Last night marked my first glorious step forward toward the glamorous world of VGA-style output capability. After months' of off-and-on research into how VGA timings work as well as the physical layer required to make it happen, I made my first attempt at bringing my ideas into the real world last night.
It didn't work.
Specifically, it didn't work because when I went to program the CPLD I was going to use as a video logic chip with my hello-world-vga-pattern-test configuration, I connected the power wires backwards. Unfortunately, this had the effect of frying both the CPLD and the oscillator attached to it within seconds. I didn't have the right frequency oscillator anyway, however, so it was only ever going to be an oscilloscope waveform proofing run.
I've got the proper 40 MHz oscillator on order. I should be back in business early next week. Hopefully, my test of 800x600 @ 60 Hz will prove successful.
