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My suggestion would be to start here and the suggested Follow-On Courses
http://www.altera.com/education/training/courses/oqsys1000 a) NIOS is a 32-bit microprocessor IP core
b) Qsys is the tool you use to chain together IP cores and specify a system
c) Quartus translates the Qsys output into an FPGA image you can program in your board.
d) After your image is in your board, you use gcc/g++/gdb/Eclipse/yourcreation to execute software in the NIOS you put in your FPGA.
As far as purchases go, you can get quite far with the board you have chosen and whatever computer you already have.
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Ted,
For such a simple post, this goes miles and miles for me. Thanks a lot. It's hard to see what these pieces do until you spend an hour or two with them. But this at least gives me an approach to get to the point that I can *start* my class project. If I can just get one or two simple things to feed from Eclipse to the NIOS mp core (I think I said that right) I can get this project done in time for sure.
I tried one of those courses to kinda learn the Quartus interfaces. I wish they weren't lecture format. I could read the entire text of the course in 40 minutes, but the lecture I selected was like 8 hours long and the information was parcele out rather slowly. I suppose if I can't immediately figure out what I'm doing I'll just have to commit the time to it. It's not the worst thing because I at least know I'm probably on the right track now.
Thanks again.
Honored Contributor
