Mesa-Video : 800×600 Digital video for Arduinos over 2-wire serial Mesa-Bus

Mesa-Video : 800×600 Digital video for Arduinos over 2-wire serial Mesa-Bus

[ 08.30.2015 ]

This post describes Mesa-Video, a low cost, low power, small size and fully Open Source Hardware and Software solution for providing 800×600 digital video for Arduino ( and other ) microcontrollers.  Mesa-Video makes it quick and easy to display text and 24bit color graphics from any MCU using a single UART serial port pin. Applications for Mesa-Video are embedded projects requiring video output and embedded developers wanting real time visibility into their system operation. Mesa-Video is the 1st of multiple Mesa-Modules planned. For a quick summary of Mesa-Video and Mesa-Bus, please read the very nice article at Hackaday by Richard Baguley from 09_01_2015.

[ GPU SPI Bus Interface ] On the original EVEy Video board  ( shown above ) the native SPI interface for the FT813 GPU‘s is brought out to a “Nano Bus” header which was then bit banged with Python software on a PC going through a BML Nano3 FPGA (shown below) containing simple GPIO logic. This was perfect for initial board test and GPU bring up, but slow and needing a faster interface to PCs and micro controllers for a final product.

[ The Arduino SPI Problem ] : A major problem with SPI ( and I2C ) on Arduino is that with shield stacking it is difficult to get more than a single shield device on the bus. SPI devices all require a unique chip select and I2C devices all require a unique address. This is all a bit like the pre-PnP era of plugging ISA cards into a DOS PC and having to select IO Port Number and Interrupt line jumpers. Stacking Arduino shields isn’t exactly as Plug-and-Play simple as plugging in  USB peripherals or PCI boards into a PC. A better solution that scales like USB for Arduinos is needed. Black Mesa Labs has created a simple and low cost solution for this called the “Mesa-Bus”.

[ Introducing the Mesa-Bus from Black Mesa Labs ]

The “Mesa-Bus” is a simple and completely open text serial protocol designed for transporting self enumerating SPI and I2C bus traffic over a standard UART serial connection. Electrically the interface is simply LVCMOS 3.3V RX and TX serial on a standard FTDI 1×6 6 pin 0.100″ header. Why UART Serial? Every device from PC to Arduino to 8051 has at least one UART serial port. Arduino’s are especially flexible as with Software Serial any unused IO pins may be turned into an additional serial port. The Mesa-Bus is made possible by a custom BML FPGA bridge design that has an autobauding UART, auto-enumeration logic and a SPI/I2C bridge residing in a low cost ICE40 Lattice FPGA. Why use the FTDI 1×6 0.100″ connector? The 3V FTDI 6pin connector is ideal as it is well known, bread board friendly, provides raw 5V for powering modules and has 4 signal pins, 2 Ins and 2 Outs. The Mesa-Bus utilizes all 6 pins for allowing Mesa-Modules to be easily powered and configured either by a Arduino like MCU or a full fledged PC with a $20 FTDI serial cable. Aren’t UART serial connections too slow? The Arduino-Zero example for Mesa-Video development communicates at 3Mbaud over a single wire, considerably faster than I2C and in the ballpark of traditional 4 pin SPI using just 2 pins on the Arduino.

This small $3 Lattice ICE40LP384 FPGA design below (22x32mm) bridges the “Mesa-Bus” to SPI and allows the EVEy-Video board’s FT813 GPU to interface either to a PC or an Arduino board via the FTDI 1×6 header. The UART sub-component of the FPGA design autobauds to the 1st “\n” character received from the Bus Master and uses that baud rate for upstream ( RDo ) and downstream ( WRo ) communications – allowing Mesa-Bus to scale from high speed 32bit ARM serial ports to simple 9,600 baud bluetooth wireless virtual serial ports. The BML custom Enumerate and Decode Logic inside the FPGA performs bus enumeration so that each device in a Mesa-Bus serial chain is uniquely addressable to the host ( similar to USB enumeration at a high level concept ).  The Bridge Logic bridges the clear text ASCII characters to SPI ( or I2C ) bus cycles specific to the slave device’s requirements on the module. The final Mesa-Video design merges this bridge FPGA design along with the GPU and HDMI converter onto a single board.

