On Wednesday 05 September 2007 07:55, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Sep 5, 2007, at 12:56 AM, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Sure. I have a bunch of PALs around, mostly
pulls from a bunch of
XT-class machines that Zenith made, and it's debatable whether there will
ever be a use for them. GALs, on the other hand, sound like they'be be
useful for all sorts of things. I should probably seek out some data on
these parts, or even a databook, somewhere. Got any pointers to specific
numbers?
Datasheets for these parts aren't difficult to come by. Despite
all the hype about them having been replaced by FPGAs and CPLDs, they
are still a current product line from a few different manufacturers
(Cypress and Atmel come to mind) and are available from most of the
major distributors.
The most popular ones seem to be the 16V8 and 22V10 (GAL16V8 and
GAL22V10).
I just need some point at which to get started. I'll have a look around,
then, with those numbers in mind...
It's worth noting that some CPLD families are
more-or-less direct
implementations of common PAL architectures. A Xilinx XC9536 CPLD,
for example, is very similar to two of what might have been called
PAL36V18. This comes in very handy if you're experienced with PAL
design and want to move into higher-density devices.
I've little experience with the current crop of programmable hardware, it's
just too "out there" for most of what I'd be into doing...
The PALs that you have a pulls are likely useless
because they're
one-time programmable. GALs and PALCE devices are electrically-
eraseable, and possibly some others, but not straight PALs.
Sure. Unless I run into somebody who for some reason wants to repair one of
those machines, or similar. But I'll use 'em as push pins before I just
toss 'em out.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin