Development boards for CPU development ?

I have a hobby project which consists of developing a complete
computer system from the ground up. With complete I mean that it
should have character display capabilities, keyboard input
capabilities and mass storage capabilities. Graphics and networking
might come in the future, but I feel that adding these is probably
more a team effort than a single person effort, and I need time first
to implement what should be a reasonable system stack.

This is what I mean with from the ground up : a system stack
consisting of an ISA, a simulator for the ISA and processor
architecture, basic display and keyboard capabilities for the
simulator, and system software which is based on Lisp. I have already
the simulator running, together with the IO capabilities and an
assembler.

A nice link to give you a background, and what motivated me, is the
Homebuilt CPU's Webring, starting at
http://www.homebrewcpu.com/. However, I am not really motivated to
build anything in TTL (although I did design in 2006 and 2007 a 12-bit
CPU, which I simulated at the ALU/register level on a wire/bus basis)
and doing wirewrap (expensive) or etching boards (no laboratory space
available).

What I am looking at for the future is a board where I of course can
build a CPU on, with VGA output and USB interface for both keyboard
and mass storage.

Currently I have some target boards, which I find interesting both in
price and possibilities :

- Digilent Nexsys2 board
- Digilent Nexsys board
- Spartan-3 starter kit board
- Spartan-3E starter kit

I am fascinated by the possibilities these boards might give. However,
are there other boards that you know of so that I might compare them,
price less then 200 EUR ?

I have also been following the discussion below about the ARM cores,
so I know that there might be drawbacks on implementing a CPU (or a
more or less complete computer system) by means of an FPGA. However,
for me it seems the most logical way, because these boards offer some
basic possibilities which are difficult to achieve in any other
way. Also, since my interest goes to the total system
(ISA/implementation/SW/applications), this gives me the possibility to
create something in a reasonable time, say about 2 years.

That is basically it, I think. Since such a project has many details,
I have possibly already forgotten some things, so do not hesitate to
ask.

Regards,

Jurgen

Have a look at our new Spartan-6 board Drigmorn3
http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/component_replacements/drigmorn3.html.
It's on the edge of your budget but there is also another board
Drigmorn2 (Spartan-3A) that is about to launch and is a little simpler
and cheaper.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 10 Oct, 17:50, Jurgen Defurne <jurgen.defu...@telenet.be> wrote:
> I have a hobby project which consists of developing a complete
> computer system from the ground up. With complete I mean that it
> should have character display capabilities, keyboard input
> capabilities and mass storage capabilities. Graphics and networking
> might come in the future, but I feel that adding these is probably
> more a team effort than a single person effort, and I need time first
> to implement what should be a reasonable system stack.
>
> This is what I mean with from the ground up : a system stack
> consisting of an ISA, a simulator for the ISA and processor
> architecture, basic display and keyboard capabilities for the
> simulator, and system software which is based on Lisp. I have already
> the simulator running, together with the IO capabilities and an
> assembler.
>
> A nice link to give you a background, and what motivated me, is the
> Homebuilt CPU's Webring, starting athttp://www.homebrewcpu.com/. However, I am not really motivated to
> build anything in TTL (although I did design in 2006 and 2007 a 12-bit
> CPU, which I simulated at the ALU/register level on a wire/bus basis)
> and doing wirewrap (expensive) or etching boards (no laboratory space
> available).
>
> What I am looking at for the future is a board where I of course can
> build a CPU on, with VGA output and USB interface for both keyboard
> and mass storage.
>
> Currently I have some target boards, which I find interesting both in
> price and possibilities :
>
> - Digilent Nexsys2 board
> - Digilent Nexsys board
> - Spartan-3 starter kit board
> - Spartan-3E starter kit
>
> I am fascinated by the possibilities these boards might give. However,
> are there other boards that you know of so that I might compare them,
> price less then 200 EUR ?
>
> I have also been following the discussion below about the ARM cores,
> so I know that there might be drawbacks on implementing a CPU (or a
> more or less complete computer system) by means of an FPGA. However,
> for me it seems the most logical way, because these boards offer some
> basic possibilities which are difficult to achieve in any other
> way. Also, since my interest goes to the total system
> (ISA/implementation/SW/applications), this gives me the possibility to
> create something in a reasonable time, say about 2 years.
>
> That is basically it, I think. Since such a project has many details,
> I have possibly already forgotten some things, so do not hesitate to
> ask.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jurgen

Save up and go for one of these:

http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyc3-embedded.html

A bit more expensive, but it has all the toys.

Cheers,
Jon

On Oct 11, 5:50=A0am, Jurgen Defurne <jurgen.defu...@telenet.be> wrote:
> I have a hobby project which consists of developing a complete
> computer system from the ground up. With complete I mean that it
> should have character display capabilities, keyboard input
> capabilities and mass storage capabilities. Graphics and networking
> might come in the future

Depends if your interest is more in the SW, HW, or final usable
system.