[ PC to Mesa-Bus ]

Why support interfacing Mesa-Bus to a PC that already has USB? Having worked on embedded software+hardware development for 20 years, I have found it tremendously beneficial to be able to prototype embedded software 1st on a PC with a scripting language like Python and then port the software to C for the final embedded MPU. MesaBus is designed to support this development flow.  All Mesa-Video software development was done in rapid prototyping using the Python scripting language on a PC. Once all the initial bringup and custom functions were working on the PC, the software was quickly ported from Python to Arduino C and working stand alone from an Arduino Zero board. This flow is a tremendous productivity enhancer as it avoids the compile, download and repeat loop that often needlessly consumes engineering time developing embedded systems. Prototyping in Python also makes software easily portable to RaspberryPi platforms.

What is the point of “Mesa-Bus” – why not just use SPI natively? “Mesa-Bus” aims to solve both the hardware and software complexity of integrating multiple SPI and I2C peripherals by using any readily available 2-pin serial port and transferring everything in ASCII clear text for easier documentation, development and integration. Binary protocols are more bit efficient, but dealing with clear text protocol transfers is much more human efficient in terms of documentation, development and debug ( think XML versus proprietary binary file formats ).  With Mesa-Bus there are no clocks edges, chip selects or I2C addresses to worry about. All Arduinos have at least one serial port and a virtually unlimited number of Soft Serial ports. MesaBus solves the problem of limited number of available Arduino pins ( think 8-pin ATtiny  ) by allowing for device daisy chaining with built in device enumeration. Mesa-Bus isn’t multi-drop ( like RS485 ), but point-2-point like Token-Ring, electrically superior for performance ( less capacitance, shorter wires ). Multiple MesaBus modules connect to a single Arduino ( or other MCU ) serial port and are uniquely addressed automatically based on their location in the chain. Modules are breadboard friendly with their 0.100″ 1×6 male headers and a 4 slot ( expandable to 8,12,etc ) back plane is on the drawing board for compactly connecting multiple Mesa-Modules in a single serial chain in a 1″ x 2″ form factor.

Back to Mesa-Video – here are the two separate boards joined together.

The final PCB iteration combines both designs onto a single 1″x3″ (3cm x 8cm) board with no center connectors for the SPI interface.

[ Video Capabilities ] : Mesa-Video software is a subset of the entire FT813 GPU video capabilities in order to make it quick and easy for novice to expert Arduino developers to display text and limited graphics from their Arduino onto any HDMI ( or DVI ) display. The FT813 GPU is extremely capable, but also complicated and non trivial to get started programming with the entire API from FTDI. Mesa-Video simplifies things by providing a simple UART serial interface on the input and a fixed 800×600 HDMI interface on the output. MesaVideo is intended for displaying real time information ( like live variable status, progress bars, stock quotes, centrifuge status, etc ). Why not just use a RaspberryPi? RPis are great – but they aren’t microcontrollers – they are full fledged Linux workstations with powerup and powerdown requirements ( and memory card corruption issues ) that Arduinos just don’t have to worry about. Mesa-Video fills the niche of when a small Arduino is the right tool for the embedded job ( flying quad-copter?), but a graphic output ( either just for development debug or final product ) is needed.

Below is an example electrical setup of Arduino ZeroPro + Mesa-Video illustrating the advantage of Mesa-Bus over a conventional SPI interface. There are only 3 wires, +5V, GND and TX ( Pin-1 in Arduino parlance, WRi on Mesa-Bus ) connecting the Arduino to Mesa-Video. Mesa-Video is a write-only interface so the RX serial pin doesn’t need to be hooked up.:

First “Hello World” Example Sketch for Mesa-Video. There are no include files, this is everything that is needed to bring up the GPU and display basic text at a specified (x,y) location. The hex strings within brackets are actually SPI bus cycles. Encoding the SPI bus cycles in ASCII text makes Mesa-Bus designs portable, easy to document and highly compressible ( as shown ). The low cost FPGA on each Mesa-Module does all the required conversion from ASCII text to SPI ( or I2C ):

Below is an out of focus picture of the Hello World sketch ( actual text on the LCD looks great – the digital HDMI SVGA signal is perfect ). Basic ( non-painted ) text is available in 1x, 2x or 4x sized VGA fonts:

[ Whats Next ] :   Next step is to assemble the final board that merges the Mesa-Bus SPI bridge FPGA and the GPU+HDMI onto a single board.  Layout of the merged design is shown below in CopperConnection – a fantastic simple to use and low cost layout tool that exports Gerbers ready for OSH-Park.  CopperConnection is as easy to use as ExpressPCB – but it generates Gerbers that can be fabbed out anywhere. Best $50 I’ve spent in a long time. I’ve since upgraded to the $100 “Ultimate” edition that allows me to generate and hand edit ( via custom Python scripts ) the actual board files. Fantastic Tool – check it out over at RobotRoom  free version doesn’t export Gerbers – but is a nice demo.  Below is the merged Mesa-Video design, it is 1″ x 3″ ( 77 x 26mm ).

