S3e starter kits available

I hate Quartus, but don't want to wait for the S3E kit anymore...
Anyone have experience with this guy?

http://www.altera.com/education/univ/materials/boards/unv-de2-board-distributors.html

> > S3e starterkit will be
> > available Feb 2005, it only says 'targetted' meaning : nothing at all

"Pierre" <pierre.remy@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1136341157.194576.111400@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I hate Quartus, but don't want to wait for the S3E kit anymore...
> Anyone have experience with this guy?
>
> http://www.altera.com/education/univ/materials/boards/unv-de2-board-distributors.html
>
>> > S3e starterkit will be
>> > available Feb 2005, it only says 'targetted' meaning : nothing at all
>

no hands on experience but I would recommend the TREX C1

for 149USD its pretty much loaded, also for that board the design guru of 
the "C1 reconfigurable" computer is providing amstrad emulation with lots of 
games working from the CF card, etc..

both the DE and C1 board have on board byteblaster that is also useable for 
customer applications for USB comms so that pretty nice.

digilent s3e starterkit includes platform usb cable, but that is only 
useable for config not for user API access

as said I dont have the TREX board so I am only commenting on what I have 
seen or heard.

Antti 

Antti Lukats wrote:
>
> you could try there
>     http://www.xilinx.com/s3ediscount
> but I am afraid it may as well not lead to the actual online entry form :(
>

 I received the sample pack in the mail yesterday (from Avnet/US);
the $25 discount offer on the case says it's valid until the end of
January, but if you click the link it says:
  "The introductory pricing period for the Spartan-3E Kit is now over"

Over before it started, eh...

 The other funny thing was, when I took the board out of the case there
was a strategically placed piece of electrical tape on the board whose
only purpose seemed to be to obscure the "Linear Technology" logo
on the silkscreen.

  The card has pads for four of the new Digilent 6 pin I/O headers,
plus one of those %#@$&!!  forty pin, one ground I/O headers.

have fun,
Brian

"Brian Davis" <brimdavis@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1136552186.711153.183580@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Antti Lukats wrote:
>>
>> you could try there
>>     http://www.xilinx.com/s3ediscount
>> but I am afraid it may as well not lead to the actual online entry form 
>> :(
>>
>
> I received the sample pack in the mail yesterday (from Avnet/US);
> the $25 discount offer on the case says it's valid until the end of
> January, but if you click the link it says:
>  "The introductory pricing period for the Spartan-3E Kit is now over"
>
> Over before it started, eh...
>
> The other funny thing was, when I took the board out of the case there
> was a strategically placed piece of electrical tape on the board whose
> only purpose seemed to be to obscure the "Linear Technology" logo
> on the silkscreen.
>
>  The card has pads for four of the new Digilent 6 pin I/O headers,
> plus one of those %#@$&!!  forty pin, one ground I/O headers.
>
> have fun,
> Brian
>
we are (having fun)

Brian would you be interested to beta-test a standalone utility to configure 
the sample Pack?

we are currently working on the auto-fix of bitstream startup clock, etc, 
and and having
some problems with auto-CRC in the compressed bitstreams, but the main 
functions
already work, so if you have a parallel cable III or compatible you can use 
the utility.

I assume the EDK/XPS/XMD flow for Flash programming also works but it is 
really not
and easy way to reflash the board.

http://xilant.com/content/view/28/51/

I can send you discount reigstration code for the s3e Starterkit discount, 
well I dont know
if that is valid either (but I am not going to use it anyway)

--
6pin headers, actually there are 5 of them, the JP1 has same pinout but only 
1 I/O and 3 Input only

the 40 pin header, funny 1 ground, and 5 unconnected pins !!

Antti 

"Brian Davis" <brimdavis@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1136552186.711153.183580@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Antti Lukats wrote:
>>
>> you could try there
>>     http://www.xilinx.com/s3ediscount
>> but I am afraid it may as well not lead to the actual online entry form 
>> :(
>>
>
> I received the sample pack in the mail yesterday (from Avnet/US);
> the $25 discount offer on the case says it's valid until the end of
> January, but if you click the link it says:
>  "The introductory pricing period for the Spartan-3E Kit is now over"
>
> Over before it started, eh...
>
> The other funny thing was, when I took the board out of the case there
> was a strategically placed piece of electrical tape on the board whose
> only purpose seemed to be to obscure the "Linear Technology" logo
> on the silkscreen.

