tty2oled Soft&Hardware Add-On (Shows Core based Pictures on a Display)

[RealLarry]

Yeah, the postal service has been failing pretty hard here the last months, with package delivery times constantly shifting days or even weeks. Apparently it is their customs department that is way behind. They are legally allowed to keep it for thirty days, but I've read messages online from people waiting for multiple months already or never getting their package after all. I have another package from the UK stuck there currently for a week.

It got a message from their app today, with a photo of the PCB package, it was supposed to be put in my mailbox today, but it still isn't there, now that it is almost evening.

...sound like you're located in the US - I've heard of terrible delivery times since months, especially by USPS. Damn fucking times these days

No, I'm in the Netherlands actually. The postal service here used to be pretty good. But now they are charging duty for any package value, instead of only for 22 Euro and over. Add to that that the UK is no longer part of the EU and their work load gets worse.

Uh, I see... That's a fucking EU/UK thing. And that's why I'm still ordering from China, despite of that European "22€ order". The Chinese companies are sending via the Netherlands, seeming to bypassing German customs and are arriving in ~10-14 days. No duty, no hassle, yust fun. Strange days.

[LamerDeluxe]

...sound like you're located in the US - I've heard of terrible delivery times since months, especially by USPS. Damn fucking times these days

No, I'm in the Netherlands actually. The postal service here used to be pretty good. But now they are charging duty for any package value, instead of only for 22 Euro and over. Add to that that the UK is no longer part of the EU and their work load gets worse.

Uh, I see... That's a fucking EU/UK thing. And that's why I'm still ordering from China, despite of that European "22€ order". The Chinese companies are sending via the Netherlands, seeming to bypassing German customs and are arriving in ~10-14 days. No duty, no hassle, yust fun. Strange days.

I noticed that as well. Orders from AliExpress come flying in in about eight days now. Apparently they are member of some organization (don't remember the details) that allows them to already add tax and bypass customs.

[RealLarry]

No, I'm in the Netherlands actually. The postal service here used to be pretty good. But now they are charging duty for any package value, instead of only for 22 Euro and over. Add to that that the UK is no longer part of the EU and their work load gets worse.

Uh, I see... That's a fucking EU/UK thing. And that's why I'm still ordering from China, despite of that European "22€ order". The Chinese companies are sending via the Netherlands, seeming to bypassing German customs and are arriving in ~10-14 days. No duty, no hassle, yust fun. Strange days.

I noticed that as well. Orders from AliExpress come flying in in about eight days now. Apparently they are member of some organization (don't remember the details) that allows them to already add tax and bypass customs.

Copy that. And that's why I'm a friend of the new silk road. Let's trade all together! It's a responsibility of all participating countries not to be drawn over the table (is that translating correct?).

[LamerDeluxe]

Uh, I see... That's a fucking EU/UK thing. And that's why I'm still ordering from China, despite of that European "22€ order". The Chinese companies are sending via the Netherlands, seeming to bypassing German customs and are arriving in ~10-14 days. No duty, no hassle, yust fun. Strange days.

I noticed that as well. Orders from AliExpress come flying in in about eight days now. Apparently they are member of some organization (don't remember the details) that allows them to already add tax and bypass customs.

Copy that. And that's why I'm a friend of the new silk road. Let's trade all together! It's a responsibility of all participating countries not to be drawn over the table (is that translating correct?).

That does seem like a good idea. The package wasn't delivered today, hopefully tomorrow.

[RealLarry]

...had a short night and some boredom, but verve for new pictures to fill the gaps, so here they are:

[LamerDeluxe]

Planning on finally assembling mine this weekend. My sleep this week sadly got wrecked by a severe allergic reaction to food coloring, never experienced that before.

Pro tip: Don't solder the headers on the Arduino before you have the PCB You might think you've soldered them on straight until you actually try to put them inside the holes of the PCB.

[RealLarry]

Planning on finally assembling mine this weekend. My sleep this week sadly got wrecked by a severe allergic reaction to food coloring, never experienced that before.

Oi, my compassion to you. Had similar things in the past, but after not-buying and consuming such crap these reactions are almost gone and I'm feeling like being 35 again - despite the fact that I'm still getting older

Pro tip: Don't solder the headers on the Arduino before you have the PCB You might think you've soldered them on straight until you actually try to put them inside the holes of the PCB.

Good point! And no need to solder all header points. For a good fit it's enough to solder the first and the last point of a row, plus the points where a track is leading to.
Crossing my fingers for you, but I'm very sure that you can do it. Welcome to your first tty2oled device!