The FPGA has been upgraded from the 400 Logic Cell ICE40LP384 to the new 4,000 Logic Cell ICE5LP4K. The new and larger FPGA is a game changer for BML as it is only a few dollars more and provides 10x the resources, contains 80Kb of SRAM and also an internal 48 MHz oscillator in a 1cm^2 package that is 2-layer friendly.  To simplify design and manufacturing, the single ICE5LP4K device will be used on all Mesa-Modules going forward. The larger FPGA with SRAM supports an alternative bitstream idea that could potentially turn Mesa-Video into a 4-channel LVCMOS digital logic analyzer ( no computer involved ). The power of open-source is that it turns any project like Mesa-Video into a canvas for others to improve upon. Final firmware design will be EEPROM upgradable over the Mesa-Bus interface – supporting in-field FPGA upgrades from any PC with a FTDI cable.

[ Mesa-Duino-M0 ] : Mesa-Duino ( for short, pictured above – 1st proto ) is an Arduino-M0 compatible derivative that plugs directly into slot-0 of the Mesa-Backplane and becomes the bus master instead of an external board. Total BOM for the assembly is less than $10 – which is pretty impressive for a 48 MHz 32bit ARM CPU with 256KB Flash and 32KB SRAM in a 1″ x 1″ form factor.  The actual Arduino-Zero (.cc) and Arduino-Zero-Pro (.org) contain an Atmel-ICE on-board. The Mesa-Duino design removes the ICE and makes it just the ARM CPU, a FTDI connector for the Mesa-Bus mastering and a micro-USB for firmware upgrades – reducing the BOM item count by like 90% while maintaining compatibility with the Arduino IDE ( ultimate goal – and why ATSAMD21G18 was chosen ).  BML encourages users to use whatever microcontroller they already have for Mesa-Bus mastering – but if you wan’t something really powerful, small and inexpensive – the Mesa-Duino with a 3Mbps hardware serial UART on board is a nice solution. Next board spin will remove the large 2×8 header. If BML can locate someone to manufacture the Mesa-Duino, the intention would be to provide kick back royalties to the Arduino organization for future Arduino development expenses.

[ PCBs also in the queue ] : Along with Mesa-Video, 4 other PCBs have been sent out to fab to begin the Mesa-Module family. All Mesa-Modules heavily reuse the same FPGA layout and are all 1″ wide with identical 1×6 0.100″ right angle header connector for plugging into a FTDI Cable, a Mesa-Backplane or a standard bread board. Cost is very low, with BOM for all below $10.

Mesa-Logic : A general purpose FPGA development board with 4,000 Logic Cells, SRAM on chip and 16 LVCMOS 3.3V IOs ( limited drive strength). The FPGA will be firmware upgradable in the field allowing users to design whatever.

Mesa-GPIO : A general purpose IO module with 16 3V 25mA drivers, 5V tolerant via a PCA9539 IO Port Expander IC. 1.5″x1″ (38x26mm). Mesa-GPIO is a typical example of a low cost Mesa-Module, left 1/2 of the PCB is the Mesa-Bus 1×6 connector and the bridge FPGA, right 1/2 of the PCB is the IC specific to the module and user connector for that IC.

Mesa-ICT : Pogo-pin board for programming FPGA EEPROMs post assembly. 1.2″ x 1″ (30x26mm). The header on the right mates either to the Lattice HW-USBN-2B programmer or the Mesa-Logic module for rapid “self-hosting” EEPROM programming post assembly as a bed-of-nails test fixture. Eight 0.050″ pogo pins hold off FPGA configuration and provide full access to EEPROM for external programming.

Mesa-Backplane : 4 slot back plane that may be cascaded for more slots. 1.3″x0.7″ (33x18mm). Mesa-Bus connections are point-2-point ( WRo to WRi and RDo to RDi ), meaning that cascade depth is limited by the 5V supply current, not the number of loads on the serial bus. Multiple backplanes connect end to end to support 4,8,12, etc modules from a single master.

