Forum Discussion
Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
13 years agoHey MMalik no worries. I am also starting to understand how USB works. I think, if I understood correctly, that you want to have a USB monitoring tool, sort of like a Logic Analyzer that is able to snoop the USB transactions and provide, on the output devices available on the DE2 board, information about what is happening. I think it is a very cool project. I also think we have similar needs in that we would both need to understand how the ISP1362 works (I'm using the DE2-70 and I'm not sure if you are or if the other DE2 boards have the same chip).
I could suggest using the Nios II processor and one of the tutorials that Altera provides on how to use the USB (both as host and device). You could try to get that running (Altera provides the software drivers for these examples). Once these work, you could start thinking about writing an HDL component that would connect to the ISP1362 chip to read the memory and register contents. You should also read the datasheet and the programming guide as these could teach you how to talk to the chip. Anyway, I hope that I've helped you a little and also that we can collaborate in taming the USB beast :). P.S. If you like, you could look at how the Signal Tap Logic Analyzer works as this can help you see what is happening inside your system.