Hi guys,
i’m looking for an extentionboard to control a vga touchscreen with the ChipworkX board trough serial, in the manual it says that i could use the chrontel 7025 chip. i dont have much experience with designing a board for this chip could someone help me with this are is there an alternative.
thnx.
We have just designed a gadgeteer module to do this very thing I can tell you this, it has to be done by a professional.
So, the module schematics will be open source at some point in the near future for Embed84 to learn from?
Very interesting!
This particular one may not be open source fro many internal reasons.
when wil it be available?
Yes will be available in near future.
It’s currently out of stock but maybe you can find it at a sparkfun reseller:
The one from 4D system is made fro little micros and gives basic VGA interface. The one we will offer is “gadgeteer” and will work with standard NETMF graphics… everything you can draw on NETMF will be up on the monitor 
Still, that one can be hack on to ChipworkX to get VGA output.
Nice I’ll defn. be ordering one when it becomes available…
It would be really cool if there was an HDMI module. Maybe there’s a VGA to HDMI converter… With HDMI we could drop a FEZ in the media closet and stream the output to the TV via the stereo receiver and universal remote.
EDIT: Looks like something like this would work although I think a standalone HDMI module would be awesome 
Any chance that will be DaisyLink to allow multiple displays?
We can make ti easily. Will you be paying $10,000.00 USD adopter fee?
http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/terms.aspx
You could also only pay $5000 annual fee + $1 per unit sold.
There is a cheat however, if you only sell an Accessory like an HDMI chip then you don’t need to pay the royalty fee. The royalty fee only needs to be payed for end user products.
I’m not an expert on legal but I watched this video http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/videos_player.aspx?v=fees_royalties and from my understanding a fee wouldn’t be needed to sell the module. Only GHI customers who buy the module and then want to sell their finished product have to pay the hdmi license. I don’t know if DVI has the same type of license attached.
Either way I don’t think the CWX would be suitable for high def graphics anyways. You might probably get faster and easier results with an Android tablet where you can program an app to show whatever you want via the HDMI port found on these tablets.
Wow… Sounds like a good opportunity for an open source module design. If someone decides they want to assemble and sell them then they pay the royalties. For hobbyist needing to interface with a TV, they could just build it.
I wasn’t really thinking high-def. I was more thinking of a TV based UI for say a home-automation system run off a FEZ. Sure, a HTPC would make a better solution but in some scenarios it would be much cheaper and satisfy sufficiently to have the FEZ available directly to the media system.
Most TVs have VGA on them plus our module had VGA + Video RCA out as well…you are welcome 
The problem is that many houses being built today (mine included) have a media closet where all the A/V equipment is housed and the TV may be on the other side of the room. The only cable going between the TV and the closet is an HDMI cable. Your module (thank you!) plus the $35 HDMI converter would certainly be sufficient but it would be nice to be able to do it all on one module.
[quote]The one from 4D system is made fro little micros and gives basic VGA interface. The one we will offer is “gadgeteer” and will work with standard NETMF graphics… everything you can draw on NETMF will be up on the monitor
Still, that one can be hack on to ChipworkX to get VGA output.[/quote]
@ Gus When will it be available? is there a release date
If the VGA adapter supports “digital signal output through VGA port function” then this simple adapter cable would be sufficient: http://www.amazon.com/VGA-HDMI-Cable-6-feet/dp/B002TUC64W/ref=pd_cp_e_3
Maybe GUS can tell us if their module will support the digital signal output. Then you don’t need a HDMI port put can simply use this cheap cable to connect you CWX to your HDMI switch. Problem solved and no license fee to think about.
That would certainly be a nice feature!
Yes and we will also test it wo work with hdmi converters.