The 5 boards have been sent out to fab and should arrive around mid September 2015. The ICE5LP4K FPGAs in the 2-layer friendly SG48 QFN 0.5mm pitch package are newly released from Lattice and a reel of 50 have been special ordered from Digikey that are due to arrive 1st week of October. Plan is to hopefully acquire some more ES GPUs from FTDI and begin assembling 3 boards of each design to send out for evaluation by interested parties for potential volume manufacturing.

[ Mesa-Modules ]

All Mesa-Modules will be fixed 1″ wide and length available to grow as needed for each design. Most Mesa-Modules will be 1″x1″ with a BOM cost of under $10 for things like GPIO, H-Bridge, Stepper Motor Controller, RTC, thermal sensor, etc . Converting an existing breakout board design from places like Adafruit and Sparkfun to a Mesa-Module should be easy and only be a $5 adder for the Mesa-Bus bridge FPGA and some BML engineering time.

The Mesa-Video design with 3 ICs ( not counting LDOs ) should have a total BOM cost at around $20-$30. The retail cost would need to stay below $50, which should be possible. Mesa-Bus is a solid and easy to use solution for expanding Arduinos with USB like simplicity. Please reply to this post and write to me what you think and what kind of Mesa-Modules you would like to see.

[ Mesa-Video FAQ ]

o Does Mesa-Video work with devices other than Arduinos? Yes, it will work with any device with a 3.3V LVCMOS ( or level shifted to ) UART serial port.  Got a Teensy, Intel Edison, or even an old 8051 design that you would like to add video to? Bring it on. The bus master sets the bit rate for all devices. This hasn’t been tried yet, but the Mesa-Bus protocol is asynchronous and clear-text, designed to be portable so it should work great over a wireless Bluetooth serial link like a BlueSmirf. With a wireless link it should be possible to use Mesa-Video as a wireless remote display from a desktop PC or Arduino to a TV ( think home security monitoring, stock tickers, etc ), or place the Arduino in a quad-copter and have it stream live video over bluetooth (or other wireless standard) to a remote Mesa-Video display. Clear text protocols like Mesa-Bus are very portable. Designed around old school ( and versatile ) UART serial communications of a wide baud range, it is very simple to convert from LVCMOS 3.3V serial to RS-232 (single-ended) or RS-422 ( differential ) for long runs of to 1,500 meters ( almost a mile for Luddites like me ). SPI and I2C just aren’t designed for this.

o How difficult is the software to integrate into my design? The complexity of the software depends on how many features you intend to use. BlackMesaLabs provides the basic Level-1 ( Text Only ) and Level-2 ( Text + Limited Graphics ) software in both Arduino C++ Sketch and Python for PC examples. Level-3 software is the full up FTDI development kit available here and makes all of powerful FT813 features available. If all you want is to display some debug text information, my screen shot of the Arduino-IDE is all the software that is required.

o What are the Level-1 text modes? When the display is initialized, 1of3 VGA text display modes may be selected. 1x Zoom for 98×36, 2x Zoom for 49×18 or 4x Zoom for 24×9. The graphic text provided by the FT813 can mix and max varying font sizes.

o What are the Level-1 functions? video_setup(), clear_screen(), clear_console(), print_at() and print_ln(). The function print_at() displays a text string at specified x,y location on the screen. The function print_ln() appends and scrolls a text string on a virtual console.

o What will the Level-2 functions be? Most likely draw_text(), draw_point(), draw_line(), draw_rectangle().

o If Mesa-Bus and Mesa-Video are open-source software and hardware, where are all the design files? All of the design files are safely stored on the Black Mesa NAS. Once a relationship between BML and a board assembler and distributor is established, the appropriate time and location to upload all design files to the internet ( most likely GitHub ) will be determined.

o What is the maximum bit rate of Mesa-Bus? It has been tested at 3Mbps, which is the maximum UART rate of the Arduino M0 hardware. Final FPGA bridge design will be clocked at 48 MHz, which assuming 8x asynchronous serial oversampling, a baud rate of 6Mbps should be possible. FPGA to FPGA serial communication where both FPGAs have the same 48 MHz base clock could potentially work at 4x oversampling, or 12 Mbps. One Mesa-Module idea BML is considering ( which may seem ludicrous on the surface ) is a bitstream for the Mesa-Logic board called Mesa-UART, a FPGA design that would take SPI from a CPU ( at say 20 Mbps ) in SPI binary format and stuff the traffic into a rate converting FIFO which is then serialized using a fast UART for Mesa-Bus mastering at 12 Mbps. This may seem like a lot of work ( and overhead ), but for uCs with slow UART serial ports – this is a viable solution for fast data transfers. Mesa-Logic is very flexible and fully open-source FPGA design meaning that a user specific project could easily be adapted requiring only a new FPGA bit stream ( for example, an 8bit parallel interface with IO strobes from an Apple ][ – level shifted from 5V to 3V of course ).

