Draft:AVR-MircoPC



The AVR-MicroPC is a small computer build on breadboard by Raphaël Clerault. This computer aims to output video on a VGA compatible screen using an ATmega16, running at only 16MHz. It was first created in 2022, but could only output still images. In 2023, it received a huge improvement, and can now output video, play games, render raytraced images. This is a big challenge knowing that the software is mainly developed in Assembler.

Inspirations
The AVR-MicroPC was first inspired by Ben Eater, following his tutorial for the VGA graphics card. Then the AVR-MicroPC had received a lot of improvement, and is now a verry different project with different goals.

Performance
The AVR-MicroPC is equipped with an ATmega16A as its CPU, with internal 16KB flash, internal 1KB RAM, running at 16MHz. The GPU side of the AVR-MicroPC is just a big and precise counter, with 128Kib of VRAM, to store the image that is displayed. It can output a VGA video feed at 30 fps, at a resolution of 128 by 64 pixels, with 16bits of color, or 65535 different colors.

Raytracing
The initial version of the raytracer was developed with python by d-002, on his calculator, in a few hours. it is capable of rendering images of a few simple objects like cubes and spheres, with a light and a textured floor.

Then, i recoded it in C++, and ported it to the AVR-MicroPC with the C/C++ compiler

for more information on the C++ compiler, see the C/C++ compiling page