[RealLarry]

...and so that none of my greedy kids get bored, I've made and uploaded some more GSC pictures. Its gap-filling weekend again!
Sorry, no preview, you have to do the update, a look at the protocol and to play these cores intensively!

[LamerDeluxe]

Planning on finally assembling mine this weekend. My sleep this week sadly got wrecked by a severe allergic reaction to food coloring, never experienced that before.

Oi, my compassion to you. Had similar things in the past, but after not-buying and consuming such crap these reactions are almost gone and I'm feeling like being 35 again - despite the fact that I'm still getting older

It was caused by stewed pears, part of some food we ordered, supposed to be stewed in port. It had a bit of a chemical taste. That's how I figured out that was probably the cause of it. The effect was like being stung by thousands of mosquitoes, I was covered in really itchy bumps like that (no scratching allowed) for days, being worst around 3-4am. Insane how the use of that coloring is even allowed.

Haha, I'm also not young anymore, most annoying is not being able to focus up-close anymore. But I have a magnifier desk lamp to help with soldering.

Pro tip: Don't solder the headers on the Arduino before you have the PCB You might think you've soldered them on straight until you actually try to put them inside the holes of the PCB.

Good point! And no need to solder all header points. For a good fit it's enough to solder the first and the last point of a row, plus the points where a track is leading to.
Crossing my fingers for you, but I'm very sure that you can do it. Welcome to your first tty2oled device!

Yeah, soldering shouldn't be a problem. Really looking forward to seeing it in action!

[RealLarry]

It was caused by stewed pears, part of some food we ordered, supposed to be stewed in port. It had a bit of a chemical taste. That's how I figured out that was probably the cause of it. The effect was like being stung by thousands of mosquitoes, I was covered in really itchy bumps like that (no scratching allowed) for days, being worst around 3-4am. Insane how the use of that coloring is even allowed.

I'm sure that these additives are allowed...in the appropriate dose. But who knows how drunk the cook was
I still remember with a shudder what we have swallowed down when we were young(er). Most of these additives are forbiiden now, but very late realization. We eat ourselves to death and they're earning millions for it. But not anymore. They should eat their money and perish themselves, we went for DIY food wherever possible, as well with soaps and other things.

Haha, I'm also not young anymore, most annoying is not being able to focus up-close anymore. But I have a magnifier desk lamp to help with soldering.

Hehe, as I'm doing with my magifier glasses, if necessary The first time I used them, I moved around, saw myself in a mirror and thought "Gosh, I'm looking like Chu!" ("Blade Runner")

[LamerDeluxe]

It was caused by stewed pears, part of some food we ordered, supposed to be stewed in port. It had a bit of a chemical taste. That's how I figured out that was probably the cause of it. The effect was like being stung by thousands of mosquitoes, I was covered in really itchy bumps like that (no scratching allowed) for days, being worst around 3-4am. Insane how the use of that coloring is even allowed.

I'm sure that these additives are allowed...in the appropriate dose. But who knows how drunk the cook was
I still remember with a shudder what we have swallowed down when we were young(er). Most of these additives are forbiiden now, but very late realization. We eat ourselves to death and they're earning millions for it. But not anymore. They should eat their money and perish themselves, we went for DIY food wherever possible, as well with soaps and other things.

Hahaha, now I understand what happened, the cook drank all the port, got drunk and used pure food coloring instead.
Yeah, the chemical lemonade we used to drink, wow. And so much candy. Wow, nice, I also am really careful now with synthetic ingredients in everything. I wasn't expecting it this time, only ate a little bit and it was already too late.

Haha, I'm also not young anymore, most annoying is not being able to focus up-close anymore. But I have a magnifier desk lamp to help with soldering.

Hehe, as I'm doing with my magifier glasses, if necessary The first time I used them, I moved around, saw myself in a mirror and thought "Gosh, I'm looking like Chu!" ("Blade Runner")

Hahaha, at least that is a really cool look.

[RealLarry]

Hey kids! It's dark and fucking cold outside. Better keep warm, cozy and safe at home, gaming with the fantastic MiSTer.
And to entertain you so that you don't do anything stupid outside home, here are even more new pictures for our great tty2oled device and the NeoGeo core. Have fun!

[LamerDeluxe]

Awesome! I've finished soldering. Caused myself a lot more work by having soldered the headers in advance, had to reflow all the contacts about five times and use some tricks to finally fit them on the PCB. Soldering the rest of the contacts was a piece of cake.

Cut off all the header legs, be careful, they go flying off potentially landing inside your electronics. I cut them inside a container and some still escaped.

Put a bit of electrical tape where the metal display mount touches the header contact. So I have the slim sandwich now, is there a case design for that yet?