Look also at the propellor chip

> I have also been following the discussion below about the ARM cores,
> so I know that there might be drawbacks on implementing a CPU (or a
> more or less complete computer system) by means of an FPGA.

An FPGA solution is going to win on flexibility, but will always cost
more to get even a medium speed CPU in a FPGA, than as real silicon,
and you will not get very high performance single CPU in a FPGA,

So, I'd suggest you also look at the Low cost Eval Board, for Std
CPU's. eg
 Atmel's ATNGW100 is just $89,
and NXP have just released a useful development platform for $60 : see
http://mbed.org/

or check out the bottom end Atom's ...

or for silicon working harder, perhaps this ?
http://www.belogic.com/uzebox/index.htm
- could be respun into xMega ...

-jg

Jurgen Defurne <jurgen.defurne@telenet.be> wrote:
> I have a hobby project which consists of developing a complete
> computer system from the ground up. With complete I mean that it
> should have character display capabilities, keyboard input
> capabilities and mass storage capabilities. Graphics and networking
> might come in the future, but I feel that adding these is probably
> more a team effort than a single person effort, and I need time first
> to implement what should be a reasonable system stack.

> This is what I mean with from the ground up : a system stack
> consisting of an ISA, a simulator for the ISA and processor
> architecture, basic display and keyboard capabilities for the
> simulator, and system software which is based on Lisp. I have already
> the simulator running, together with the IO capabilities and an
> assembler.

> A nice link to give you a background, and what motivated me, is the
> Homebuilt CPU's Webring, starting at
> http://www.homebrewcpu.com/. However, I am not really motivated to
> build anything in TTL (although I did design in 2006 and 2007 a 12-bit
> CPU, which I simulated at the ALU/register level on a wire/bus basis)
> and doing wirewrap (expensive) or etching boards (no laboratory space
> available).

> What I am looking at for the future is a board where I of course can
> build a CPU on, with VGA output and USB interface for both keyboard
> and mass storage.

> Currently I have some target boards, which I find interesting both in
> price and possibilities :

> - Digilent Nexsys2 board
> - Digilent Nexsys board
> - Spartan-3 starter kit board
> - Spartan-3E starter kit

If you want the experiment with free CPU, look for a board without
DDR2. There is no open DDR2 core yet.

Otherwise look at the project you want to run and look at the supported
boards.

Bye
-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

First of all check what is available for those boards. Setup your 
development system and compile the supplied demo configuration. If this 
does not work, wait or chose another board. Also check what is supplied 
in the demos. Are these VHDL or Verilog sources or only some macros you 
can add to your design or not. Can you live with that?

You will find that a little older board is the better choice because 
there is more available while the chip is not mature yet.

Being one of the early adopters is easily going to be a hard job. Even 
for a beginner.

For Xilinx I'd recommend a Spartan 3E board. A friend and I just 
targeting the Spartan 3A Xtreme DSP board from Avnet. But this is more 
expensive and still a little poor supported.

Looks like Xilinx learned from this and does a better job with their 
Spartan-6 board.

You probably find an Altera alternative either. I am not familiar with 
Altera boards. Maybe someone else has a recommendation.

And again, first try to do some small changes to the original design 
like changing polarity of LEDs or something similar. If you cannot get 
this work you are getting in hassle you cannot solve as a beginner.

You can find lots of CPUs in the web. They are powerful enough for such 
a system. Look at www.opencores.org.

As an additional question, what do you recommend as literature for
starting out on FPGA design ?

Regards,

Jurgen

Jurgen Defurne <jurgen.defurne@telenet.be> wrote:
> As an additional question, what do you recommend as literature for
> starting out on FPGA design ?

www.google.com?
-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

Jurgen

There are a few things here http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/techitips/techitips.html
that may be of interest and help.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd. - Home of Merrick1. The HPC Solution.

On 11 Oct, 16:03, Jurgen Defurne <jurgen.defu...@telenet.be> wrote:
> As an additional question, what do you recommend as literature for
> starting out on FPGA design ?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jurgen

Jurgen Defurne wrote:
> I have a hobby project which consists of developing a complete
> computer system from the ground up. With complete I mean that it
> should have character display capabilities, keyboard input
> capabilities and mass storage capabilities. Graphics and networking
> might come in the future, but I feel that adding these is probably
> more a team effort than a single person effort, and I need time first
> to implement what should be a reasonable system stack.
> 
> This is what I mean with from the ground up : a system stack
> consisting of an ISA, a simulator for the ISA and processor
> architecture, basic display and keyboard capabilities for the
> simulator, and system software which is based on Lisp. I have already
> the simulator running, together with the IO capabilities and an
> assembler.
> 

Maybe you would like to take a look at

http://www.aviduratas.de/lisp/lispmfpga/


> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jurgen


Greetings


Jürgen



-- 
Jürgen Böhm                                            www.aviduratas.de
"At a time when so many scholars in the world are calculating, is it not
desirable that some, who can, dream ?"  R. Thom