CPLD trainer on eBay

[greghol]

I received my Flex 10K board today with the parallel port programmer and the sealed MAX Plus II software along with the data sheet booklet which was nice that it was complete and the board is in mint condition. I will be using the Quartus and USB blaster with it however. The bummer part is that the board is the UP1 version with the Flex 10K20 device. The auction title and text showed UP2 which is the Flex 10K70 like what Bill has pictures of. We'll see what the seller has to say about it. Will have fun with it anyways.

There are some other auctions from the same seller with mixed model numbers.

I think I have some EPC1 serial proms to connect to the JTAG somewhere.

Greg

[Cray Ze]

That's a bit disappointing. How good are your soldering skills?
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/323452201817

[greghol]

Cray Ze wrote:

That's a bit disappointing. How good are your soldering skills?
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/323452201817

I don't think I want to spend more money on this.

Pretty fine pitch. Can't remember if I have done this package count and pitch before.

Greg

[Cray Ze]

The 10K20 still gives you plenty to play with.

[akohlbecker]

Just received my UP2 board! I also have an EPC1 on order. Haven't played with it yet, but I'm pretty excited to flash a VDP core, like the F18/A (a clone of the TMS9918A with expanded features and VGA output) and interface it directly at 5V with my 65816 build

I'm wondering if there is any reason to upgrade from the included ByteBlaster to an USB Blaster? Is there any difference in the features / speed maybe? Otherwise my PC has a parallel port so I can keep using it.

Thank you to everyone who helped dig for the correct software. I was able to install the right version of Quartus without fuss.

[akohlbecker]

I have found https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... sterii.htm which says

Quote:

The ByteBlaster II cable has the same functionality as the USB-Blaster cable and the EthernetBlaster cable, except the ByteBlaster II cable uses a parallel port while the USB-Blaster cable uses a USB port and the EthernetBlaster cable uses an Ethernet connection.

So it seems they are equivalent

[akohlbecker]

I have also found that EPC1 configuration devices are not reprogrammable and don't have ISP capabilities. My TL866II+ does not seem to support the chip.

So I'll need to get some EPC2 instead, which are reprogrammable and support JTAG. Might need to build an adapter board to use them on the UP2, as they're only available in PLCC-20 and TQFP-32, not DIP-8.

Here is a great document about those devices:

0900766b8139de1b.pdf

(374.32 KiB) Downloaded 106 times

[akohlbecker]

Got myself some EPC2 configuration devices in PLCC-20, and some EPF10k10 in PLCC-84 for ease of integration in my circuits. Too bad the plcc version is the fpga with the least resources, but I appreciate the increase in flexibility compared to soldering a huge qfp, when I'll want to move away from the UP2 board.