DE2-115 complete beginners question

This is the official Terasic resource web page:

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=165&no=502&partno=4

You need the appropriate CD-ROM according to which USB device your board has. The manual should help you find this.

I think you have to download from the Altera website:

1) Quartus (web editon) free

2) Modelsim Altera Starter edition (free)

3) In the installation directory of Quartus youll' find the 'USB blaster' drivers.

This is all you need to design a circuit and download it on the FPGA board.

P.S. You also need the knoledge of a language such as VHDL or Verilog. This is not a must since you can also design using the schematic design (similar to Spice) but it becomes immediately very cumbersome as the design complexity increases.

Hi Thank you for your reply , however its a bit of a vicious circle

you said to choose the CD rom according to which usb device my board has , and to determine this device from the user manual

Unfortunately the manual is on the CD rom . so depending on which CD I decide to download I guess will give me a different answer as to which USB I have

I have now written to Terasic support quoting the serial number of my board hoping they can give me an answer from that

but thanks for the help

Don

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This is the official Terasic resource web page:

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=165&no=502&partno=4

You need the appropriate CD-ROM according to which USB device your board has. The manual should help you find this.

--- Quote End ---

Thanks nplttr

I will start downloading and installing them now

Don

I wrote to Terasic in the end

They tell me that my board ( from the serial number ) uses the NXP USB but that this will not work with windows 7 only XP

They also said that the Cypress USB only works on windows 7 in 32 bit not 64 bit

Don

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They tell me that my board ( from the serial number ) uses the NXP USB but that this will not work with windows 7 only XP

They also said that the Cypress USB only works on windows 7 in 32 bit not 64 bit

--- Quote End ---

I think you can ignore the advice about functionality under Windows for the moment. The board has a USB device attached to the FPGA that you can use for communication with your design. I've never bothered to use it.

The board also has an on-board USB-Blaster, and that does work under Windows just fine.

If Terasic has changed the USB controller, then they've likely changed the pin assignments on the board, but probably only in a few places. You'll want to make sure you download the schematic for the board revision you own, and determine the pin assignments from that. Do *not* simply use an example design you find on the web! (Including any from Terasic, without first reviewing it!)

Cheers.

Dave

Thanks Dave

Yes I found that the USB Blaster works fine and I doubt I will need any other usb connectivity for some time , as I

have only been playing with FPGA's for about 8 hours ( got my DE2-115 yesterday)