Richard Erlacher wrote:
> A $2000 computer, unless it's a notebook, is a pretty fancy system. I saw an
> ad on the TV yesterday from a local dealer for a complete Pentium box at just
> under a GHz with a large (40GB) HDD, plenty of RAM, USB, modem, ethernet, and
> 17" monitor for < $600.
I forgot to state CANADIAN :) and that was a ball park figure.
> Altera and Xilinx have published parallel port JTAG programming interfaces for
> their devices.
I have not been able to find Altera's. Xilinx's schematic is in the
documentation as a apendex to the programing manual.
> If you attach the EPROM/EEPROM that contains the configuration file for an
> FPGA to the appropriate pins on the FPGA, it programs itself each time the
> power is applied. FPGA's are generally RAM based and "forget" what they are
> when they're powered down. Programming the PROM that configures them is quite
> straightforward with nearly any PROM programmer, and the mfg's don't make
> requirements for programming them a secret.
With altera ( the fpga I have ) serial proms are the only easy way to
program the chip.I still need a uP to program the FPGA from standard
memory.
> Programming most of the logic in 'C' is pretty well accepted practice since
> EPROMS are as big and inexpensive as they are today. Critically timed code
> has to be written in assembler, and people often forget that. Many designers
> compensate for code that is inefficient, slow, and large, by using a
> controller chip that has WAY (20x) more code space and performance than
> needed. The coders will use it all.
I guess waiting for 4k focal to load on a TTY gives me a bias against
bigger systems.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
Received on Sun Apr 21 2002 - 13:14:40 BST