Honored ContributorHi, I have questions about this old PLD's:
1. Can we read these chips and write into these chips? 2. How many times can we read and write? 3. Which hardware do we have to use to read and write? Thank you.
Honored ContributorI'd be very, very impressed if you were considering designing such parts into something. Do you simply have some very old equipment in need of some tlc?
To (try) and answer your questions: 1) Yes, these devices can be written to, and read from. 2) Plenty of reads but not many writes - by that I mean an order of magnitude fewer than today's parts. 3) A set of tools called 'PLDshell Plus', phased out nearly 20 years ago. For the user guide: see here (ftp://ftp.altera.com/pub/lit_req/document/sig_ug/pldshell.pdf) I recommend raising a support request directly with Altera via mysupport (https://www.altera.com/myaltera/mal-index.jsp). Keep me posted on the answers they give - I'm very, very curious as to what they have to offer! Regards, Alex PS. If you have any spare devices - I'd be interested in having one. There's a curious challenge in there somewhere....Honored ContributorThank you for your help Alex. As you recommend I requested support from Altera. And you were right that I have an obsolete electronic card and try to reproduce it by reverse engineering. You can find also these chips via alibaba.com from Chinese brokers.
Have you ever used these PLD's? I really wonder that can we use epx880qc132-10 instead of Epx780qc132-12? At last be sure that I will share if Altera answers my questions.Honored ContributorHi ilker,
I used the EPX880 on a board a forward thinking colleague put together in the 90's. We were all working on ASICs at the time and nobody took the new devices seriously. The (lack of) performance they demonstrated supported that view... As for now - I wouldn't even consider trying to put either to use - without expecting serious problems getting them up and running. Altera are not going to support you, unless you're lucky and encounter a like-minded support person who's interested in helping. Look at the current range of devices for something practical to use. Cheers, AlexHonored ContributorHi Alex,
You were right that Altera couldn't help. They only said "These are both obsolete". But they said these PLD's must be one-time programming devices. This is not the same thing with what you said. And also I want to ask that how can I find PLDShell Plus and its hardware?Honored ContributorHi ilker,
No surprise with Altera - although I'm very pleased my memory of their devices is better than theirs. See the datasheet I've found for the devices: flashlogic programmable logic device family (http://www.altera.com/literature/ds/dsflsh02.pdf). They are SRAM based parts and definitely reprogrammable. As for the software - I've had no luck in finding that. If you do find it let me know. Cheers, AlexHonored ContributorIs it possible to read the software on these devices. Could there be a read-protection on it?
Honored ContributorThere isn't any software on these devices - except the code you program into them. Yes, you can read from them to verify what's been programmed in is correct, but that's all lost when you turn them off.
I doubt there is any concept of read protection on these devices... Cheers, Alex