o May SPI be used instead of Mesa-Bus UART serial protocol with Mesa-Video? Yes, on the final design the bridge FPGA will have a bypass pin that may be tied to GND. This will bypass the FPGA’s UART and Mesa-Bus decoder and pass SPI signals from the FTDI 6 pin connector to the SPI interface of the FT813. In this configuration, the SPI setup and hold timing will vary slightly from the FT813 spec and the FTDI 1×6 connector will no longer be compatible with a FTDI cable or a Mesa-Backplane. This SPI bypass option is an excellent development interface for someone ultimately targeting a FTDI Flat Panel Module ( See Below ) for a commercial application:

o Why Buy Mesa-Video when a 512×512 FTDI 5″ Flat Panel is available for $100? Primary difference is that Mesa-Video drives large displays at 800×600 resolution and simplifies digital video from any Arduino sketch without requiring importing a mountain of libraries and understanding the GPUs programming interface. The EVE FT800 series of chips are very powerful – which also means complicated – even just for basic things. Mesa-Video makes the simple things simple without giving up the full power of the FT813. The full FTDI EVE API is still available to use with Mesa-Video hardware.

o Will a version of Mesa-Video that supports gaming be made available? Excellent question, this FT813 design actually canceled the original BML GPU design called Video-Duino as the FT813 is much smaller and more cost effective than the Spartan6 FPGA based GPU. The FT813 is a fantastic, small and low cost solution for displaying text and primarily static graphics. If there is enough interest, the FPGA GPU design may be restarted using a Lattice ICE5LP4K  FPGA ( low cost and small like the FT813 ). This would either be designed like a 3DFX like graphics accelerator , a GPU that goes between the FT813 GPU and HDMI chip and overlays real time gaming graphics, or possibly standalone FPGA GPU.  Idea is for the design to provide 8×8 Bitmap Textures and Sprites with velocity and collision detection integrated into the FPGA hardware design ( offloading Arduino of real time work ). It would be a fun development platform for 8bit NES like 2D video gaming. Color resolution may need to be reduced from 24bit to 9bit for a small low cost FPGA to handle the interface. Please respond if there is any interest out there for a gaming specific module like this.

o Is this an Arduino shield ( shown above )? No, but it could potentially replace the shield concept as a much simpler, smaller and more robust method for adding multiple peripheral devices to an Arduino. A Mesa-Bus back plane is in the queue that supports 4 slots ( and can cascade to 8,12, etc slots ) and there is also an Arduino Zero compatible Mesa-Zero module. There are multiple low cost Mesa-Modules envisioned, Mesa-Video just happens to be the first.

o Do multiple Mesa-Modules have to be daisy-chained? No, if you are concerned about latency or series circuit aspect – the CPU master may use a separate serial port pair for each Mesa-Module. Arduino’s Software-Serial makes this very easy.

o Is Mesa-Video Low Power? Yes! No promises of powering Mesa-Video  from a single lemon, but using this handy USB Current Meter that measures 5V USB Current in 10mA units, on powerup, with HDMI disabled, it measures current at 0 (so less than 10mA ) and with everything enabled generating video at 800×600 it measures 40mA ( so less than 50mA – Take that nVidia! ). Power-on inrush current has not yet been measured yet. USB 2.0 is rated for 500mA, so a person could theoretically drive 10 HDMI video displays from a single PC over a FTDI cable using 10 Mesa-Video boards daisy chained on a Mesa-Backplane ( think 60″ LCD TVs in a giant 3×3 15’x15′ array…. ). The 0.100″ +5V pin on a 1×6 header is physically rated for 3 Amperes, so the Mesa-Bus has room to grow.

o What is the Mesa-Video resolution and timing and may it be changed? The open-source software for Mesa-Video automatically configures the hardware for 800×600 56 Hz timing per VESA Spec VG900601.  This was selected as the FT813 PLL is able to exactly generate the 36 MHz dot clock for 800×600 and 36 MHz exceeds the 25.175 MHz DVI minimum. The FT813 chip itself may be configured for other frequencies, but this falls outside the scope of Mesa-Video hardware+software. Plug fest tests thus far have shown that computer displays with DVI or HDMI inputs agree and work well with 800×600 input feed regardless of their native resolution and aspect ratio.

