What is it?

ESP32 S3 VGA is a full fledged ESP32 S3 micro controller development board with 8MB Flash, 8MB octal SPI RAM and a VGA DAC. It's easy to program using the Arduino IDE over USB-C. Compared to older versions of my VGA breads this one is breadboard friendly and supports upto 16 color bits.

Why did you make it?

The evolution of the ESP32 chip series required to renew the design and I love using the old displays. much retro.. much fun..

Development state

Hardware

v1.0 is stable and shippable

Software

Example code is available. Library is in the making. 16Bit modes with PSRAM have currently sometimes issues with the cache at the start of the frame resulting in a shift of the frame. A workaround is to use a classic 14Bit mode with syncs in the frame buffer. This issue shows frequently in 800x600, rarely in 640x480, never before in 320x240.

What makes it special?

This board does not require any assembly except for the pin headers if picked the option. The octal SPI RAM allows to use it for the frame buffers keeping the SRAM free for other stuff. When utilizing the LCD hardware the sync signals are generated and full 16 bits can be used for RGB (5-6-5) color.

Version 1.0 is only limited to 30 pieces all numbered and signed on the pcb.