16 Mar
2005
16 Mar
'05
6:02 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Oh yes. But the point it is took many, many, compiles
to get the darn
thing to work. I am sure I could have hand-wired it in less time than
that. If you need to make a change to a hand-wired design, it takes,
perhaps, 5 minutes. To do it to the FPGA design means another overnight
compile.
It depends on how complex your design is. It is when you get about 80+%
things slow
right down. The biggest problem with FPGA's and CPLD's is getting the
compiler to
keep the same pin layout on the part between compiles or having a
compile work
when you assign your pin layout. IE: pin 45 clock; pin 35 io7 ...
Maybe I am terminally clueless (well, I am, but...) ,
but I prefer to
design a bit, build it, test it, design the next part, and so on. Doing
that in an FPGA seems to be totally impractical with the long compile times.
Well you can do that way too. Even with CPLD's you still have hardware
... Hammer saw
saw saw drill curse .... I'm busy making the wooden box to hold the
computer and front
panel.
-tony.
PS. Back on topic ... looking a digi-key catalog they have a lot USB to
ABC development
kits. A bit pricy like $200-$300 but it may be worth it if you can find
a USB to uControler
kit.