Re: [myhdl-list] Cheap USB FPGA board needed

[Iain C. <iai...@at...>]

It appears that the Digilent interface software is now available for Linux as 
well but I have not verified the functionality.

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,66,828&Prod=ADEPT2




________________________________
From: Iain Clark <iai...@at...>
To: General discussions on MyHDL <myh...@li...>
Sent: Mon, April 25, 2011 12:35:37 PM
Subject: Re: [myhdl-list] Cheap USB FPGA board needed


Hi:

I have used Digilent Inc's boards professionally and bought their Nexys-2 for 
personal hacking. Their Basys-2 may meet your needs and is in your price range 
using their student pricing. Qualifications for student pricing  seem to be 
stringent and they claim to verify them. 


http://www.digilentinc.com/nav1index.cfm?NavTop=82#academicpricing

They provide FPGA programming through USB (supports JTAG but not required) and 
have a pretty decent set of interface tools that allow software control of 
registers and loading/dumping of memory. I found the reference design they 
provided for my board to be a great starting point. I believe their tools only 
run under windows  at present.

Lots of docs, schematics etc at:
http://digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=BASYS2

Do let me know what you decide on.

Iain





________________________________
From: Karl Kaiser <kk...@be...>
To: General discussions on MyHDL <myh...@li...>
Sent: Mon, April 25, 2011 9:46:55 AM
Subject: Re: [myhdl-list] Cheap USB FPGA board needed

Christopher,

This may work for you and fits the $49.

http://papilio.cc

or this one may be particular handy for a class full of python geeks ;-).

http://www.arrownac.com/offers/altera-corporation/bemicro/

--Karl

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Christopher Lozinski
<loz...@fr...> wrote:
> I applied to Techshop
> http://TechShop.ws
>
> to teach a MyHDL class.  They charge about $60 per class, so charging
> $200 plus for the board seemed a bit high to me, and a potential show
> stopper to them.  Basically we need a $50 board, so that  people can try
> it out.  A $20 board would be even better.   If they like it, then they
> can upgrade to a $200 board.   Or I could give the students a choice of
> board.
>
> So can anyone recommend a cheap board? There was talk of the Lattice
> Semiconductor Brevia board for $49.  But it turns out that it only has a
> parallel port connection, not a USB port,  so that if your computer only
> has USB, then it requires a $150 connector.   Useless!
>
> The required board does not need a lot of LUTs, or transistors or I/O.
> Just a blinking light, enough transistors to implement a blinking light
> tutorial, and a USB connection.  The goal is to minimize the barrier to
> entry to the MyHDL community.
>
> Conceptually what I have done is moved from targeting the FPGA
> community, to the Python community, to the larger software  developer
> community in Silicon Valley.  Lots of people will want to play with
> FPGAs.  The code for a flip flop in MyHDL is so much simpler than in
> Verilog.  Python has a great reputation.
>
> So if anyone can recommend a board, that would be most appreciated.
>
> --
> Regards
> Christopher Lozinski
>
> Check out my iPhone apps TextFaster and EmailFaster
> http://textfaster.com
>
> Expect a paradigm shift.
> http://MyHDL.org
>
>
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-- 
Best regards,

Karl Kaiser | 408 306 1755

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