I love making little computers and getting video out from Arduinos and even micro:bits – IchiconQuest is a lovely self-contained, if eccentric, computer you can make with a micro:bit that has video out.
I stumbled upon the video above remarkably late – it’s just a simple demo by Kevin Moonlight to generate text on an NTSC composite video output on a TV using just a V1 micro:bit and 1 or 2 resistors. I had a go at re-making it, and succeeded!
I’m grateful to @wifisheep for telling me that to make it work better, you should also put a 1K resistor on the red line between the phono and the clip. I had all sorts of weird earth issues without adding that – but still, quite impressive with two resistors.
Because very, very accurate timing is so crucial when generating video, the code for this is in C++, not in MakeCode or Python.
You can find the source code and HEX files you can flash direct on to a V1 micro:bit to try this for yourself on my GitHub: https://github.com/blogmywiki/microbit-video
I even made my own font!
