I'm bemused that anyone would think drawing logic was easier or more convenient that typing a few lines of Verilog. I love Verilog specifically because it spares me the tedium and time of drafting.
I'm bemused that anyone would think drawing logic was easier or more convenient that typing a few lines of Verilog. I love Verilog specifically because it spares me the tedium and time of drafting.
Glad I could bemuse you!
I don't know Verilog, so I can't comment about its ease of use. Some people are more visual than others, maybe I need all the help I can get. (no maybe about it)
I've worked with many hardware types that were attracted Altera tools and solutions because they always offered schematic capture. Maybe it was the Caviar they served trying to win accounts where they were competing with Xilinx.
In my observations ASIC teams used Verilog exclusively while board designers were split between code (younger engineers) and schematic entry (mostly older engineers).
That KickStarter makes me think that I should start working on Propeller Devices drag-drop software during the summer.
This is the schematic drawing mode in Quartus. So you can buy a Cyclone II board for about $15 which has over 80 I/O pins and program it with a schematic and it can be a lot faster than soldering up DIP chips.
Then learn Verilog or VHDL. I'm slowly moving from schematic to text - I tend to 'think' in schematic while I write in text.
And then dream about a hybrid propeller / arduino / FPGA system. Many of the things being discussed over on the P2 discussion forum can be realized right now with existing hardware.
Arduino strengths (to me at least) - easy analog inputs, and cheap and simple to talk to ethernet / internet.
Propeller strengths - things like playing a movie with less than 10 lines of code.
FPGA strengths - heaps of pins, emulate a complete Z80 or 68xx retrocomputer 10x faster than the Propeller can.
How cool would it be to have an IDE and you grab a picture of a Propeller chip and then you grab a picture of an FPGA chip, and then grab a SRAM. Join them all up with a few wires.
The down sides to Schematic entry are
* Non portable, - you cannot just move your drawings to other tool flows
* No Conditional compile - Want to try to different ways to code something ?
* Simulation ??
* The Generic TTL blocks often carry extra logic, and lack the FPGA cell matching like Clock Enables.
You can hope the tools can remove unused logic, and find Clock Enables, but it is hard to be sure.
It makes sense to think in SCH form, and code in Verilog,
This kickstarter board is aimed at hobbyists just getting into not master class professionals who design with FPGA's everyday and know Verilog inside and out. In addition most hobbyists are comfortable with schematic entry as opposed to totally abstracting a design into a piece of text like you and Chip do.
This is quite cool. I spoke with the Papilio people a while back and they seemed quite helpful. It will be interesting to try putting a P1 COG on this FPGA board once Parallax releases the Verilog source.
Roadster
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I'm in! (just need to figure how deep I want to dive!)
I don't know Verilog, so I can't comment about its ease of use. Some people are more visual than others, maybe I need all the help I can get. (no maybe about it)
In my observations ASIC teams used Verilog exclusively while board designers were split between code (younger engineers) and schematic entry (mostly older engineers).
That KickStarter makes me think that I should start working on Propeller Devices drag-drop software during the summer.
This is the schematic drawing mode in Quartus. So you can buy a Cyclone II board for about $15 which has over 80 I/O pins and program it with a schematic and it can be a lot faster than soldering up DIP chips.
Then learn Verilog or VHDL. I'm slowly moving from schematic to text - I tend to 'think' in schematic while I write in text.
And then dream about a hybrid propeller / arduino / FPGA system. Many of the things being discussed over on the P2 discussion forum can be realized right now with existing hardware.
Arduino strengths (to me at least) - easy analog inputs, and cheap and simple to talk to ethernet / internet.
Propeller strengths - things like playing a movie with less than 10 lines of code.
FPGA strengths - heaps of pins, emulate a complete Z80 or 68xx retrocomputer 10x faster than the Propeller can.
How cool would it be to have an IDE and you grab a picture of a Propeller chip and then you grab a picture of an FPGA chip, and then grab a SRAM. Join them all up with a few wires.
Back to tinkering...
* Non portable, - you cannot just move your drawings to other tool flows
* No Conditional compile - Want to try to different ways to code something ?
* Simulation ??
* The Generic TTL blocks often carry extra logic, and lack the FPGA cell matching like Clock Enables.
You can hope the tools can remove unused logic, and find Clock Enables, but it is hard to be sure.
It makes sense to think in SCH form, and code in Verilog,
This kickstarter board is aimed at hobbyists just getting into not master class professionals who design with FPGA's everyday and know Verilog inside and out. In addition most hobbyists are comfortable with schematic entry as opposed to totally abstracting a design into a piece of text like you and Chip do.