Re: beginning with Carte Blanche questions

["Charlie" <charlieDOTd@verEYEzon.net>]

"MdntTrain" <js@cimmeri.com> wrote in message 
72c02b8d-e858-4364-a933-82943939fad5@j4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com">news:72c02b8d-e858-4364-a933-82943939fad5@j4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
>  Safely received my CB card (thanks so much, Steve & Alex!).
>
>  My CB kit includes what looks to be a bare nanoboard expansion 
> slot
> connector.   What is this for?
>
>  I'm very much a "manual reader" but as no CB manual 
> (understandably)
> yet exists, I sure could use a few getting-started suggestions and
> clarifications.    I feel as though I'm the least knowledgeable CB
> owner here as my only PLD experience is that I just figured out 
> how to
> convert 1980's PALs to GALs using OPAL.  Converting those PALs 
> into
> WinCUPL is my next goal.  So you can see, I'm way behind.

PALs ? GALs? OPAL? You're way ahead of me.  And I knew next to 
nothing about FPGAs and nothing about programming them a few weeks 
ago.  Now I've written "new" stuff to the Carte Blanche card 
probably 20 times in the last few days.  It's pretty easy to program 
it.  Of course none of my stuff works very well (my fault, not the 
CB card's) :-)

>
> My questions are:
>
>  1.  Steve, would you provide a list of all the current
> Applelogic.org CB pages, and the best order for a beginner to go
> through them?
>
>  2.  For making logic designs with the CB, apparently one must 
> obtain
> additional parts and accessories.  What's the recommended parts 
> list a
> beginner should obtain?    There appears to be many options, so
> specific recommended models would be very helpful.   It's a bit of
> trouble but I can have a parallel port.

I use the $12 Digilent parallel cable mentioned by Alex and it has 
worked fine.  As mentioned you have to rig the cable connector to 
the "flying leads" cable included with the CB card (no big deal just 
don't use the wires marked "soft"). It takes about four seconds on 
my machine to send the program to the CB card.

>   3.  Same as #2 but for needed software.   I take it that Altium
> Designer is not viable for beginners... but I see constant refs to 
> it
> on the Applelogic.org sites.   By chance, I have the "ISE Design 
> Suite
> 10.1" DVD which includes ISE Foundation and ISE WebPACK.   Is this 
> the
> software and version that everyone here will be using?
>

I've been using Xilinx ISE 11.1 because that's what was free for 
download on their site.
I don't understand most of the stuff the software does but it's a 
lot of fun learning it all.

Charlie