Want to experiment with FPGA. Suggestions?
cbmeeks
Posts: 634
I bought the Mojo v3 (or whatever it's called) a while back. Before I realized it doesn't work on Mac (not easily, anyway).
I'm going to eventually get a "PC" but that's a while out.
I'm mostly interested in video/audio work (which brought me to Propeller). I have the Propeller QuickStart board and I LOVE it. Going to build some video circuits with it.
Anyway, I know true, hard-core video work should be in FPGA. The things I want one day require the parallelism that FPGA offers. But I also realize that FPGA is hard. So I'm prepared for the long-haul of learning it.
But right out of the gate, there doesn't seem to be an easy to use system like Arduino or Propeller offer. With those, I can spend $20 - $50 and start building things within a few minutes.
With FPGA, it seems it's all about the tool chain, expensive licenses, and tons of different boards to use. Which all seem to be many hundreds of dollars. I'm just a hobbyist.
I've seen the Papilio (spelling?) but it doesn't seem to be very active.
What do you guys suggest? It would be great if it would work with my Mac and not take 60 gigs of space..lol.
Thanks
I'm going to eventually get a "PC" but that's a while out.
I'm mostly interested in video/audio work (which brought me to Propeller). I have the Propeller QuickStart board and I LOVE it. Going to build some video circuits with it.
Anyway, I know true, hard-core video work should be in FPGA. The things I want one day require the parallelism that FPGA offers. But I also realize that FPGA is hard. So I'm prepared for the long-haul of learning it.
But right out of the gate, there doesn't seem to be an easy to use system like Arduino or Propeller offer. With those, I can spend $20 - $50 and start building things within a few minutes.
With FPGA, it seems it's all about the tool chain, expensive licenses, and tons of different boards to use. Which all seem to be many hundreds of dollars. I'm just a hobbyist.
I've seen the Papilio (spelling?) but it doesn't seem to be very active.
What do you guys suggest? It would be great if it would work with my Mac and not take 60 gigs of space..lol.
Thanks
Comments
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Thanks for the suggestions. But, if I go the virtual machine route, I wonder if I just should use my Mojo V3. Spec wise, I'm not sure how it stacks up though. I just don't know enough about FPGA to know what you need to create video cards. LOL
Thanks again.
I'm thinking of doing that myself. My MacBook Pro is almost as old as yours.
I'm currently (just started) playing with the Papilio DUO on my Mac running the Xilinx ISE using Win 7 on a Parallels VM. It works just fine. I've also run the Altera tools under similar conditions for the Parallax P1 and P2 FPGA images. I haven't tried a Linux VM yet since I had a copy of Windows.
I've been told that the Windows versions of the FPGA tools are generally better supported and feature rich than the Linux versions at this time. Basic functionality is the same but some of the more leading edge or sophisticated features may be more advanced on the Windows versions - currently where the FPGA vendors have the most software revenue.
As for Papilio, they may not seem active but Jack (the main guy) is very helpful and very active in development and support of his tools and boards. His DesignLab IDE is a very creative marriage of Xlinix ISE and the Arduino IDE which gives you a way to integrate FPGA designs using the Zpuino FPGA soft processor and Arduino sketches. The DUO also effectively has an Arduino Leonardo on the back in actual hardware so you can work on designs that complement the Arduino family without taking up the FPGA space to run a Zpuino.
There is also a Papilio user that goes by the handle, Hamster who wrote a FPGA programming course that takes you from ground zero through some pretty sophisticated FPGA code using a Papilio One and their Logic Wing, I'm currently working through this course (slowly due to real world interruptions). You might want to start with the 500K Papilio One, to gain some experience and test out your tool chain on the OSX/Virtualbox/Linux set up. Once you have that under your belt, you can make some better informed decisions on a future path. By then, you may be ready for the Parallax 1-2-3 FPGA board and some virtual Propeller work.
As far as the 60GB, I can't guarantee that! The FPGA tool suites are generally HUGE!!!
Edit: There is also Digilent which makes/sells a number of FPGA dev boards. I have a couple of those that I haven't used much. They are very targeted toward university level FPGA classes and have good materials from what I've been exposed to. There boards are more expensive and less hobbyist oriented. Jack and the folks on the Papilio site are more hobbyist oriented in my opinion. Papillio also have some wings (shields/capes/hats) for their boards that may be interesting to your project goals.