The BeMicroCV at $49.00 USD may no longer be available. I wanted to order an extra, but Arrow has been out for quite some time.
The situation here is that the price of a bare-bones Cyclone III in Taiwan with less features is more than what the BeMicroCV was, which includes teh Cyclone V, DRAM, USB, and a few other nice features.
EBay is selling the older stuff... but I wonder if anyone really should bother. And I have real doubts about buying bare ball-gate-array chips and then DIYing a multilayer board to work properly. So I want the board that makes it easier AND less expensive.
The older Cyclones sold on Ebay are fine for learning the in's and outs of FPGA's once you had your feet wet. Though I'd start with a Terasic DE0 kit for a noob.
You can do a lot with the Ebay boards. They're just unfit for something like the P1V. But if you're into learning Verilog or VHDL, retro systems and DIY processors, they'll do just fine. They are also cheap enough if you brick them, you aren't out much.
My Bemicro I tossed in the closet. It was a slap dash job rushed out the door, near non-existent documentation, etc. A great example of how not to introduce a new device.
I got the license voucher code to work - I'd mistaken a 5 for an S - and got a MicroBlaze design to synthesise. This was for an XC7A35T device, which is the only one authorised by the license.
ISE wouldn't be much use, as it doesn't support newer devices like the Artix-7.
I now need to find out how to use Vivado for the ARTY board, it isn't one of the available choices.
You need to download the board files from Digilent website and follow the install instructions also there. This will allow you to use any of the Digilent Artix7 based boards
I got the license voucher code to work - I'd mistaken a 5 for an S - and got a MicroBlaze design to synthesise. This was for an XC7A35T device, which is the only one authorised by the license.
ISE wouldn't be much use, as it doesn't support newer devices like the Artix-7.
I now need to find out how to use Vivado for the ARTY board, it isn't one of the available choices.
Comments
The situation here is that the price of a bare-bones Cyclone III in Taiwan with less features is more than what the BeMicroCV was, which includes teh Cyclone V, DRAM, USB, and a few other nice features.
EBay is selling the older stuff... but I wonder if anyone really should bother. And I have real doubts about buying bare ball-gate-array chips and then DIYing a multilayer board to work properly. So I want the board that makes it easier AND less expensive.
You can do a lot with the Ebay boards. They're just unfit for something like the P1V. But if you're into learning Verilog or VHDL, retro systems and DIY processors, they'll do just fine. They are also cheap enough if you brick them, you aren't out much.
Grant Searle's site shows what you can do with them:
http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Multicomp/index.html
My Bemicro I tossed in the closet. It was a slap dash job rushed out the door, near non-existent documentation, etc. A great example of how not to introduce a new device.
ISE wouldn't be much use, as it doesn't support newer devices like the Artix-7.
I now need to find out how to use Vivado for the ARTY board, it isn't one of the available choices.
You need to download the board files from Digilent website and follow the install instructions also there. This will allow you to use any of the Digilent Artix7 based boards
Bob,
Thanks for the tip about the Digilent files. I'll try that.
Or, is this like Office360 free trial, a hook ?