Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorHi Matt,
--- Quote Start --- Yea, that's what I was afraid of. I've seen Kawk's work briefly, and it looks like he has a section on using a FT245R + MAX7000 CPLD. That definitely is something I could modify to work, though I still rather lose the CPLD. However, if have a CPLD for a few $$ eliminates needing a $50 ($300 Altera) Blaster, then I'm in. --- Quote End --- Before you worry about the cost, you need to think about what you want the USB-Blaster for, eg., 1. If you only want to access a single board, then there is no reason not to simply put a 10-pin header on your board. 2. If your board will always be connected to USB and you want to talk to the FPGA, then there is no problem just using an FTDI device directly. 3. If your board will always be connected to USB and you want to use Altera's tools to access the FPGA via the USB-Blaster, then you need to implement a USB-Blaster clone. For example, option (3) applies if you have a board with transceivers or memory and you want to use the "Transceiver Toolkit" or "External Memory Interface Toolkit". You can create an "improved" USB-Blaster interface using an FT245B or FT245R and MAX II device. I prefer the FT245B, as you can implement the microwire EEPROM in the MAX II UFM EEPROM, and implement two copies of the EEPROM image; one for a USB-Blaster and one for a USB-to-Serial adapter. This makes it easy to switch the device to being a plain-old serial interface. Cheers, Dave
