HP-IL with HP 82163A Video Interface

[MeindertKuipers]

(11-12-2023 10:45 AM)murphy9 Wrote:  Whilst waiting for some level controllers to arrive from China, to follow the work that folks are doing with the RPI Pico I wondered how we control the displays (OLED or VGA/HMI etc) is the 'easiest' thing to 'virtualise' the HP-IL Video Interface within the Pico and then use the Pico to drive a display, such as an OLED (or in extreme a VGA/HDMI).

Or do we use some microcode calls to create the functions to paint pixels on a screen?

All "above my paygrade" at the moment, but I thought this older thread might inspire some ideas around the ultiimate goal of giving the 41c a proper graphics capability. Perhaps the commands on the 48 or Prime is a possiblity for the graphing commands.

The obvious question is why not just use a Prime instead - well it's the same answer as why not an iphone. "Because" - because we like to push this 40 year plus device beyond anything it's original architects thought possible.

Welcome in the HP41-Pico world!
The steps to implement an HP-IL driven video interface are not so small. First you need a good HP-IL implementation on the Pico, and then an implementation of an HP-IL peripheral. And these are not small steps, but I intend to create an HP-IL interface in the Pico first, and use the existing IL tools available on a host computer for data exchange.
Another target for this configuration would be someting similar to the device in this thread: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-14041.html
Not sure if graphics is what you want for the HP41, but certainly not impossible. The quickest way is to simply create a new HP41 ROM and a graphics peripheral taht you can send commands to.

And certainly we can use other tools to create graphics, but that is not as much fun as building stuff for the HP41.