From: Wouter Coene (wouter+cbmhackers_at_irdc.nl)
Date: 2006-03-04 12:47:50
According to Scott McDonnell (netsamurai@comcast.net):
> Some FPGAs do retain thier configuration when turned off. Lattice, Actel,
> Atmel, Altera, and probably the rest of the FPGA players have this
> technology (granted it is a bit more expensive.) These are called Flash
> FPGAs.
Sure, but you can't get them as a hobbyist. You're pretty much limited to
whatever Digikey or somesuch has in stock. And even then, you'll also need
software to go with it, and not every FPGA-maker is as nice with that as
Altera and Xilinx are.
> Some FPGAs also have the ability to directly connect to configuration ROMs
> (special ROM that increments by itself).
Xilinx has its Spartan-3E series that's supposedly capable of this, but I
haven't seen it being sold at the usual places yet (hope it's available
soon; looks really nice). Sure, other FPGA-makers may have devices capable
of this, but that doesn't mean it'd be competetive with a more common device
or even affordable.
> CPLDs are actually getting big enough to do the Commodore ASICs now, so
> that is another option.
Apart from the VIC/VIC-II. That one's way too complex for a CPLD.
> Many of the vendor programs include schematic entry, which may be easier if
> you are having trouble with learning the languages. I have heard in the
> past that this is buggy, but that was years ago and this may be much more
> stable by now.
No, it's not:
news:1139867633.527126.28550@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
Wouter Coene
Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list
Archive generated by hypermail pre-2.1.8.