"Six Clock Cycle per Pixel - Graphics on the Neotron Pico"
summary
Generates 640×480 VGA from a $4 Raspberry Pi Pico family MCU using PIO and DMA, claiming about six clock cycles per pixel and an 80×25 color text renderer that colorizes glyphs via a 2k lookup table. Uses dual cores (one fills text buffer, one rasterizes into two scanline buffers), PIO programs for sync, and DMA to feed pins. Porting to the newer RP2350 yields full 16-color output; demos show ELF program loading, WAV playback and Amiga-style 4-channel sample music running successfully.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:23Embedded video fascination
- 3:13How cathode ray tube monitors work
- 5:09VGA timing constraints
- 7:05Pico hardware overview
- 8:33Video with resistors and PIO
- 9:49Text mode and colors
- 11:16Shared memory between cores
- 12:28Six clock cycles per pixel
- 14:21PIO and DMA roles
- 15:55Two-core scan-line buffers
- 17:36Technical challenges and RP2350
- 19:14Live demo of features
- 20:49ANSI graphics demos
- 21:35Audio chip tune experiments
- 22:50Final demo and closing
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