PropMonitor

Home Up VNC2 Adafruit RGB LED Matrix Visual Spin YModem Wavetable Midi Player Prop EKG Basic Window/Form System PropMonitor 1-Bit Bitmaps 6-Bit Bitmaps DAC Sparkfun Nokia LCD Cameras MP3 Wireless JuiceBox I/O Expansion Via I2C Secure Digital (SD) Card Interface Notes on Graphics_Demo.spin ADC 2-Bit Bitmap App TV Colors Interleaved Character Generator 4-Color Character Applet VGA Colors Applets

 

bullet

PropMonitor is a debugging tool for the Propeller.

bullet

PropMonitor is useful if you want to see what the VGA output would look like, without connecting a monitor.

bullet

Download the PropMonitor1a driver and example usage code here.

bullet

Basically, it copies a regular VGA screen over a serial connection to the PC.  But, because it only sends pointers to the internal font, it can update the screen very quickly, even in XGA (768x1024) mode.

bullet

Screenshot: 

bullet

Usage:

bullet
Easiest way is to use "vga_text_monitor1a" in place of "vga_text" and use as normal.  This way is hard-coded to use pin 30 to transmit the screen.  See PropMonitor1a_test5 for example usage.
bullet
Otherwise, just use the "VGA" driver object as usual, but add the "PropMonitor1a" object too.
bullet
Then, call the "start" function of PropMonitor1a and pass the address of VGA parameters, a character to indicate screen type ("V"=vga, "X"=xga), and the pin to send serial data over.
bullet
It is convenient to use pin 30 if you already have a serial connection for use with the PropTool.
bullet
To avoid interference with the PropTool, PropMonitor closes the serial port when the window is minimized. 
bullet

Notes:

bullet
PropMonitor requires 2 cogs, one for serial coms and one to stream data.
bullet
PropMonitor communicates with the PC at 256000 baud.
bullet
PropMonitor uses Parallax's own font to display characters in a way very close to what you would see with a monitor.
bullet
You can select between regular and large font to change the size of the window.
bullet
You can begin auto-updating the display once per second with the "Start" button and stop with the "Stop" button.
bullet
Or, you can just grab one update with the "Update Once" button.
bullet
PropMonitor only transmits data in a stream, it does not receive any data from the PC.  So, only one pin is required.