[sdiy] CPLD recommendations

[Neil Johnson]

Harry and all,

> I'm looking for what I can deal with at home. I just KNOW that an SPLD
> (PAL, GAL whatever) ...  But I need to learn the languages, and get
> the ability to compile and program.
> Oh yeah... for cheap. Free is even better....   ;^)

Have you looked at the Lattice Semiconductor ispLSI chips?  They are CPLDs
(overgrown PLDs) and the dev software (ispDesign EXPERT Starter) is a
free, if somewhat big, download from their site (after registering).  It
does schematic, Verilog and VHDL entry, so choose which one you want to
play with!  Sadly, its a limited 6-month license, but enough time to get
you going.

They are in-system programmable, so once soldered on your board you can
still reprogram them, as many times as you like.  The progrmming cable is
easy to make -- just one 74 buffer that plugs into the parallel port.
These devices have EEPROM inside, so once programmed, tat's it.  Prices
are quite reasonable too (or try the "free sample" game :-), better still
buy from a distributor, rather than the Farnell's of this world.

I've used them in the past both at home (there's one inside my MIDI Matrix
2), and professionally.

Bad news though: the online price for the dev software is $495 ** OUCH **.

One game I played was to convince my employers at the time that I really
should have some kit to play with to learn Verilog.  They bought it,
literally :-)

Hope this helps,

Neil

--
Neil Johnson :: Computer Laboratory :: University of Cambridge ::
http://www.njohnson.co.uk          http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~nej22
----  IEE Cambridge Branch: http://www.iee-cambridge.org.uk  ----