Avnet is not selling Linear ! Tthey sell power supply solutions from TI,
so I am not surprised. Maybe they did also take out the Linear Tech's
ad booklet from the DVD box !?

Antti

Antti Lukats wrote:
>
>Avnet is not selling Linear ! Tthey sell power supply solutions
>from TI, so I am not surprised. Maybe they did also take out the
>Linear Tech's ad booklet from the DVD box !?
>
 Yes, and replaced it with a TI booklet, see pictures at:

   http://members.aol.com/fpgastuff/s3e_sample_pack.zip

 Digilent now has a accessory page offering a power supply
and parallel JTAG cable for the starter board:

  http://www.digilentinc.com/s3eaccessory

 I ordered one of those low cost ($37.50 USD) Digilent
USB JTAG cables to try out, along with a couple of the
6 pin I/O cards.

 Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any documentation about the
sample pack board at Xilinx, only on the Digilent pages as
you pointed out earlier, which now also has the user's guide:

  http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Documentation.cfm

>
>would you be interested to beta-test a standalone utility
>to configure the sample Pack?
>
 I could try it out briefly, as long as there are no
exploding voltage regulators involved :)

 Also, the S3E sample packs are shipping with ES parts,
which have a slightly different pinout and errata than
the first production stepping. Have you seen any evidence
of the JTAG startup problems discussed in the -ES errata ?

>
>6pin headers, actually there are 5 of them, the JP1 has same
>pinout but only 1 I/O and 3 Input only
>
 On mine, JP1 is the JTAG, and JP2 brings out the serial boot
mode SPI pins, something I want to test with an external serial
config prom before doing my own S3E board.

>
>I can send you discount reigstration code for the s3e
>Starterkit discount, well I dont know
>if that is valid either (but I am not going to use it anyway)
>
 Thanks for the offer, but I'm sure Xilinx has plenty of time
to fix their webpage with the discount offer before the kits
start shipping, so I should (eventually) be able to register mine.

 Maybe they should have printed "Offer valid for 30 days after
S3E Starter Kit online ordering commences" on the DVD case.

>
>the 40 pin header, funny 1 ground, and 5 unconnected pins !!
>
 I think they pinned it out to be compatible with the older
Digilent boards; but since they stuffed it with a different
connector than the old boards anyway (straight male instead
of right angle female), I'd rather have seen something like
two twenty pin headers, each with one row grounded.

Brian

"Brian Davis" <brimdavis@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1136777766.184395.129010@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Antti Lukats wrote:
>>
>>Avnet is not selling Linear ! Tthey sell power supply solutions
>>from TI, so I am not surprised. Maybe they did also take out the
>>Linear Tech's ad booklet from the DVD box !?
>>
> Yes, and replaced it with a TI booklet, see pictures at:
>
>   http://members.aol.com/fpgastuff/s3e_sample_pack.zip
>
I would say LT could win in court. I assume LT sponsored the sample pack and 
the
booklet printing, so replacing it with ir-relavant stuff from the 
competition really isnt
nice move from Avnet.

> Digilent now has a accessory page offering a power supply
> and parallel JTAG cable for the starter board:
>
>  http://www.digilentinc.com/s3eaccessory
>
> I ordered one of those low cost ($37.50 USD) Digilent
> USB JTAG cables to try out, along with a couple of the
> 6 pin I/O cards.
>
unfortunatly I am not supporting this cable (as I dont have it)

> Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any documentation about the
> sample pack board at Xilinx, only on the Digilent pages as
> you pointed out earlier, which now also has the user's guide:
>
>  http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Documentation.cfm
>
most of the info about Sample Pack at digilient website
appeared within 2 hours from my email - their reply to me
was: "be careful when throw rock in an glass house" !

I possible wasnt so easy on them in my first email
but it really triggered some results, also documentation
for other products appeared at digilent website
a few hours later.

