VGA Text for Papilio One (got error when trying to Implement)


Haider

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Hi,

 

last day I was interesting to implement VGA driver in FPGA using Papilio board there is a tutorial written by alvie about using ZPUINO to drive VGA LCD display, it's a great tutorial for newbie and beginner but it's like using Arduino with some line of c code to show hello world,

I want something written in VHDL, by the way I find this one

 

http://papilio.cc/index.php?n=Playground.VGAGenerator

 

 

VGA_Text_Generator1.jpg

 

written by Kevin Lindsey   after download the source code for Github, I try to implement the top module for VGA Text when I use Xilinx 14.5 when I open the vga_text.xise I got this message image.png

 

I choose Backup and Migrate   When I try to implement the top module I got this error

image.jpg

 

Why this error show to me also I want to ask some question about this source code because I want to understand the fundamentals of how it’s work Q1/ I  understand this file like font library for the character used to show on display  font_unit - font_rom - arch (font_rom.vhd) as example     

		-- code x32		"00000000", -- 0		"00000000", -- 1		"01111100", -- 2  *****		"11000110", -- 3 **   **		"00000110", -- 4      **		"00001100", -- 5     **		"00011000", -- 6    **		"00110000", -- 7   **		"01100000", -- 8  **		"11000000", -- 9 **		"11000110", -- a **   **		"11111110", -- b *******		"00000000", -- c		"00000000", -- d		"00000000", -- e		"00000000", -- f

  This code used to print 2 on screen but how to call it I mean the way to print number 2 by call “code x32” or what ? Can someone explain to me how to print hello world by using this code on screen and how to change its location or color

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Regarding the error message: I can't read it in your post, it just shows up as "?" for some reason.

 

Regarding how to "call" it:  The "Code x32" means "character code 0x32".  That is, when the value 50 (0x32) is found in the video_ram, the corresponding font data (what you quoted above) is displayed on the screen.  So the question for you is how to get the codes for "hello world" into the video_ram.

 

It looks like emitCharCodes.pl is part of that process.  I think it's used to generate a new video_ram.coe file, and then you build the whole thing using ISE.

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what about this error message

NgdBuild:604 - logical block 'font_gen_unit/frame_buffer_unit' with type 'video_ram' could not be resolved. A pin name misspelling can cause this, a missing edif or ngc file, case mismatch between the block name and the edif or ngc file name, or the misspelling of a type name. Symbol 'video_ram' is not supported in target 'spartan6'.
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Yeah, I can see that.  I don't know exactly what's causing the error but my guess is:  That 'video_ram' was meant for the Spartan-3 FPGA found in the Papilio One board, and not the Spartan-6 FPGA you're building it for.

 

A lot of Verilog or VHDL code is portable, but some things which use vendor primitives might not be.  And it looks like video_ram is one of those; see "https://github.com/thelonious/vga_generator/blob/master/vga_text/ipcore_dir/video_ram.v".

 

I see two options for fixing it:  (a) Use Xilinx's core generator to make one that will be suitable for Spartan-6; or (B) write one which can be inferred and therefore will be more portable.  I would usually choose (B) but I'm afraid neither (a) nor (B) is really easy.  (a) is explained in chapter 15 of the eBook linked here: 

http://forum.gadgetfactory.net/index.php?/page/articles.html/_/papilio/logicstart-megawing/intro-to-spartan-fpga-ebook-r34

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Thanks for explain , Now I see this much complicated than what I expect,

 

I have  Intro to Spartan FPGA eBook about FPGA, I print it on A4 paper  :lol:  and read 3 or 4 paper in home or work when I have time but till now I didn't done 15% of the book so I thing I'm still newbile to understand your answer, it's really different when someone move from MCU to FPGA but I'll continue try.

 

Thanks for helping Jaxartes.

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Hello Haider,

 

There are much easier solutions for writing text to VGA output on the Papilio using DesignLab. Please take a look at the VGA examples in the table of contents in DesignLab.

 

Also, here is some more information, it predates DesignLab but is still applicable.

http://papilio.cc/index.php?n=Papilio.VGAWingIntroduction

 

Jack.

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