VGA port calling Arduino.

Vga cards are slowly being replaced by HDMI interfaces. What a lot of people do not know is that some vga cards come with a special port that allows us to attach devices known as i2c (I squared c) to the vga cards. That allows a personal computer to be attached to a host of devices from all kinds of sensors to other input devices. In fact you can connect Arduinos and other microprocessors to the vga port. Since most traditional personal computer motherboards allow the attachment of more than one vga card to the system, that allows for some interesting setups.

Data is sent and received over two wires (aka serial) to make interfacing rather easy.  Temperature sensors can be interfaced to the vga ports to detect dangerous sutuations insde and outside servers or other valuable equipment. The SDA and SCL connections are the key points of interaction.

 

If we can connect sensor devices to the vga port, they we can go one step further and add microprocessors to control other devices. One such device that might be used is the ever popular Arduino. At the retail level, most Arduinos are sold on an interface board, but you can also use them as standalone chips. Now legacy personal computers are infinitely more valuable for the time being with the added power of the microprocessors.

There is enough information on the Arduino, that I should not have to elaborate here, The sky is the limit. What's your next project?