>>
>>would you be interested to beta-test a standalone utility
>>to configure the sample Pack?
>>
> I could try it out briefly, as long as there are no
> exploding voltage regulators involved :)
>
I defenetly hope so - my crash happened during some
plug in plug out of the power and jtag cables, its defenetly
not triggered by software

> Also, the S3E sample packs are shipping with ES parts,
> which have a slightly different pinout and errata than
> the first production stepping. Have you seen any evidence
> of the JTAG startup problems discussed in the -ES errata ?
>
no, I havent seen those startup problems, but there are other
undocumented erratic behaviour, namly if you program the
flash with the bitstream location at close at the configuration
start address then you can not reprogram again using impact
in JTAG mode. nice isnt it? The configuration state machine
gets confused as it sees the signature from parallel flash
during the jtag configuration sequence.

my software has a special fix for this to be overcome.
(by placing the flash in read status mode and those
preventing the FPGA to see the signature from flash)

for impact you need to set jumper in the middle position
of the mode select and powercycle

>>
>>6pin headers, actually there are 5 of them, the JP1 has same
>>pinout but only 1 I/O and 3 Input only
>>
> On mine, JP1 is the JTAG, and JP2 brings out the serial boot
> mode SPI pins, something I want to test with an external serial
> config prom before doing my own S3E board.
>
No, I dont think your board is different of what I have and you can
not use JP2 for serial config, its not wired to proper pins, I also
wanted to test out serial config and ended up doing a quick proto:

http://xilant.com/content/view/35/2/

>>I can send you discount reigstration code for the s3e
>>Starterkit discount, well I dont know
>>if that is valid either (but I am not going to use it anyway)
>>
> Thanks for the offer, but I'm sure Xilinx has plenty of time
> to fix their webpage with the discount offer before the kits
> start shipping, so I should (eventually) be able to register mine.
>
> Maybe they should have printed "Offer valid for 30 days after
> S3E Starter Kit online ordering commences" on the DVD case.
>
>>
>>the 40 pin header, funny 1 ground, and 5 unconnected pins !!
>>
> I think they pinned it out to be compatible with the older
> Digilent boards; but since they stuffed it with a different
> connector than the old boards anyway (straight male instead
> of right angle female), I'd rather have seen something like
> two twenty pin headers, each with one row grounded.
>
> Brian
-- 
Antti Lukats
http://www.xilant.com 

Antti Lukats wrote:
>
> No, I dont think your board is different of what I have and you can
> not use JP2 for serial config, its not wired to proper pins
>
 Oops, you're right;  the Rev C. board pictures in the user's guide
label those connector pins  "MOSI, MISO" etc so I thought they'd
brought out the serial boot pins. The schematic also labels that
connector as "Alternate Programming", but I hadn't checked the
FPGA pin connections.

Brian

"Brian Davis" <brimdavis@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:1136809595.310126.157170@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Antti Lukats wrote:
>>
>> No, I dont think your board is different of what I have and you can
>> not use JP2 for serial config, its not wired to proper pins
>>
> Oops, you're right;  the Rev C. board pictures in the user's guide
> label those connector pins  "MOSI, MISO" etc so I thought they'd
> brought out the serial boot pins. The schematic also labels that
> connector as "Alternate Programming", but I hadn't checked the
> FPGA pin connections.
>
> Brian
>
hm, I only have seen rev D or D.1 schematics, and no MISO/MOSI reference
the JP2 is labelled as alternative programming, but that just means nothing

first beta of standalone programming and config utility is now downloadable
(only Xilinx Cable III support drivers are included)

http://xilant.com/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,53/func,fileinfo/id,8/

-- 
Antti Lukats
http://www.xilant.com 

Just My 2 cents why I think there is such a big hold up (granted this
might be way off base).

They arent going to ship the S3E starter kit with anything less then
8.1 Foundation Eval and EDK 8.1 (this is info gleaned from S3E Starter
webpage at Xilinx).  If you ask me the hold up right now is that EDK
isn't ready (my belief).  They released 8.1 ISE a while ago, and if 8.1
EDK was done, I think they would be shipping the starter kits.
(Originally they wanted to ship starter Q4 2005, but neither the ISE or
EDK was done, and I dont know how manufacturing was shaping up at that
point at the fabs).

Just my opinion as always.

-Joel