Unlike the CRTs found in big old televisions, vector displays are a bit of a historical oddity. Instead of sweeping an electron beam across the screen from left to right and top to bottom, a vector display draws lines between two points on a screen. Once used in arcade games such as Asteroids, Tempest, and old FAA displays, vector monitors have fallen out of favor due to either the complexity or difficulty in acquiring the needed CRT. The folks over at NYC Resistor put up a great tutorial for getting a vector display up and running, and even managed to put a clock on an oscilloscope.
The key component of getting a vector display to work is the digital to analog converter. This DAC takes voltages from eight pins on a Teensy 2.0 dev board and converts them to a voltage anywhere in between 0 and 5 Volts. After connecting the output of this DAC to an input on an oscilloscope, the microcontroller can draw a line between any two points on an axis.
In the video after the break, you can see two of these DACs connected to an oscilloscope displaying a clock. It’s a very cool piece of work, and something that finally gives a purpose to the ancient CRT oscilloscope you might have lying around.
Filed under: classic hacks
