Home

is a Soft- and Hardware Add-On for the MiSTer FPGA that displays Text or Pictures based on the running core on an (OLED) Display.
The Display is driven by an Arduino compatible MCU which is connected via USB to the MiSTer.

---

💡 The Idea 💡

At first I had the idea to add a Display which shows only the MiSTer Logo.
After a bit of searching I found the possibilty to get information about the actual loaded Core out of the file /tmp/CORENAME.
I tried tail -F /tmp/CORENAME to detect Core changes which results in error messages so I choose cat /tmp/CORENAME in a timed loop.
Later the timed loop was replaced by an inotifywait -e modify "/tmp/CORENAME" which makes the detection more reactive.

What is needed beside the MiSTer Hardware

• An Arduino Microcontroller with enough I/O's, enough speed for the project and an usable USB-Serial Interface.
  If you connect the Controller to the MiSTer it should generate an ttyUSBx [1] device on the MiSTer.
  I recommend an ESP32 with CP210x USB-Serial Chip.
  If you want to use the SD Card Version I recommend the TTGO T8 v1.7.1 because of the On-Board SD-Slot.
• The SSD1322 Display with SPI Interface.
  The Arduino Code supports currently only the 4-SPI Mode, see Electrical.
• Some wires and an universal or pre-build PCB. Maybe a Breadboard for testing.
• An Active Powered USB Port and a cable to connect the Microcontroller with the MiSTer.
• The Arduino IDE or something compatible like Platfrom IO to build the Program for the Microcontroller.

[1] Some ESP32 use an CH340 USB-Serial Adapter Chip on Board which is currently (04/2021) not supported from the MiSTer.
(Fixed in Linux kernel update at 2021/07/11)

Possible Enhancements

Use an second serial port to free up the MCU's programmer port. No need because of the coming WLAN Update Feature
Use an ESP32 with an SD Micro Slot for the Pictures Done.
Webserver for Logo Upload No longer needed because of the new USB-Version
Auto-Sync of Logos over Network (Update Script?!) Done

🚧 Work in progress 🚧