can you make a jtager from a prop? $100 prize for jtag object

mctrivia

Seems everyone under the sun makes there own JTAG programmer and I am wondering will they not all work? will a Xilinx programmer not work with altera?

And why are usb ones so expensive. what would be needed to use the proplug, and prop to make a JTAG program for the MAX II?

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Post Edited (mctrivia) : 9/27/2009 2:58:15 AM GMT

Bill Henning

Theoretically, they should be interchangable.

But.

Sometimes there are driver level differences, and sometimes the applications check for "their" JTAG.

Theoretically, a prop and prop-plug would work - if you built the right software in the prop.

You can get an Altera USB Blaster clone on ebay for <$40

mctrivia said...
Seems everyone under the sun makes there own JTAG programmer and I am wondering will they not all work? will a Xilinx programmer not work with altera?

And why are usb ones so expensive. what would be needed to use the proplug, and prop to make a JTAG program for the MAX II?

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mctrivia

Well I do not know enough about jtag and don't want to make anyone pay for programer and think having a jtag object would be useful.

I will give $100 worth of my products to the first person to make a working jtag object that will work with max ii and alters fpga software.

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.

Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.

Toby Seckshund

I wanted to be less ignorant, about CPLD and eventually FPGA, and bounced off the high price of propriatry interfaces and latest software issues. I settled down to a homemade Xilinx MK3 parallel cable interface and their V9.2 software, as this was the latest stuff out there for free.

I was realy pleased about how easily I managed to get "glue logic" synth'd into a 9536 etc. Rung one only, I know, but started at least !

Because I tried to get the V11 of their software, I registered on their website at some point. This week I had a rep come round trying to sell me the glories of their Virtex range, Hey-Ho.

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Style and grace : Nil point

heater

I don't know if this helps but Alter have a thing call a "Jam STAPL" player http://forums.parallaxinc.com/www.altera.com/support/software/download/programming/jam/jam-index.jsp

The idea here is that one runs a small program on an processor (say 8051) that sits next to your FPGA in an embedded system. That program reads the FPGA design from a "Jam" file in FLASH or SD card or whatever and loads it into the FPGA via the JTAG pins.

They give the JAM player source code in C for the 8051 and a version that will run on DOS, Windows, Unix using the parallel port pins for JTAG.

Problem is that the example JAM player is 4300 lines of C which would be quite a job to rewrite in Spin.

One could run the JAM player on the PC and then arrange to have it send the JTAG pin patterns (TDI, TMS, TCK, TDO) down to the Prop via the Prop Plug serial link. The Prop object to accept the data and wiggle the JTAG pins would be quite simple.

Whether this would be quick enough and respect appropriate timings I don't know.

Shame they no longer support the simple programming style of the FLEX series. Then we could just make a Spin version of Flexloader which is very simple
packages.debian.org/fi/lenny/flexloader

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For me, the past is not over yet.

mctrivia

well i can put a uSD card on the programer. would be easier for programing multiple devices. So SD or prop plug for the prize.

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.

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BTX

Terasic is selling the MAX II Micro Kit at $69.- USD
www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=39&No=215

And the MAX II Micro board can also be used as a USB Blaster cable (JTAG mode programming only) by leveraging its on-board USB Blaster circuit.
Does not usefull for you ? a cheap solution though.

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Regards.

Alberto.

mctrivia

I bought one for myself but I want to give away programmers for free to some people so I want to make cheap. Prop and sd card is $12 prop with header for prop plug is $9

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.

Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.

mikediv

Toby Seckshund can I ask are you referring to Xilinx ISE Design Suite ver 9:?? I bought a few CPLD and FPGA Eval cards the guys here recommend the coollink and the Altera I have been haveing a lot of problems just trying to get documentation the boards are very nice one even comes with its own 16X2 LCD but trying to get documentation is like pulling my own teeth. I finally got a copy of ISE 10.1 because most of the tutorials use that version but now I was told I would have better luck with version 9???

waltc

The design of parallel port version of the Altera byteblaster has been in the public domain for quite some time. All it is, is 2 74ACT125's along with some resistors and caps.

