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Altera_Forum
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18 years ago

Disappointed with Cyclone III FPGA Development Kit

I'm sure nobody cares, but I just wanted to express my disappointment with the long awaited Cyclone III FPGA Development Kit.

I was naively hoping for something as general purpose and good value, but the new kit fail on both accounts. $1500 for a board with a very odd set of peripherials. Maybe it's just me, but dump the LCDs and give me VGA anyday, and how about some practical IO, like those of the DE2 or fx. ML505. While hardly any production design would need them, they are invaluable for proof-of-concept type applications.

Rant aside, I just don't understand how Altera came up with this.

Tommy

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  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Hi Simon,

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    Presumably 10.1 won't install anything into a folder with an 11.0 in it, so as long as I never upgrade, I'll be fine :rolleyes:

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    I have several versions of the tools installed under Windows XP and there are no conflicts. I have not tried uninstalling from Windows 7, so can't comment on your issues, or offer suggestions, sorry.

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    I don't know tcl, that's one of the languages I've managed to not use over the last couple of decades, but I'll add it to the list of things to learn...

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    Its not the newest and fanciest of scripting languages, but it works. If you are serious about using FPGA tools, then you have to learn it. Altera, Mentor (Modelsim), Xilinx (ISE), Lattice (Diamond), Synopsys (.sdc files), etc., all use Tcl. Buy the book by Brent Welch, and that'll give you the Tcl basics, then from within the tools, generate Tcl files for projects, and learn to dissect them. After a couple of iterations, you'll get the hang of it, and when you get stuck, just ask questions.

    Cheers,

    Dave