Cyclone and ByteBlasterMV?

Altera only mentions the ByteBlaster II for programming Cyclone devices.
Presumably the ByteBlasterMV doesn't have the right voltage thresholds,
strictly speaking, but I was wondering if it could be used in a pinch. I
made my own from the published schematic (it works fine with Flex10K
devices), and would rather avoid having to buy the II, or make my own clone
of it.

Leon

Or if someone was knowledgeable about what's inside a ByteBlaster II, that
would be helpful. Because at $150, I don't want to imagine what the margin
on these is.
The ByteBlaster/MV are models of simplicity, I hope Altera keeps the spirit.

This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled Byteblaster
MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of the
file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple

http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~gkasprow/

I've built the thing, and it seems to work.


> Or if someone was knowledgeable about what's inside a ByteBlaster II, that
> would be helpful. Because at $150, I don't want to imagine what the margin
> on these is.
> The ByteBlaster/MV are models of simplicity, I hope Altera keeps the
spirit.
>
>

"Eric Paillet" <epaillet@antwerpen.be> wrote in message
news:4073b644$0$1991$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
> This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled Byteblaster
> MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of the
> file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple
>
> http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~gkasprow/
>
> I've built the thing, and it seems to work.

Thanks Eric. I downloaded the file and got it converted to ASCII format by
someone with Protel, so I can read it into Pulsonix. It's definitely a lot
different from the MV - uses three '244 chips and a transistor. I'll be
making a PCB for it and putting the design on my web site. If anyone else
wants the ASCII Protel file I can make it available.

Leon

"Eric Paillet" <epaillet@antwerpen.be> wrote in message
news:4073b644$0$1991$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
> This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled Byteblaster
> MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of the
> file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple
>
> http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~gkasprow/
>
> I've built the thing, and it seems to work.

Eric, what programming format did you use?

That schematic looks nothing like the insides of the
ByteBlaster II cable I had (I've just shipped it off
to a client and am awaiting a new one).


Nial

"Nial Stewart" <nial@nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk> wrote in message
news:407421d3$0$31700$fa0fcedb@lovejoy.zen.co.uk...
>
> "Eric Paillet" <epaillet@antwerpen.be> wrote in message
> news:4073b644$0$1991$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
> > This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled
Byteblaster
> > MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of
the
> > file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple
> >
> > http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~gkasprow/
> >
> > I've built the thing, and it seems to work.
>
> Eric, what programming format did you use?
>
> That schematic looks nothing like the insides of the
> ByteBlaster II cable I had (I've just shipped it off
> to a client and am awaiting a new one).

What chip(s) did it use? If I know the logic family, I can probably work the
rest of it out for myself.

Leon

> Altera only mentions the ByteBlaster II for programming Cyclone
devices.
> Presumably the ByteBlasterMV doesn't have the right voltage
thresholds,
> strictly speaking, but I was wondering if it could be used in a
pinch. I
> made my own from the published schematic (it works fine with Flex10K
> devices), and would rather avoid having to buy the II, or make my
own clone
> of it.

The ByteBlasteMV works quite well with the Cyclone. I'm using it in
the JTAG mode.

Martin
--
----------------------------------------------
JOP - a Java Processor core for FPGAs:
http://www.jopdesign.com/

Leon Heller wrote:
> "Nial Stewart" <nial@nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:407421d3$0$31700$fa0fcedb@lovejoy.zen.co.uk...
> 
>>"Eric Paillet" <epaillet@antwerpen.be> wrote in message
>>news:4073b644$0$1991$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
>>
>>>This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled
> 
> Byteblaster
> 
>>>MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of
> 
> the
> 
>>>file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple
>>>
>>>http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~gkasprow/
>>>
>>>I've built the thing, and it seems to work.
>>
>>Eric, what programming format did you use?
>>
>>That schematic looks nothing like the insides of the
>>ByteBlaster II cable I had (I've just shipped it off
>>to a client and am awaiting a new one).
> 
> 
> What chip(s) did it use? If I know the logic family, I can probably work the
> rest of it out for myself.
> 
> Leon
> 
> 
My local FAE told that the original BBII uses transistors for it's logic 
due to the 1.5V io requirement, but if you use 3.3V IO, it's perfectly 
possible to use som 74's to do it. I've done mine with 126 (to avoid the 
transistor used as a inverter in the schematic above mentioned) and it 
works just fine.

Bye,
Ricardo

"Martin Schoeberl" <martin.schoeberl@chello.at> wrote in message
news:EiYcc.383059$Or1.126922@news.chello.at...
> > Altera only mentions the ByteBlaster II for programming Cyclone
> devices.
> > Presumably the ByteBlasterMV doesn't have the right voltage
> thresholds,
> > strictly speaking, but I was wondering if it could be used in a
> pinch. I
> > made my own from the published schematic (it works fine with Flex10K
> > devices), and would rather avoid having to buy the II, or make my
> own clone
> > of it.
>
> The ByteBlasteMV works quite well with the Cyclone. I'm using it in
> the JTAG mode.

Thanks, I'll try it. I suppose it could depend on how the I/O banks are
configured.

Leon

> "Eric Paillet" <epaillet@antwerpen.be> wrote in message
> news:4073b644$0$1991$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be...
> > This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled
Byteblaster
> > MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of
the
> > file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple
> >
> > http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~gkasprow/
> >
> > I've built the thing, and it seems to work.
>
> Thanks Eric. I downloaded the file and got it converted to ASCII format by
> someone with Protel, so I can read it into Pulsonix. It's definitely a lot
> different from the MV - uses three '244 chips and a transistor. I'll be
> making a PCB for it and putting the design on my web site. If anyone else
> wants the ASCII Protel file I can make it available.
>
> Leon
>
>

Could You please send us a copy of the converted BBII schematics in a
readable form (*.Bit, *.PDF, *.gif, ...) or make them available on the net?
Think a specialized format is not good for publishing ...
-Thanks.-

with best regards,

Peter Seng


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