PIC16F84 Microcontroller Video Game Circuit (tetris, pong)

A nice project made with PIC16F84, both video and joystick control are provided with a single processor. First of all, we would like to point out that the entire design and idea of the circuit was taken from the Rickad Gunee website.

PIC gaming system hardware is designed to be able to play various types of games. C64, Amiga, Atari joystick has two standard outputs for video and audio. The processor is a PIC16F84 operating at 12 MHz and generating video signal (PAL and NTSC) and audio in software. The hardware description is the same for both games, Pong and Tetris.

PIC16F84 Pong Game PIC16F84 Tetris Game Test

A standard TV is built with a vacuum tube having a phosphor screen on which a cannon bombarded with electrons. When the electrons hit the screen canyon, the phosphor emits light when electrons pull the barrel on it, and also has a short afterglow.

The electron beam of the electron can be bent using magnets and pulling in different parts of the screen. If this is handled well, draw horizontal lines all over the screen in multiple passes, while the intensity of the line is controlled, a picture can be drawn on the screen. The screen is redrawn 25 times per second on a PAL system, but to reduce the oscillation picture is interlaced, first all the odd lines showing uniforms, so the image is partially updated 50 times per second.

Thanks are due to the “persistence of vision effect” of the human brain that the image appears to be constant instead of flickering at 50Hz. To get each color on the screen is divided into three colors: red, green and blue, however here only discuss television in black and white, because that is only what is possible to generate real-time software using a PIC.

Source: server-die.alc.upv.es PIC16F84 Microcontroller Video Game Circuit schematic pcb and pic assembly source code files alternative link: