XUPV2P from digilentinc

Is it possible for a hobbiest to obtain the board for USD 300? Any
downside getting this board?

Regards,
John

I can't speak about obtaining the board, but it is a very good board
with few negatives.

However, bare in mind that the free webpack will not program the
xc2vp30 on the board.  (At least WebPack 9.1 won't.)  So that may mean
$2,400 in tool costs.

Stephen

On Sep 29, 5:07 am, johnzulu[at]yahoo.com wrote:
> Is it possible for a hobbiest to obtain the board for USD 300? Any
> downside getting this board?
>
> Regards,
> John

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:52:23 -0000, "stephen.craven@gmail.com"
<stephen.craven@gmail.com> wrote:

>I can't speak about obtaining the board, but it is a very good board
>with few negatives.
>
>However, bare in mind that the free webpack will not program the
>xc2vp30 on the board.  (At least WebPack 9.1 won't.)  So that may mean
>$2,400 in tool costs.
>
>Stephen
>
 Ouch ouch ouch. I am not willing to fork out that amount for just
testing water... Any other recommendation?

I found the following on the site:

Spartan-3 Starter Board
Spartan 3E Starter Board
Nexys-2

Any opinions on the boards? Pros and cons?

Thanks,
John

On Sep 29, 8:06 am, johnzulu[at]yahoo.com wrote:

>
> I found the following on the site:
>
> Spartan-3 Starter Board
> Spartan 3E Starter Board
> Nexys-2
>
> Any opinions on the boards? Pros and cons?

It would help, if we would know what you're trying to do.
The "old" spartan 3 starter boards are nice, as they have SRAM on it,
which is very easy to deal with.
The connector is also a standard .1" .

The it get more difficult with the newer Spartan3e, (DDR SDRAM).
The Nexys and Nexys-2 have PSRAM on it, never tried, but it seems to
be slower than a real SDRAM.

Personally, I don't like the proprietary USB-JTAG interface on the
nexys boards. One more piece of software to maintain. Would prefer
just the standard 20 pin header I could connect the standard
programming cable.

There is also a new spartan 3a-dsp board out at xilinx's webpage (only
$295). Check it out, if you really need something speedy ;-)

johnzulu[at]yahoo.com wrote:
>  Ouch ouch ouch. I am not willing to fork out that amount for just
> testing water... Any other recommendation?
> 
> I found the following on the site:
> 
> Spartan-3 Starter Board
> Spartan 3E Starter Board
> Nexys-2
> 
> Any opinions on the boards? Pros and cons?
> 
> Thanks,
> John

I like the digilent Spartan-3E and 3A boards.  I own a 3E500 myself, and 
a 3E1600 at work.  I also have the Spartan-3 PCIe board at work but 
never quite got to where I needed it for development.

The biggest question: what do you want to do with them?

If you want memory, for instance, look at the Xilinx Memory Interface 
Generator (MIG) for supported starter boards.

- John_H

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:52:23 -0000, "stephen.craven@gmail.com"
<stephen.craven@gmail.com> wrote:

>I can't speak about obtaining the board, but it is a very good board
>with few negatives.
>
>However, bare in mind that the free webpack will not program the
>xc2vp30 on the board.  (At least WebPack 9.1 won't.)  So that may mean
>$2,400 in tool costs.

Webpack 9.2 claims to support the XC2VP30.
Also supports V5LX50, unlike 9.1 which only supports V5LX30.
However it doesn't support the S3A DSP3400, while 9.1 does...

Odd...
- Brian

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 17:16:30 GMT, John_H <newsgroup@johnhandwork.com>
wrote:

>johnzulu[at]yahoo.com wrote:
>>  Ouch ouch ouch. I am not willing to fork out that amount for just
>> testing water... Any other recommendation?
>> 
>> I found the following on the site:
>> 
>> Spartan-3 Starter Board
>> Spartan 3E Starter Board
>> Nexys-2
>> 
>> Any opinions on the boards? Pros and cons?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> John
>
>I like the digilent Spartan-3E and 3A boards.  I own a 3E500 myself, and 
>a 3E1600 at work.  I also have the Spartan-3 PCIe board at work but 
>never quite got to where I needed it for development.
>
>The biggest question: what do you want to do with them?
>
>If you want memory, for instance, look at the Xilinx Memory Interface 
>Generator (MIG) for supported starter boards.
>
>- John_H


What do I want to do with them?
Educate myself on FPGA. Hence I like to use the following:
1) Standard JTAG interfaces from Xilinx. I would like to be able to
copy 
   some of the existing schematics from the protoboard to my designs 
   and work  with it from standard JTAG. For example:
   - proprietary USB-JTAG interface on the nexys boards is a no no.
2) A speedy memory interface. 
3) A large space for multiple cores....   

Essentially the board must have most of the capabilities for  the
following work:

1) Plenty of i/o and adequate memory speed. example logic analyzer
2) Enough stuff for video and audio work.
3) DSP work.....

So far this is the kind of work I am aiming for on the board. So the
first project
on the board as exercise would be NTSC output :)

Regards,
John
   
   

> What do I want to do with them?
> Educate myself on FPGA. Hence I like to use the following:
> 1) Standard JTAG interfaces from Xilinx. I would like to be able to
> copy
>    some of the existing schematics from the protoboard to my designs
>    and work  with it from standard JTAG. For example:
>    - proprietary USB-JTAG interface on the nexys boards is a no no.


That's easy if you are satisfied with the standard Xilinx LPT jtag
cable.
The jtag connector is onboard. The schematic is here:
http://www.xilinx.com/support/programr/jtag_cable.pdf
The user guide is here:
http://www.xilinx.com/bvdocs/publications/ds097.pdf
Device family support and miscelanous:
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/designResources/ip_product_details.jsp?key=HW-PC4

Vasile



> 2) A speedy memory interface.
> 3) A large space for multiple cores....  
>
> Essentially the board must have most of the capabilities for  the
> following work:
>
> 1) Plenty of i/o and adequate memory speed. example logic analyzer
> 2) Enough stuff for video and audio work.
> 3) DSP work.....
>
> So far this is the kind of work I am aiming for on the board. So the
> first project
> on the board as exercise would be NTSC output :)
>
> Regards,
> John- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I own an original Xilinx/Digilent Spartan-3 Starter Kit (200K device)
at $99 and since some months ago also a Xilinx/Digilent Microblaze
Starter Kit (1600E device) at $295  and am very satified with both of
them but of course it depends on what type of work you are willing to
put in and how big projects you are aiming for.

For staying in the cheap but quite capable beginner to intermediate
class I would recommend the original Xilinx/Digilent Spartan-3 Starter
Kit BUT with the 1000K-circuit option. For a mere $50 more you get 5
times the logic so that's great.  But this board only uses 1MB 100Mhz
SRAM so it is not really suitable for Video-stuff of any resolution or
actions like Filtering. Its not suitable for Operating system-labbin
either 1MB is just too small for other than the most simplest system
like the TRS-80, C64 or similar retro-stuff. No Ethernet and no USB.
It uses the Parallell-cable for download
Like an earlier post said its 2*20 0.1" connectors is just great, easy
and cheap to play with. I've connected everything from speakers,
external VGA-screens to Joysticks and SD-Card connectors this way!

For some more power and ALOT of logic I think the $295 1600E-based
Starter-3E Kit is probably unbeatable for a non-student hobbyist. It
just fits about every core you can think of and mostly give headroom
for MORE. On the downside the external connector it uses a Hirose 100-
pin FX2 connector that don't come cheap from a hobby-side view, like
$25 for just a single connector if I remember correctly. One of the
demos that come with the board is a ucLinux dist with FTP, Telnet-
support! But for you to be able to make changes to its "hardware"-part
in a resonably simple way you need the real license for the Microblaze-
core and its tools and that will cost you $$.

Otherwise if you like Altera I think that their DE-2 Development-card
seems just great for doing Multimedia stuff.

Hope this helps!

Best Regards
Magnus Wedmark


vasile skrev:
> > What do I want to do with them?
> > Educate myself on FPGA. Hence I like to use the following:
> > 1) Standard JTAG interfaces from Xilinx. I would like to be able to
> > copy
> >    some of the existing schematics from the protoboard to my designs
> >    and work  with it from standard JTAG. For example:
> >    - proprietary USB-JTAG interface on the nexys boards is a no no.
>
>
> That's easy if you are satisfied with the standard Xilinx LPT jtag
> cable.
> The jtag connector is onboard. The schematic is here:
> http://www.xilinx.com/support/programr/jtag_cable.pdf
> The user guide is here:
> http://www.xilinx.com/bvdocs/publications/ds097.pdf
> Device family support and miscelanous:
> http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/designResources/ip_product_details.jsp?key=HW-PC4
>
> Vasile
>
>
>
> > 2) A speedy memory interface.
> > 3) A large space for multiple cores....
> >
> > Essentially the board must have most of the capabilities for  the
> > following work:
> >
> > 1) Plenty of i/o and adequate memory speed. example logic analyzer
> > 2) Enough stuff for video and audio work.
> > 3) DSP work.....
> >
> > So far this is the kind of work I am aiming for on the board. So the
> > first project
> > on the board as exercise would be NTSC output :)
> >
> > Regards,
> > John- Hide quoted text -
> >
> > - Show quoted text -

"spartan3wiz" <magnus.wedmark@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1191594443.303849.241260@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
> .... On the downside the external connector it uses a Hirose 100-
> pin FX2 connector that don't come cheap from a hobby-side view, like
> $25 for just a single connector if I remember correctly. ...
<snip>

I picked up a couple connectors from Digikey 1 year ago this Tuesday at 
$6.79 each.  They still show up at the same price:

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=H4324-ND

The Hirose connector form factor may be "inconvenient" for perf-board 
hobbyists, but we're getting beyond the age of simple perf-board circuits.

- John_H