Re: Carte Blanche...dead!

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

"Nama" <forums6000@mac.com> wrote in message 
75587dcf-c85d-410f-82f3-9edfe8d14938@h37g2000pro.googlegroups.com">news:75587dcf-c85d-410f-82f3-9edfe8d14938@h37g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
>I received the CB card quite a while ago, but haven't had much
> opportunity to play with is as soon after receiving it I moved
> apartments and had to put my Apple II into storage. Recently I got 
> my
> Apple II back and decided to finally have a play with the card.
>
> My set up consists of an Apple II+ and the CB card is in slot 3 
> (not
> slot 4) with the tiny CBAVI card installed, and various other 
> cards
> populating the other slots.
>
> I have been able to run the .nib images from the demo card no 
> problem
> (no luck loading downloaded .nib files though!!!), however today I
> decided to risk flashing the CB and test/try something completely 
> new.
> I selected to try GalaxyWars (as this was a game I used to enjoy 
> as a
> kid in the arcades) I installed the .bit files on a SD card and 
> from
> the Apple I flashed the CB. Everything seemed to work fine. Lots 
> of
> V's showed on the screen and the LED that indicates a successful 
> flash
> lit up. I power cycled my Apple, then....nothing :-(  The monitor
> connected to the CB was blank, and showing a "no signal" message.
>
> Well, now I'm stuck and not sure how to proceed. Can anyone help, 
> or
> will I have to track down a JTAG cable and re-flash the FPGA.
> Unfortunately these cables seem quite pricey.
>
> Anyway, much thanks in advance.
>
> Phil

The first thing I would do is make sure you have a good VGA 
connection on the CB card.  It is very easy to bump the connector 
when you are changing SDs.

If that doesn't help then I think you have to use a JTAG cable to 
program the Carte Blanche.  You are the second person I know of that 
had a flash fail so I would strongly recommend not doing it unless 
you have a working JTAG cable and know how to use it, just in case.

The JTAG cable I'm using is $12,

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Catalog.cfm?NavPath=2,395&Cat=5

it works well (I've programmed the CB hundreds of times), but you 
have to have a parallel port on your programming machine.  If you 
don't have one, parallel port cards aren't very expensive.  With 
this cable you also have to use the "separate wires" cable that came 
with the CB card, by connecting six of the wires to the JTAG cable. 
I just plugged six short pieces of #22 wire into each cable.  They 
are labeled (use the ones marked "HARD").  Looks crude but works 
great.

I use Xilinx 11.1 ISE iMPACT to send the bitstream to the FPGA.
The expensive cables are supposedly faster but I don't know if 
that's worth the extra cost.  The parallel JTAG cable takes about 4 
seconds to send a bitstream.

With the JTAG cable the program you send to the CB will be lost when 
you turn off the power so the first thing you should do is send the 
original bitstream and use it to flash the CB.  There is an option 
in iMPACT to flash directly but according to Alex it doesn't work 
and shouldn't be used.

Hope this helps,

Charlie