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From: Rick on 30 Dec 2009 14:51
On Dec 30, 10:50 am, van...(a)sfu.ca (Peter Van Epp) wrote:
> Rick <richardcort...(a)gmail.com> writes:
> >On Dec 29, 4:44=A0pm, van...(a)sfu.ca (Peter Van Epp) wrote:
> >> Rick <richardcort...(a)gmail.com> writes:
> ><snip>
> >Hehe! I was looking for software for my Needham PB-10 earlier. I
> >actually found some that is supposed to run under XP but I have to put
> >it in a computer with ISA slots. I should give up the ghost.
>
>         I still have the XT clone that it originally ran in (and several other
> ISA machines :-)). I even still have an operating Z80 CPM machine (and am
> building a nwe one :-)).

I had mine in a Tandy 1000TX. Still have the Tandy and it boots but
hard drive is dead and I can't find the keyboard.<sigh> I really have
to move on so it is probably a good thing.
>
> >I went ahead and got the development board from Frank's link. It was
> >only $39+ shipping so it will get me into the current decade. Checked
> >with Digikey and they have the CPLD in 44 pin PLCC so at least I can
> >buy a carrier for wire wrap. Price is right too at about $2 per chip.
>
>         Horrors! Not an adapter ($$$$), a through hole PLCC socket and some
> sip www sockets from Jameco (6100-1X30W-R) or Electronix Express (ssw30s)
> (http://www.elexp.com/ics_sf10.htmand cheapest), All had some at $.50 some
> months back but I cleaned them out :-). Cut to suitable lengths for the PLCC
> pins  the through hole plcc socket plugs in on .1 centers giving you a wirewrap
>  adapter for a couple of bucks (you may have to experiment with PLCC sockets
> if the pins are too big, all those I've tried have worked though). This is how
> my 84 PLCC Z80 chip is wire wrapped in.

Thanks for the tip. I'm getting old to the point where SOIC and my
vision have crossed. No big problems with .1 centers yet.
>
> >I will give the Lattice a look and see what I can find. I am trying to
> >tell myself I am better off with a 44 pin CPLD then a 28 pin GAL. The
> >CPLD still seems like a lot of club for the distance but prices are
> >about even.
>
>         True, and learning the new stuff is a good thing for sure but if a PAL
> will do the job, by the time you add in socket cost and board area the PALs
> may still be a better bet against a PLCC device (not to mention a lot of the
> CPLDs are going 3.3V only). Sometimes the old stuff is still best.
>
> Peter Van Epp

I'm trying to focus on what I want vs. what I need. My son took my
Super Elf with him to work and lost it. I was thinking I would like to
get a simple 1802 or 65C02 benchtop system going. The smaller Xilinx
CPLD would need its own 3.3V supply but they say 'it is 5v tolerant'
so if I do go that route it won't be to bad. I really should be going
with an AVR or PIC but hard head and soft heart get in the way.

Rick
From: -jg on 30 Dec 2009 15:06
On Dec 30, 11:11 am, Rick <richardcort...(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> I want to get back into some 'trivial' design work. I'm thinking my
> level of sophistication is still at the ~22v10 stage and using
> schematic capture vs. programming languages or assembler. I have read
> enough to know this is bad form but I still understand 74LSXX and
> would like to ease into topics like Verilog. Nothing I do requires
> more then a couple of 4 bit counters and maybe a six bit latch with a
> bit of glue logic.

Atmel have WinCUPL free on their web site, and that works fine from
16V8 up to ATF1508RE devices.

Their ATF15xx series are 5V, and ISP with a choice of parallel port or
USB JTAG programming.


For 16v8/22V10/ATF750 you will need a device programmer, but you can
get those cheap - or just skip to the PLCC44 ISP devices. (32/64
Macrocells)

With WinCUPL you can create test vectors, which allows a development
HW verify step, and also allows
Pgm/Vfy/Secure/VectorTest flows on the PLDs

-jg
From: Peter Van Epp on 30 Dec 2009 18:37
Rick <richardcortese(a)gmail.com> writes:

<snip>

>Looks like my best choice for a development platform would be some ISA
>slots, USB, serial, and printer ports which puts me somewhere back
>about the year 2000 vintage computer. Not really a problem since I
>have stuff on either side of that time period. If need be I can always
>get a PCI printer port or serial card.

Not quite that bad, just a relatively more expensive server motherboard
(well except for the ISA slots). I have a quad core AMD machine with an
ASUS M2N-LR server mother board which has 2 serial and a parallel port
(although come to think of it I haven't tried that with a parallel programming
cable yet). Mostly I wanted the 2 PCIX slots (it also has a PCIE 16 lane) for
doing gigabit ethernet work (with FPGAs in fact :-)). Cost around $1500
Canadian with 4 gigs of fast ram and dual quad core AMD processors case etc.
Although at that point I think one of the USB progtamming cables may
be a better bet even at a couple of hundred ...

Peter
From: Peter Van Epp on 30 Dec 2009 19:00
Rick <richardcortese(a)gmail.com> writes:

<snip>

>I'm trying to focus on what I want vs. what I need. My son took my
>Super Elf with him to work and lost it. I was thinking I would like to
>get a simple 1802 or 65C02 benchtop system going. The smaller Xilinx
>CPLD would need its own 3.3V supply but they say 'it is 5v tolerant'
>so if I do go that route it won't be to bad. I really should be going
>with an AVR or PIC but hard head and soft heart get in the way.

>Rick

But I want it all :-), affording it is the problem. I'm in to PICs as
well, invaluable for some small jobs. Note that when they say the CPLD is
5V tolerant they mean the I/O pins will drive TTL and (more importantly) can
be driven from 5V pulled up signals without latchup and self distuction (the
old "stop and catch fire" unimlemented instruction in the 6502 :-)), you still
need 3.3V as the CPLD power supply. There are 5V to 3.3 LDO regulators to get
that from 5V however (which you may already know).
The idea of the Z80 board is to have a board which will run CPM (now
available open source) with I/O ports that can provide test signals
to an FPGA without requiring a cycle of compile on PC move to Z80 run, repeat.
Of course I learned programing in assembler on a Z80 40 years ago
so it seems natural to me (these days you get looked at stangely when you
mention assembler rather than C :-)). You may also be interested in the
sdcc open source C compiler which supports Z80, 8251s and PICs.
For expensive toys there is tech tools (www.tech-tools.com), I have
one of their DV3400 200/400 meg logic analysers (just used it in fact to
deterimine that a GPS board is running at 9100 baud not 9600 ...) which may
be of interest to some of the other folks in here as well.

Peter
From: Petter Gustad on 31 Dec 2009 09:33
Chris Abele <ccabele(a)yahoo.com> writes:

> parallel port. Few recent PCs have parallel ports anymore, and I
> understand that USB-to-parallel converters generally don't work with

You can still get a PCIe parallel port card for twenty something
dollars.


Petter
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