Plugging it into my PC fortunately showed the TTY2OLED splash, so far so good. Currently installing the MiSTer software for it.

EDIT: Well it just stays on the splash screen forever. Time for some dinner first. I'll probably try flashing it again with the latest update.
EDIT2: With the latest Arduino project update I keep getting a missing bounce2.h file error.
EDIT3: I'm getting this message, which seems completely wrong:
usb 1-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 4
[ 294.720822] usb 1-1.3: new full-speed USB device number 5 using dwc2
[ 294.810646] usb 1-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=1a86, idProduct=55d4, bcdDevice= 4.43
[ 294.810668] usb 1-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 294.810680] usb 1-1.3: Product: USB Single Serial
[ 294.810689] usb 1-1.3: SerialNumber: 531C013836
[ 294.814594] cdc_acm 1-1.3:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
EDIT4: Does this mean my TTGO T8 1.7.1 has a different serial interface chip and will this not work with TTY2OLED?
EDIT6: It is working correctly from the Arduino console
EDIT7: Looks like this is the new replacement chip on the T8, because of the chip shortage: https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/09/14 ... rt-bridge/
EDIT8: lsusb output: Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1a86:55d4 QinHeng Electronics USB Single Serial
EDIT9: Experimenting. Starting tty2oled.sh with parameters:
Using Command Line Parameter
Using Interface: /dev/ttyACM0 with 115200 Baud
USBMODE: yes
Read CORENAME: -MENU-
Send -MENU- to /dev/ttyACM0.
Setting up watches.
Watches established.
/tmp/CORENAME MODIFY
Read CORENAME: -scramble-
Send -scramble- to /dev/ttyUSB0.
Setting up watches.
Watches established.

As you can see 'scramble' is sent to the wrong device. MENU didn't change the display content, but the brightness increased a lot.

[LamerDeluxe]

Haha, I'm stupid. Totally overlooked the device name in the user ini file. Now I have a cool menu graphic.
Wow, love the cool transition effects!

EDIT: MiSTer SAM died here, seems to be because I let update_all update it. Arcade Attract still works though, this is so cool. I looked for a postcard of my city last week, but apparently they don't exist anymore (not a city tourists would visit). Next time I'm at the large city nearby I'll pick up and send a postcard.

[RealLarry]

Haha, I'm stupid. Totally overlooked the device name in the user ini file. Now I have a cool menu graphic.
Wow, love the cool transition effects!

EDIT: MiSTer SAM died here, seems to be because I let update_all update it. Arcade Attract still works though, this is so cool. I looked for a postcard of my city last week, but apparently they don't exist anymore (not a city tourists would visit). Next time I'm at the large city nearby I'll pick up and send a postcard.

Great that you did it, welcome on board! But I'm wondering that your device identifys itself as /dev/ttyACM0 . I'll have a talk to @venice about that.
EDIT: You already wrote it that they replaced the serial UART chip. Most of them are "ttyUSBx" ones, but some are not. And that's why we are using this as a changable parameter in the INI file Who known what's coming next?

[RealLarry]

I have reworked the sheet to complement many missing <setname> core names and while being there I've build some new pictures for future cores. To watch them you can use the tty2oled_cc.sh tool, which resides in /media/fat/tty2oled/, or simply use the new and fantastic online viewer at https://venice1200.github.io/MiSTer_tty2oled_Pictures/

[venice]

Haha, I'm stupid. Totally overlooked the device name in the user ini file. Now I have a cool menu graphic.
Wow, love the cool transition effects!

Congratulations and many thanks for your detailed explanation

It looks to me your TTGO uses some kind of an CH34x USB-Serial controller.

Code: Select all

idVendor=1a86, idProduct=55d4, bcdDevice= 4.43

https://usb-ids.gowdy.us/read/UD/1a86

Could you try to identify the chip?

The library bounce2 is needed actually if you compile the Arduino by yourself.
I forgot the bounce2 library in the documentation,sorry
The library is used with a digital input pin and a tilt sensor for Auto-Rotation of the display during usage.

[LamerDeluxe]

Haha, I'm stupid. Totally overlooked the device name in the user ini file. Now I have a cool menu graphic.
Wow, love the cool transition effects!

Congratulations and many thanks for your detailed explanation

It looks to me your TTGO uses some kind of an CH34x USB-Serial controller.

Code: Select all

idVendor=1a86, idProduct=55d4, bcdDevice= 4.43

https://usb-ids.gowdy.us/read/UD/1a86

Could you try to identify the chip?