o What else is Mesa-Bus good for besides Arduino expansion? Remember the days of the LPT1 parallel port when it was easy to add homegrown bread boarded hardware to a PC? A Mesa-GPIO module can bring those days back. A $20 FTDI cable plus a similarly low cost Mesa-GPIO board with a PCA9539 provides 16 5V tolerant IO pins the PC can interface using any language that can talk to a standard COM serial Port ( Perl, Python, Powershell, etc ). Need more than 16 IOs? Buy a Mesa-Backplane and populate it with 2 or more Mesa-GPIO modules.

o What other Mesa-Modules from BML are planned? Here is the complete list to date:

• Mesa-Video : 800×600 HDMI/DVI Digital Video.
• Mesa-Backplane : 4 slots for Mesa-Modules. Cascadable.
• Mesa-GPIO : PCA9539APW based 16 3V 25mA GPIO pins ( 5V Tolerant ).
• Mesa-Analog : AD5592 8 Channel 12bit ADC/DAC/GPIO.
• Mesa-Stepper : L6470H based Stepper Motor Controller.
• Mesa-Relay : ULN2803A Darlington based 500mA inductive load driver.
• Mesa-Logic : Lattice ICE5LP4K based 4K LUT FPGA fabric with user IO.
• Mesa-DeadBug : Plugs into Mesa-Logic for dead-bugging any IC to 16 IOs.
• Mesa-Memory : 8Mb Flash, 1Mbit SRAM and 16Kb FRAM ( non-volatile ).
• Mesa-Environment : Temp, Light, Accelerometer, Altimeter, Magnetometer.
• Mesa-Time : RTC clock and programmable timers.
• Mesa-Touch : 11 pin capacitive touch sensor ( AT42QT1111 ).
• Mesa-UART : 6 Mbps SPI to UART bridge for CPUs with slow UARTs.
• Mesa-Duino : Arduino M0 derived bus master ( 48 MHz 32bit ARM CPU ).
• Mesa-ProMini : Arduino ProMini bus master ( 8 MHz 8bit AVR CPU ).

Please reply if you know which Mesa-Modules you find most interesting or if you think of something missing. My direct email is available at the very end of the BML Welcome Page. The BML goal is to reuse the same FPGA bridge design and crank out multiple modules.  FPGA reuse greatly simplifies design effort, production assembly, test and firmware programming. Goal is for the Mesa-Modules to retail in the $20 – $40 range, just slightly more expensive than a basic SPI or I2C breakout board. The two CPU boards aren’t required of course ( any board with a serial port will work ), but will be much smaller ( 1″x1″ ) and less expensive than conventional Arduino boards as they won’t have IO ( only the 6 pin Mesa-Bus ). The picture above is the Mesa-Zero proto ( final version won’t have the 2×8 connector on right ).

Something very similar to this Intel Edison UART adapter ( shown above ) with RX and TX swapped would make for a great Mesa bus master too. Edison isn’t really my bailiwick, but would be a great solution for a project needing Wifi or Bluetooth built in. The clear text UART serial protocol of Mesa-Bus makes it simple to switch CPU architectures.

Electrically, RaspPi would work too – Mesa-Video might not make much sense, but the other Mesa-Modules can dramatically increase ( and isolate ) the IO capabilities of a standard RaspPi.

o Where can Mesa-Video be purchased? Excellent question.  Sadly, probably not at your local Radio-Shack. Goal is for Mesa-Video to be  a completely open-source hardware and software ( like Arduino ), low cost and readily available in volume for all Arduino developers yearning for a video display. Mesa-Video ( along with other Mesa-Modules ) can greatly accelerate the Maker-Movement by making it much easier for artists to implement their Arduino based designs. BML only does initial prototype assembly and is therefore  actively looking for a production manufacturer and distributor such as Sparkfun , DangerousPrototypes, SeeedStudio or Adafruit that might be interested in Mesa-Video and other planned family of Mesa-Modules. The FT813 GPU chip is not available for purchase just yet, so this design is still in pre-production evaluation until October-2015. Please provide feedback and express any interest in a Mesa-Video board and the Mesa-Module family. Black Mesa Labs aims to assist the Maker Movement by Delivering the Future … 2 Layers at a time.