TerasIC/Altera Cyclone - Re: Hardware vs Simh (and FPGA)

On Saturday, April 27, 2013 17:30:08 Toby Thain wrote: On the subject of the board, it is indeed REALLY small, I'd be surprised if it fits my pdp11 core - even when configured for very small models, like 11/03 or 11/10. Old in this case means 'no longer for sale' - or 'not recommended for new designs', which basically means the same. In other words, the mainstream of tooling is moving away from it, and support for the chip itself may no longer be in the latest versions. You can still get the older versions of the tooling though - so, supporting existing hardware is not a problem. I think this is already the case for first generation Cyclone chips like yours - I don't find support for it in my current version of Altera's Quartus. Does that stoke the arguments elsewhere? Certainly. But, those belong in a grey area anyway, it just hinges on where you put the bar. Designing hardware in VHDL does really form a special place in there, that nobody seems to recognize as such. Yes, the design I made for a pdp11 depends on the tooling from Altera or Xilinx to put into their FPGA's. But, I could also mail the VHDL files to a foundry and have them etch silicon for it. In both cases, I depend on the respective companies to use their IP to do something sensible to my design. But the design itself does not depend on a single company - but rather upon the status of VHDL as a standard. I don't think I made a wrong choice there... But, if in 10 or 20 years I'm unable to compile my VHDL in the then-standard tooling, be sure to remind me to eat my words.