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terecatu's avatar
terecatu
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
1 year ago

Compatibility issue or bad Altera USB blasters?

Hi, I am attempting to flash EP4CE6 (Cyclone IV) using a precompiled .jic from an open source project - SonicSurface (see https://github.com/upnalab/SonicSurface, https://www.instructables.com/Sonic...
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AnttiLukats's avatar
AnttiLukats
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
1 year ago

@FvM thanks for detailed report, very interesting. Well we have not had a cheap USB blaster on our desk yet. Funny there are so many illegal clones available on the asian market.

But it is not only the asia who does do USB blaster emulation, uLab Kiwi is promoted by Altera Innovations Lab:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/altera/innovation-lab

and the uLab Kiwi emulates USB blaster using PIC18! So Altera is advertising a product that will force the end user to violate FTDI drivers license.

FvM's avatar
FvM
Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
1 year ago
Not sure if emulating USB Blaster interface violates FTDI licenses. I rather assume that USB Blaster driver is licensed by Intel. But as it's a renamed 1:1 copy of FTDI driver, the built-in anti counterfeit features are in effect.
  • AnttiLukats's avatar
    AnttiLukats
    Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
    1 year ago

    Well you can emulate FTDI only if you do not use FTDI drivers. But that the all point of emulation. I am pretty sure that using FTDI drivers with non-FTDI IC is violation of the drivers use license by FTDI, see screenshot above.