What can you do with an absurd hack that makes little sense and has no practical value? Sometimes the only valid answer is to make it better, and that's the path Mitxela chose for his latest project. He previously managed to connect a small Arduino OLED module to an HDMI port without the help of controllers. But instead of settling for the typical nest of wires and resistors, he decided to fabricate a brass case and connector, giving shape to the best "worst" HDMI steampunk display in the world.
If the name Mitxela sounds familiar, you probably remember him for his DIY console that we studied closely at the end of 2018. His personal page is full of projects focused on hardware and software, as well as concepts and works in alternative materials. However, what brings us together here is his HDMI display based on a small OLED module for Arduino and ESP controllers (ESP8266, ESP32, etc.).
We're talking about a 0.96-inch monochrome display with a horrible framerate, but being able to connect it to an HDMI port using a cut cable and a 20K resistor (for the pull-up on pin 19) is still interesting. As expected, much of the web took note of the project (Mitxela was surprised, we weren't), and today we come across its continuation: The best worst steampunk HDMI display in the world… because everything is better with a little brass.
Pure steampunk for a 0.96-inch HDMI display
The video focuses mainly on the metalwork (which is much more complicated than it seems), but the display didn't go without modifications, with some cuts to the PCB, the removal of its header, and soldering wires in specific points. Mitxela's patience for soldering and transferring patterns to brass is remarkable; however, we must also highlight the resistance of that small screen, which worked perfectly even after such extreme handling.
So what did Mitxela do in the end? Exactly what we wanted and expected: play Doom! The framerate is terrible, courtesy of a DDC port running at 100 kHz, equivalent to about 10 kilobytes per second. Each frame requires a kilobyte to update, so the theoretical maximum is 10 FPS, and it's not even close to that. By disabling dithering, the framerate improves a lot... but you can barely see anything. Anyway, the result is awesome and worth reproducing, even with 3D printing and a little paint if working with brass isn't an option.
Official site: Mitxela's steampunk OLED project
Source: Hackaday
