On 03.01.2014 02:51, Jim Brain wrote:
I struggled for years to get into programmable design.
I bought a Spartan 3
board a few years back, but the need to learn an HDL and the tooling itself just
overwhelmed me. I was so afraid I'd bork this dev board.
A common approach.
Some people just do it - and some don't.
With respect to programmable logic and all those funny things there are several
kinds of people. Those who don't even start. Those who are happy with counters
and registers. And those who just do it.
The discussion is going into a direction I do not like. Thinks should be done
the right way. There are differnet right ways, some of them probably more right
than others. But using a CPLD, microcontroller and some obscure ethernet IC for
bitbanging anything vintage computer bus related is considered not to be
anything near a right way.
Sorry for being so rude. But this reminds me to people who made me suffering.
People who say phrases like "[approach] is sufficient, it works" or "this
is not
for me, it's for the pros"...
As far as I followed this interesting thread now, the current right way for the
inital problem would be:
- Full size (vintage bus size like quad wide flip chip) application specific
board with interface logic and
- some kind of add-on board with a nice and more or less solderable FPGA, some
SDRAM, ethernet PHY and other toys
- Run custom hardware design with embedded openrisc processor inside the FPGA.
I'd use Linux of course. With selfmade drivers for the custom logic.
And yes: This kind of stuff can be done. Has be done. By MANY people. And last
but not least by me.
:-)