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A project log for $5 Graphics Card For Homebrew Z80

Using a Pi Zero, I want to create a cheap keyboard interface and graphics card for my RC2014 homebrew computer

spencerspencer 02/19/2016 at 21:267 Comments

Ok, so the Pi Zero Contest is drawing to a close and I wanted to get one final update in before that ends. However, that doesn't mean that this is the end of this project for me. Sure, I've achieved something quite useful, but looking further ahead I see a real future for this little board.

Currently, I can plug my RC2014 in to a USB keyboard, VGA monitor (via adapter) and a power supply, wait 30 seconds then start up a terminal session and I'm ready to start punching in BASIC commands. That is pretty much what I wanted to achieve, so on that basis, I am happy.

But that doesn't mean that I am satisfied. There are a lot of tweaks and changes I plan to make. In no paticular order, this is what I want to do before I consider this complete;

Once I'm happy with all of that, I just need to try duplicating micro SD cards, get a bunch of boards made up and I can add it to the other RC2014 products on Tindie!

All of this will take a bit of time, and right now I don't seem to have enough of that. But hopefully soon I'll be able to update this project with the progress I've made.

Finally, I realize that this competition is mainly for fun, and I although I never had any real aspirations of winning, here's a photo of my cat Bartlett with my Raspberry Pi Zero... just in case the judges like things like that ;-)

Discussions

David Kuder wrote 03/01/2016 at 22:17 point

don't use rc.local to start screen. setup your autologin via the preferred method for your chosen distro (/etc/inittab usually, but systemd on other systems)
see http://elinux.org/RPi_Debian_Auto_Login )

then in your .bashrc you can check if the tty is tty1 and start screen only if it is.
maybe add something like this to the end of your .bashrc:
[[ $TERM != "screen" ]] && exec screen -q

also remove the console=ttyS0,.... option from your cmdlines.txt so it doesn't boot with the serial outputting kernel messages.

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spencer wrote 03/03/2016 at 18:50 point

Thanks David, I'll give that a go and report back here when it's working :-)

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Die, Master Monkey! wrote 03/01/2016 at 19:23 point

Record collection approved!! I bet there's a "Switched On Bach" in there. ;)

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spencer wrote 03/03/2016 at 18:49 point

Well spotted, but sorry to disappoint, but that's not a record collection in the background.  It's my laserdisc collection :-)

Oh wait... that makes me sound like even more of a geek.  Oh well :-)

(Oh, and congratulations on winning a Pi Zero in this competition!)

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Die, Master Monkey! wrote 03/03/2016 at 22:30 point

Geek limit exceeded! :) (thx btw!)

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Steve Smith wrote 02/20/2016 at 10:11 point

Your cat clinches it for me :D

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spencer wrote 03/03/2016 at 18:47 point

Cats for the win, every time!

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