Build it for under $6.00

Alsowolfman

sparkfun has the parallel byteblaster for 14.95, and they have the schematic available with it.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8705

mctrivia

I don't know about your computer but mine does not have parallel port.

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.

Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.

Leon

I upgraded to the Xilinx ISE Design Suite 11.1 Webpack software a couple of months ago. I haven't had any problems with it.

Leon

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Post Edited (Leon) : 9/27/2009 10:28:43 PM GMT

waltc

Well then have fun reverse engineering the USB variant of the byteblaster if you want to give them away.

mctrivia

If nothing is feisable I will just leave generic header. Would be nice though if prop could do programming

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.

Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.

NetHog

For the super-prop - it would be interesting to be able to jumper them to the on-board prop and let the prop do pass-through programming.

Hmmm, time to do some feasability digging.

mctrivia

I am told once the cpld is programed you can internally rewrote jtag pins to the on board prop. so self reprogramming is possible.

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.

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VIRAND

Well I didn't know what JTAG was but now I know it is a mode for testing chips and also propretary in circuit debug and
programming. I used to get specs for chips and program the parallel port in BASIC and if they didn't give me a program
spec datasheet then I didn't use their chip. I'm not currently using JTAG to program anything but it seems to me that
if a generic programmer is made and update plugins are easy to add then people might build it on your board and
upload plugins for the chip they are using as they write them instead of buying expensive universal programmers.
It seems to me like it would be just a Propeller, ample (24C1024?) eeprom with Programming app plus added plugins,
Prop plug or FTDI, and connector(s) for various proprietary programming cables.

I built my own EPROM programmer and PIC16C54 series programmer based on specs before I could afford to buy one.
Later I built cheap serial and parallel kits for which there was a DOS program for that's no longer updated, so around
the time I stopped using those PICs, they discontinued the UV erasable ones and made serial flash versions and I
never knew whether the flash ones could be parallel programmed NOR how to add chip programming code to the
file of chip names and codes that described their programming methods... I had the flash serial chip's program spec but
didn't know how to write it as/in the code file for a new chip for that programming software.

An open source generic programmer is always a good idea but there is an advantage to making it very simple to
write plugins for the new chips people use, so the most popular chips are sure to be added without having to
get specs and write the code and test it on every chip all by yourself, and also use up a lot of time reverse
engineering the programming of all the mean chips that programming datasheets are not available for.

USB is a PITA because it's so proprietary and excessively complex that I suppose that it might have been better
engineering to use a telephone wire like DSL, although I probably would have used a higher bitrate of any classic
simple serial standard including ... I believe that the Propeller programming format is actually ... something like Morse Code.

NetHog

I had some notes and thoughts on this, but not sure if I'll scratch enough time to look into this, so here they are for anyone who's interested in taking this further

There's an open-source JTAG project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/urjtag/
Taking a look at this, you can plug in your own communication interface by defining an instance of "cable_driver_t" (If anyone has the byte-blaster, that is supported out of the box)

Wiring is straight forward, you can allocate some Prop ports for the purpose of programming, e.g. P24-P27 as TCK/TMS/TDI/TDO (with TCK, TMS, TDI as outputs and TDO as input)

Each of these should be wired to the CPLD via a 100-ohm resistor, and (for TCK/TMS/TDI) may need 2k2 pull-ups on the prop side of the interface. A reference circuit can be seen at http://hri.sourceforge.net/tools/

CPLD ICP:
mctrivia notes that the CPLD can be configured to direct JTAG via any of it's pins to allow ICP.

Programming:
An approach is:
1) Reset prop and upload a CPLD programmer app to the prop The program emulates the "ft2232" method of jtag programming
2) Use urjtag toolkit to push data to the prop via the/a serial cable
3) reset prop again after CPLD is programmed

More details of the FT2232 interface here:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/urjtag/index.php?title=Cable_FT2232

Obviously you could actually use an FT2232 to do this [noparse]:)[/noparse]
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