Thanks Venice, and thank you for creating this, it is really cool.
The chip is the CH9102 (P or F, it is quite hard to see), like in the article I linked. It is a drop-in replacement because of the chip shortage. From what I see it is mostly the same, apparently capable of handling greater speeds, but without built-in memory to set a custom device name. And it presents itself as ttyACM0 instead of ttyUSB0, but it looks like it works fine with TTY2OLED.

The library bounce2 is needed actually if you compile the Arduino by yourself.
I forgot the bounce2 library in the documentation,sorry
The library is used with a digital input pin and a tilt sensor for Auto-Rotation of the display during usage.

Good to know, thanks! I thought the version on my Arduino might be too old already, as I installed all that a month ago. But it turns out everything is fine and updating nicely from MiSTer.

Does all the artwork get imported when updating with the MiSTer scripts? Because I kept a list of arcade games that didn't show any artwork, so I could create it and add it here.

And thanks @RealLarry! It was a bit of journey, but the result is worth it!

[LamerDeluxe]

I made a simple stand out of electrical wire. It does the job and is easily detachable.
EDIT: Can't post the photos without the site certificate. I'll post them when that's fixed.
EDIT2: I'm getting Error CMDTEXT and Error CMDGEO on the display when using the latest MiSTer SAM, installed manually.

[venice]

The CMD Error’s are related to the different usage between the Monochrome and new Greylevel program.

I will open an issue at the MiSter SAM’s GitHub Repo later.

[LamerDeluxe]

The CMD Error’s are related to the different usage between the Monochrome and new Greylevel program.

I will open an issue at the MiSter SAM’s GitHub Repo later.

I partly fixed it here by updating the parameters in the SAM sh script. The geometry is drawn at the wrong place at the moment though.

[venice]

Cool.
If you can add your changes to my Github Issue here https://github.com/mrchrisster/MiSTer_SAM/issues/95 .
If you can't post them here an I will add them.

[LamerDeluxe]

Cool.
If you can add your changes to my Github Issue here https://github.com/mrchrisster/MiSTer_SAM/issues/95 .
If you can't post them here an I will add them.

Done. Only pasted the updated parts, that code quoting system is terrible

Looks like some other parts of SAM broke as well, because of updates to core menus.

[LamerDeluxe]

Updated my stand message with photos

[RealLarry]

Does all the artwork get imported when updating with the MiSTer scripts? Because I kept a list of arcade games that didn't show any artwork, so I could create it and add it here.

Not this way. You got an update_tty2oled.sh script in PATH (/media/fat/Scripts/) when you installed the tty2oled software. Just run this sometimes to get the newest pictures, tty2oled software and devices's firmware. Dare and try that, can't break - normally

And thanks @RealLarry! It was a bit of journey, but the result is worth it!

Nothing to thank for. You are welcome.

[RealLarry]

THIS IS THE END! I've done some even more pictures, the last ones for this year I think. Only <10% left over of the sheet!

[LamerDeluxe]

Uh oh, was just working on some of those as well
Here they are.

[RealLarry]

Uh oh, was just working on some of those as well
Here they are.

Thanks, mate! Yeah, I did a whole bunch today
I'll take apart you pictures tomorrow. If they're better, I'll exchange them, if there are as good as mine, yours will get an extension (xxx_alt1.gsc) so they're randomly displayd. Hooray and a bottle of rum!

[Moondandy]

Wow, good effort! It looks like these are the only Arcade ones that are live in main that don't have any image:

Jin jin
Konek konek
Koroleva koroleva
Kot kot
Mr.Do's Nightmare ? A.GALAXN
Omega omegab
Pisces pisces
River Patrol rpatrol
Rygar: Legendary Warrior
S.O.S. S.O.S.
Snezhnaja Koroleva koroleva
Spatter spatter
Speed Coin spdcoin
Vball

And here are the Jotego ones, but some haven't been made yet but announced:
Bandit bandit
Center Court cencourt
Defense defense
Juuouki
Labyrinth Runner/Trick Trap
Major League mjleague
Pacmania pacmania
Passing Shot
SDI sdib
Splatterhouse
Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold
Sukeban Jansi Ryuko sjryuko1
Sukeban Jansi Ryuko sjryuko
Super League
Tatsujin
Tetris
Waku Waku U. R. ultracin

And I think these are released from Blackwine but not in Main yet (excluding Neo Geo), but someone who is a patron of his would need to check:
UFO Senshi Youko Chan
Warball
Super Xevious

For Non arcade we are pretty much covered, only one you can install and run with no image is:
Super Jacob.

These ones I would expect in the not too distant future though:
CoCo 3
Epoch Cassette Vision
NeoGeo Pocket Color
Tatung Einstein TC-01

[rbz]

I made a simple stand out of electrical wire. It does the job and is easily detachable.

Very clever!