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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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17 years ago

use of state machine editor

Using the state machine editor, some questions arise:

- how to implement a multi-valued output port

- how to assign a value to that port (which format could be used)

- how to specify a complex transition equation

- why is the layout of the state diagram not preserved

It's a pity, but the help system is not useful. Searching for any informations how to use the state machine editor, it only yields very commonplace sentences without any concrete informations. Surely, there has work to be done.

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    17 years ago

    I could be mistaken as I've not really used it before, but I was under the impression that Quartus only has a state machine viewer - i.e. it can spot state machine like logic and display this graphically. However because it produces this diagram from the logic, it would be misleading to allow you to edit and save.

    Perhaps someone else could confirm if I'm talking a load of dingo's kidneys - it may have changed in Quartus 8.

    In a previous job I used ActiveHDL which I found to be the best HDL simulator that I've used. This comes with a really good state machine editor which produces code for you. It's really intuitive and I would seriously recommend it if you can convince the boss to splash the cash.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    17 years ago

    Thanks for the helpful remarks. At least it is explained why there is no layout preserved.

    I am using Quartus 8, and in that release it is a state machine editor allowing to draw states and transitions, labelling transitions and so on.