but ROM isn't Thanks again.

@Passiday 3 жыл бұрын

Well, that was one hell of a hack. Even the wires got messy.

@alvamiga 9 ай бұрын

I was only generally interested in this, but it proved to be very informative, explaining a lot of things I knew about from my old computers, but not the express reasons. There's obviously a lot that can be done to improve it, but better people than me have already done the hard work! ;)

@dedr4m 3 жыл бұрын

Absolutely loving these series. Getting the video bit I'd not of thought how to do so, whereas I'd probably of used a different approach using 2 banks of RAM memory mapped to a byte for controlling what bank is to be written to, or made a DMA circuit as you did and add to the circuit a quick way to mirror the current memory into the current bank as a kinda local cache (Kinda how oldskool VGA used to with the bank flipping and bank scrolling modes with their onboard RAM mirroring system RAM at location 0x0000000Ah of the main memory map). . Also in theory, your VGA+CPU could be combined as one GPU processing unit to allow an independent CPU to do more independent processing, i.e. fill GPU RAM banks, then recall individual banks when needed thus leaving the main CPU to not need to do all the rendering. Can't wait to see where you take this next :)

@karmanyaahm 3 жыл бұрын

AMD showing their smart memory access in 2020 while this 6502 supports direct memory access Ik one is gpu to cpu vs cpu to gpu

@retroand 3 жыл бұрын

What about having isolated VRAM and using 74157 to select what address/control signals are going in? That would solve the problem.

@aydna3317 3 жыл бұрын

That is of course a better approach and closer to what modern video cards are doing. But I think Ben here is trying to make something that is similar to early computers and is as simple as possible.

@retroand 3 жыл бұрын

@@aydna3317 As modern as a Commodore PET... 😁

@toto123456ish 3 жыл бұрын

@@retroand Doesn't he mention this possibility in the previous video?

@retroand 3 жыл бұрын

@@toto123456ish Maybe, but has he used the approach Commodore and many, many other manufacturers 40+ years ago did? I think it would be great to see the 6502 syncing with that circuit without flaws. He has already done the most challenging part which is the video system itself. For this reason I still don't understand why wouldn't he improve the interface just a little more. It could also be useful as an example of shared memory.

@retroand 3 жыл бұрын

@lass kinn The contest was lost before he started building this. Later PETs can destroy the monitor (killer poke) and I heard the Sinclair QL video system can be destroyed by just unplugging the video connector while the computer is running (I have a couple of them but don't prettend I'm going to try 😁). So, nothing worse than those. His series about the video circuit are inspiring, it's just I feel this could be improved greatly without being that expensive on the component side. As a remark, this can't be called a GPU (too primitive). Video system (or subsystem) is a better term.

@brunogallichand2444 3 жыл бұрын

Many thanks for this great video!! Amazing job. I know that the Amiga was great in a way that engineers actually used the custom video processor to do tasks during VBI (called the copper) while the 68000 main cpu was doing other stuff; great parallelism, and great thinking for optimization! Gotta love these 80's computers. Cheers.

@Christopher-ew7jw 3 жыл бұрын

This is a fantastic series. I can't watch it all until after finals, but I'm already blown away.

@blahdelablah 3 жыл бұрын

To fix the visual issues and improve performance, could you have two display buffers, have one you're displaying and another you're updating, and switch between these buffers at the end of the display cycle?

@researchandbuild1751 Жыл бұрын

Exactly what I was thinking, would actually be pretty easy to implement too, and less coordination required between CPU and Vid, just a simple memory "swap" clock cycle.

@Squib 3 жыл бұрын

The output at 25:03 is such an aesthetic

@Sotch_Nam 3 жыл бұрын

would love to have a high resolution screenshot of it, but then I remembered we're working with this breadplate pc

@Blodsukkerskolen Жыл бұрын

Awesome!! Tnx. I built an house computer 1990-ish with an 8 bit microcontroller for controlling temperatures in a house. This have been an great memory trip back in time. Back then we wrote all code direct as assembler code but it worked.

@danny_racho 3 жыл бұрын

Hey Ben! I really love watching your videos, since you go through every detail and most importantly you read data sheets, that can be very tricky to decipher sometimes. I am not supporting you on Patreon or anything, since I am still a student, but I would like to kindly ask you, if you can make one video or more about Op Amps, for instance the non-inverting or integrator and go through some data sheets and tell us how to pick the right resistors wisely and cascade or even use them as Analog Controllers! Nobody is stressing this subject anymore, since we have nowadays all the digital controllers, which take all the fun in building one on our own! :) Maybe just taking that into consideration.

@Alberto-sv1ou 3 жыл бұрын

Already know this is gonna be fire

@thargy 3 жыл бұрын

I love that you’re sharing this skill set that will too easily become a lost art. I particularly like how you work through the problem solving, showing the problem, proposing a solution and testing. These skills are so vital even in today’s modern development teams. Thanks for your efforts!

@Dynamic_Flyer 2 жыл бұрын

What a great series of videos! I’d really like to see a video where Ben modifies this design so that the CPU and graphics card access dedicated video RAM on alternate CPU clock cycles, then he could compare the performance of that approach with this current setup.

@Ammothief41 3 жыл бұрын

These kits are amazing. Thanks!

@jakesnell7707 3 жыл бұрын

covid 19: *starts* ben: “time to build a computer and graphics card from scratch”

@scottlarson1548 3 жыл бұрын

Now I know why old computers never used separate clocks for the video and the CPU. It's a quick way to make small problems that are hard to solve.

@Havron 4 ай бұрын

Indeed. I was wondering why he didn't just use the 2's place on the horizontal counter as the clock for the computer part. Since the computer is running at 10 MHz and the video card at 40 MHz, and the horizontal counter is running continuously and its max count (264) is divisible by 2, that pin is running at a perfect 10 MHz already and is also synced with the video card's clock. So, in theory, he could have avoided all that clock sync logic by simply using that pin from the counter as the computer's clock. However, I suppose that the video would have been less edifying and fun without all the clock sync troubleshooting, though. EDIT: Whoops, I made a boo-boo: The video card is actually running at 10 MHz and the computer at 1 MHz. So, no, those won't divide evenly as a power of two, although they do divide evenly in general. So, you could solve this by setting up a little decade counter circuit, or just run the CPU at 1.25 MHz via the 4's place in the horizontal counter (since 264 is also divisible by 4). I would have given the latter a try, assuming there isn't anything particular about the 6502 that requires it to run at exactly 1 MHz. Indeed, according to a quick Google search, the 6502 can run at any clock speed between 1 MHz and 3 MHz, so you could even run it at 2.5 MHz using the same 2's place pin as I had originally suggested, and get a 2.5x boost in processing speed to boot!