Spartan-3 Board

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:01 pm

In a total surprise, one of my coworkers gave me one of these:

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Det ... od=S3BOARD

He received as a gift and didn't need it (he's already got tons) and he knew I'd be interested.

I'm so excited! I've always wanted to mess around with electronics but could never justify the expense of a hobby I wasn't sure I'd like.

Now that I have it, I have no idea what to do with it

My first idea would be to make a 8-bit or 16-bit console out of it. Totally have no idea how, though

I foresee a lot of documentation reading in my future!

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:13 pm

Very awesome !

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:12 pm

Nice! If you want to get started making hardware, a great place for existing free and open designs is OpenCores.

http://opencores.org/

foobat · Post by **foobat** » Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:50 am

time to learn verilog

good luck soldier

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Fri Nov 16, 2012 10:44 am

foobat wrote:good luck soldier

That's funny.

Spent time with the manuals and "Introduction to programmable logic" last night. They were the densest, hardest to read books I've ever read.

HardWareMan · Post by **HardWareMan** » Fri Nov 16, 2012 11:01 am

Nah. Verilog is quite simple. Hell begins when you project get more complicated. Very hard to hold all interconnected modules in head.

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Fri Nov 16, 2012 12:19 pm

HardWareMan wrote:Nah. Verilog is quite simple. Hell begins when you project get more complicated. Very hard to hold all interconnected modules in head.

I don't doubt that! Reading the documentation, I find myself so out of my element I need an instruction manual for the instruction manual.

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:00 pm

The board comes with a parallel port JTAG cable, but I don't have a parallel port on my PC. Looking at the Digilent site, they have a USB cable for almost fifty dollars. FIFTY DOLLARS!

Surely there must be a much cheaper compatible cable somewhere. Anyone has an idea?

Worst case I can get a parallel port card but for around 20$ but 50$ for a stupid cable is ridiculous!

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:23 pm

Those cables are expensive for sure...