Patrick, Good stuff, see what you get back! I'm getting together replies to the purchasing questions you asked. Group: Patrick is in Boston, and attached to MIT. Please get some replies to him. Toby Churchill 20 Panton Street CAMBRIDGE, CB2 1HP www.tobychurchill.info On 11 April 2011 17:49, Patrick Doyle wrote: > Can anybody point me at a "Getting Started with BaloonBoard" resource? > > As background, I would like to use a BalloonBoard as a testbench to > control a custom ASIC. I have a pile o' Verilog code that I use > currently in simulation for testing the ASIC. I would like to drop > that code into an FPGA and control it with an external processor. I > would also like to talk to that external processor from some desktop > (or laptop) PC. > > If I were to design this test board my self, I would put an FPGA next > to an embedded processor (such as a PXA270, or an OMAP). Gee, that > sounds a lot like a BalloonBoard. :-) > > I've poked around the wiki a bit and have learned a few things. > > 1) It seems that I can plug into J14, apply power & ground, and talk > serially to the board. > -- as an aside, http://www.balloonboard.org/balloonwiki/Software > states that I need to apply power via "the main molex connector > J10,..." I believe that should be "J14" (at least according to the > schematics). > > -- as another aside, is the BOM for the BalloonBoard online anywhere? > It would be much simpler for me to look up J14 on the BOM and find the > mating connector at Digikey than it would be to try to guess what > "PH200_4WAY_RT" means. > > -- as yet another aside, for any security folks who happen to be > monitoring this email, "BOM" refers to "Bill of Materials", and not > homophones that might come to mind when pronouncing it out loud. I'm > not even going to touch "Pinko connector" here. > > 2) It would be nicer if I could plug a USB cable into the board, plug > the other end into a PC and speak TCP/IP to the board from a random > Windows based PC. Does the USB OTG or USB client work well enough to > do this? Does Windows support this (via USB "gadget" or some other > other mechanism). > > 3) It just dawned on me yesterday that the FPGA on the board might be > required for correct operation of the board and that I may not be able > to program it with my own arbitrarily custom code. Can I put > arbitrarily custom code in the FPGA? > > 4) I read in 1.0-stable/vhdl/README: > > You are strongly urged to read "L3 Hardware" before altering these files > > where would I find the "L3 Hardware" document? > > -- BTW, http://www.balloonboard.org/balloonwiki/BalloonFPGA says that > the FPGA code can be found at: > > $ svn checkout svn://www.balloonboard.org/balloon/trunk/vhdl/balloonboard-vhdl > > Some spelunking suggests that it might really live at: > > $ svn checkout svn:// > www.balloonboard.org/balloon/balloon/tags/1.0-stable/vhdl > > I'm happy to sign up for a wiki account and make these changes as I > find them. Is there some sort of review process that will ensure that > I don't change them incorrectly and thus direct people in the wrong > direction? > > 5) Assuming I can place my own code in the FPGA, can anybody point me > at an example of using the FPGA to do something simple, say blink an > LED or something, by running code in userland on the processor, > communicating with the FPGA via a device driver (perhaps even > something as simple as opening /dev/mem and writing to registers via a > memory mapped interface)? What if I wanted something a little more > complex than that with interrupt generated events? > > Thanks for any tips and pointers folks can give me. I am asking all > of this in the spirit of "If I don't ask, I won't find out" and not in > the spirit of "can you do this for me". If I designed the board > myself, I'd have to do all of this myself. If other folks have done > this already and it's just a matter of finding the right pages in the > wiki showing what they've done, I'm glad to stand upon the shoulders > of giants and learn from them/you. > > Thanks. > > --wpd > > _______________________________________________ > Balloon mailing list > Balloon@balloonboard.org > http://balloonboard.org/mailman/listinfo/balloon >