[sdiy] Xilinx 3E board comments

[Paul Schreiber]

a) just got mine. All I can say is: ***ORDER ONE IMMEDIATELY!** This board is 
EASILY worth $500.

b) there is a clever USB-to-JTAG circuit on the board. It uses a pre-programmed 
Cypress EZ-USB uP. On the schematics for the board, this part of the circuit is 
NOT THERE (the page has something like "page is blank due to proprietary 
info...")  Also be aware the schematics are those crappy EagleCAD dark 
brown/dark green colors and some B/W printers (errr....MINE!) puke all over when 
trying to print. Why not convert to B/W? Ack!

c) In typical XiIlinx form, the documentation is sparse. The application that 
came pre-loaded (turn the rotary encoder, watch the LEDS go back and forth) has 
no documentation that I can find (help Jim!). I am guessing it's a Blaze 
processor (Pico or Micro) but who knows? The READ ME FIRST booklet (printed in 
like 6 languages) refers to a demo program not that I can see (unless there are 
3 preloaded demos, one for each of the possible booting options listed in the 
previous email. There are jumpers to select which of the 3 devices you boot 
from. I'll let Jim try his board first).

d) this board is 100% DIY drool-inducing. But as a caution: Xilinx really lacks 
good, "I'm an idiot, hold my hand and let's go step-by-step" tutorials or 
documentation. It's more of "here are the basics, go at it!!". But the VALUE of 
this board is staggering compared to soldering op amps on perf board (sorry 
Ian!). 500K gates + ADC + DAC + USB + VGA/mouse/serial ports + FLASH + SDDRAM + 
LCD? $150? That's crazy talk!!

Paul S.