The
STIGLitz Project
|
|
|
The
STIGLitz Project
|
|
|
The STIGLitz project uses an Atmel Atmega 128 8-bit microcontroller running at 20 MHz to generate a monochrome NTSC video signal with STI and simple hardware. It provides a 256 by 240 pixel frame-buffer-based display with two bits per pixel and rendering of lines, circles, sprites and text. It reclaims the time between pixel-output operations for graphics primitive rendering and serial communication use, increasing the system's graphics performance by a factor of 4x to 13x. This MPEG movie captured from the video output shows the results. STIGLitz hardware, shown to the right, is simple and inexpensive. It leverages a fast but inexpensive microcontroller by using software thread integration, a compiler technology which merges multiple functions into one implicitly multithreaded function. More information on STI is available here. |
 |
For a more detailed description of STIGLitz please refer to the extended documentation listed in the resources below.
|
Gregory Parsons, a graduate student at NCSU, has developed GregPONG, a four-player game based on the Stiglitz environment. The game is akin to the 1970’s video game PONG except that it allows anywhere from one to four players. GregPONG includes sound effects, and can also play music. Take a look! |
 |
CESR is the Center for Embedded Systems Research in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0133690 and donations from Atmel and BITS. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
| Documents | Software | Hardware | Tools |
| STIGLitz Manual | STIGLitz Code release 1.1 | Schematic v1.1 (GIF, .sch for ExpressSCH) | aiSee |
| Extended Documentation | Thrint.exe (warning: experimental) and avr.isa | PC Board Layout v1.1 (top GIF, bottom GIF, .pcb for ExpressPCB) | avrgcc |
| "Extending STI for Demanding Hard-Real-Time Systems," Welch, Kanaujia, Seetharam, Thirumalai, Dean CASES 2003 | cygwin |
 |
 |
 |
Please note that the decoupling capacitors have not been installed in this board yet.
Robert Lacoste, "PIC'Spectrum Audio Spectrum Analyzer," Circuit Cellar, September 1998, #98, pp. 24-31
Robert Lacoste, "The XY-Plotter: Drive High-Resolution LCDs for Less," Circuit Cellar, September 2003, #133, pp. 42-51
Ricard Gunee,
"Software Generated Video," http://www.rickard.gunee.com/projects/
Don Lancaster,
Cheap Video Cookbook, Howard W. Sams & Co. Inc., 1978
Don Lancaster,
Don Lancaster's Tech Musings, #134, 1999, www.tinaja.com
Bruce Land,
"AVR Video Generator: Teaching Programming and Graphics," Circuit
Cellar, January 2003, #150, pp. 40-43
David Thomas,
http://dt.prohosting.com/pic/pong.html
and http://dt.prohosting.com/pic/vidclock.html
Alberto Riccibitti,
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/3632/dvm.htm
Eric Smith,
PIC-Tock and PIC-Pong, http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/pic/
Ubicom Video
Virtual Peripheral Design Challenge and Contest, http://www.sxlist.com/techref/ubicom/contests.htm
Tom Napier,
"Use Frequency Modulation to Send ASCII Data," Circuit Cellar,
January 2003, #150, pp. 12-16