Has anyone ever purchased one of these displays before? I’d like to make a 1 to 1 or close to 1 to 1 display if possible. The original machine was ran at a resolution of 300x290 at 50hz to the best of my knowledge. I’d love any help or guidance on getting the display. I have a budget for the display of around $2500 I hope that is enough? I’m thinking of using p2.5 panels to make the display but I’m unsure as to how they are driven and the options for driving them. I think a 2.5mm pitch would make the display acceptable for close view as well as at distance.
The graphics are super simple and designed to be viewed with scan lines, so the 2.5mm pitch will actually be a blessing more than an issue in me mind as it will read as scan lines. Also the scale will make things easier to see as well.
Example of Graphics: http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade/Snap/big/Warlords_-1980-_Atari.jpg
I’m imagining the castles will be around 10" by 10" and the sheilds closer to 1" by 1". On the original you are playing on a 12 inch display and it works fine. They say that the 2.5mm pitch can be easily viewed as close as 1.5 feet away.
but let the reading begin, and maybe you arrive at something pre built…
There are lots of ways to do it, but your question is what is cheapest I think.
the various versions of VGA are cheap to drive, interpret, receive in FPGA, where you could house a memory array to remember each pixel’s value and update at speed… Im sure HDMI is same way, meaning, you can get cores ready to go that fit in FPGA that can send receive HDMI or VGA, probably display port too… End of day, you have to supply enough power to each pixel’s red, green, and blue in accordance with the color value that the video game intends that pixel to be at that moment. So for 24 bit color, each pixel has three 8 bit DACs supporing max brightness of the color of each pixel, along with enough total power delivery for (255,255,255) white for every pixel in your display.
I would think that the research items include
the current drivers based upon the screen you select.
You need the memory element to store each pixel’s value
something to interpret the communication from the computer (video signal standard coming in).
The display itself.
Since you could probably use a monitor’s logic to input video signal and keep track of color values, I think the costs are drivers and LEDs. And you have a lot of options. But I don’t know what will be cheapest. It would be a research item for me as well.
From what I can see doing a few minutes of digging around, it looks like once the display gets big and color like you describe, cost goes through the roof, and the vendor wants contact info to come try to sell you. Maybe its not bad to think in terms of creating that array of LED drivers. cuz then maybe you get to charge those signage prices?
