interfacing a PC based program with a FPGA

Hi,
I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
application.
I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?

TIA. 
Srinivas

"Srinivas" <srinivaserj@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:18bc100b.0410210301.265232ef@posting.google.com...
> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?
>
> TIA.
> Srinivas

As I understand you need help writing a program in C to communicate with the 
serial port?! Then you'd better ask this question on a newsgroup related to 
the software programming not a FPGA or Verilog news group! Also you will 
need to provide some more information; at least the OS under which you are 
going to run your program.

Regards
Arash 

Srinivas wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?

You may want to find a good terminal emulator program rather than trying
to write your own.  The last time I write code for a serial port (under
windows) it was a real PITA.  But then you may be using a decent OS. 
But under any OS, you will be talking to the driver, not the serial
port.  

If you have to write a program, try searching on the web for source code
for a terminal emulator or similar project.  There are lots of open
source projects out there.  

-- 

Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY
removed.

Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design      URL http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave                               301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110                 301-682-7666 FAX

On Thu, 2004-10-21 at 04:01 -0700, Srinivas wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?
> 
> TIA. 
> Srinivas

It would depend on your operating system. If it is Windows, then there
are a couple helpful documents in Microsoft's MDSN site. Search for
"Serial Communications C" or something like that. It will probably take
2 to 3 pages of code to setup the serial channel.

Coding serial communication for DOS is simple since you can control the port registers directly, however it's not easy task in windows unless you familiar with C/C++, win32 API, MFC...if you own a VSC++ develope studio, there's some good examples, check for the project TTY

Srinivas wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?

Is serial interface a must? There are relatively cheap development 
boards available with either Ethernet or USB interface. Might be easier 
to start with and lot more bandwidth, too! Depends of course on your 
requirements, hobby project?

Just my $0.02, HTH

J.S.

> TIA. 
> Srinivas

Srinivas wrote:

> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?
> 
> TIA.
> Srinivas

Srinivas,

Are you referring to programming the serial port under windows? Then see

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnfiles/html/msdn_serial.asp
Oh, and try the big web secret >>www.google.com<<

If you are asking this question, then do you have a Windows toolset?  
MicroShaft does have a free compiler available
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/

However, I think the debugging facilities are not there.

Here's an open sourced project that has a debugger included.
http://www.openwatcom.org/product/features_content.html
There are others, like cygwin.

Or are you referring to distributed computing, e.g. RPC (Remote Procedure 
Call). In which case, I can't find references specific to FPGAs. Nor have 
I heard of formal RPC implementations WRT FPGAs.  Hopefully, someone
else has and thus give you a better answer if this is your question.

If your application is simple enough, you should be able to derive some
simple message passing on the serial line to call your FPGA C routines.
Done that one many a time myself.

HTH, Steve

Srinivas wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?
> 
> TIA. 
> Srinivas
Depends on what OS you are running on the PC. If Linux look for ioperm 
(just google), if windows look for inpout32.dll. There are probably a 
lot of other choices, but these worked for me.
The downside is that a Linux program using ioperm has to be run as root 
or setuid root, which of couse is a security risc.
/NS

Srinivas wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
> I understand i need to write a serial interfacing code on the FPGA
> side and an API on the PC side,considering i intend to use a RS 232
> serial interface bet'n the PC and the FPGA board.
> I need help regarding the PC side API programming.I'll be using a 'C'
> program and would like to call the FPGA based functions.
> Can anyone suggest how i go about this?any references?
> 
> TIA. 
> Srinivas

Goto LCC for Windows web page:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/

In Free download section you can find the Windows API Documentation.
I havn't check if this document have the API descriptions for serial 
port but I guess it should be in it.  Even if it doesn't it is still a 
good reference for Windows programming.
Note: Not suitable for .NET environment.

Joe

> Hi,
> I'm looking to integrate a FPGA based program into a PC based
> application.
...
...

Hello,

is serial communication a must?
If not you could use the PC parallel port (parport macro and associated
software) and transfer data at 500KBytes/sec, no special semiconductors
needed.
Free sources available.
see:

http://www.xilinx.com/publications/xcellonline/xcell_45/xc_pdf/xc_seng45.pdf

http://www.seng.de/dlk_interface_.html

http://www.seng.de/dlk_.html



with best regards,

Peter Seng


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