Purchase of New Intel FPGA Development Board

Thanks for the Kudos. I do understand . . . I have had the same issues.

From a high level / top level viewpoint, you will be able to update the RELEASE version of the download if need.

Overall here are the details:

Basically, there is no First Stage Boot Loader with Nios (compared to something like Zynq 7000 series for example.) The Cyclone 10 LP does not have an ARM A53 or A9 in it . . . so you will have to use Nios and Nios can boot directly from internal memory if the program fits within your internal RAM. For most Nios programs, say 64K to 128Kbytes of memory is sufficient ... and the Cyclone 10 LP should have enough internal RAM (and I believe it also has HyperRam attached to it that you can access) that you should be okay.

Basically, you can program the flash memory through the USB blaster, and when the FPGA boots the Nios program will be in the flash. You just have to convert the ELF file in Eclipse using mem_init_generate for make targets in Eclipse to convert the ELF to hex, and then attach the hex to your Quartus project and compile ... and the Nios instructions will be in the external flash memory. So in summary:

1. Develop your C in Eclipse, JTAG downloading your design and testing

2. When finished, convert ELF to hex with mem_init_generate in Eclipse

3. Attach hex to Quartus project

4. Compile Quartus project

5. Program flash memory with Quartus programmer

When you power cycle, you should see your Nios software executing (such as through Uart, led, etc.)

Regards, James