[sdiy] New member

[David Evans]

On 18 Sep 2011, at 07:22, Matthew Smith <matt at smiffytech.com> wrote:

> Quoth ze man at 18/09/11 13:36...
> ...
>> Btw, is there anyone experienced with developing HW/SW hybrids, using tools like MPLAB/Proteus/Xilinx ISE, or any other? The micro controller and FPGA classes got me full of ideas.
> 
> Scott Gravenhorst is building FPGA synths using Xilinx devices:
> 
> http://jovianpyx.dyndns.org:8080/public/FPGA_synth/
> 

...and through that a link to a wiki about precisely this:

http://www.fpga.synth.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage

On Friday I was given (well, loaned "long term") an Altera DE2 board, which has a Cyclone II FPGA. I intend to do something wavetable-ish. I don't have much clue what I'm up to, really, having never used FPGAs and lived in the land of software since 1995 when I designed a wavetable mono synth that sat on the VME bus. At least I've written a lot of 6502/68k/56k assembler. But as I'm in no hurry and the main point is to have fun, this isn't really an impediment!

Anyway, my point is that there's a lot of people around, ranging from those with actual expertise to others having enthusiasm and background knowledge (like me!).

> but all the Verilog will be written using vi, the Only True Editor ;-) </flamebait>
> 

Naturally! :P