This is not the sort of job I'd recommend for someone whose experience is limited to a bit of FORTRAN (I did that 40 years ago when I was a college student!) and looking over the shoulder of someone using VB.

If I were starting from scratch with hardware I'd newly designed, it would involve perhaps two weeks' time, after defining the system requirements, which you've not done yet, and finding the "right" way to address those requirements with a system design.

Yes, you'll have to compile, or, more likely, assemble the code. Fortunately, the tools are available at no cost, though it may take you some time to learn how to use them.

Just because it's difficult shouldn't discourage you, though. Difficult does not mean impossible, but, you might require a year or two to (1) how to design, implement, debug, and thoroughly test the hardware, and then (2) design, code, debug, and thoroughly test your firmware.

It may not take that long, but if you haven't any experience with 'C' programming, assembly programming, video hardware design and testing, and general digital logic design, it may, indeed. That will save you a lot of money, as you'll spend most of your time at the task, scratching your head about why it's behaving oddly. When you've finished, though, you'll have a sense of accomplishment you couldn't attain in any other way.

RE