From: longwayhome@my-deja.com Newsgroups: comp.arch.fpga Subject: Hardware suggestions for evolutionary experiments Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 14:25:38 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 19 Message-ID: <8v3f4p$gsk$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.13.79.185 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Nov 17 14:25:38 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x70.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 195.13.79.185 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDlongwayhome Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch comp.arch.fpga:2724 Hi I'm trying to get started in evolutionary hardware experiments as a hobby. I'm finding it hard to get a handle on what hardware I ought to buy to get started. Last time I thought I had found a suitable board (one of the 300 dollar xess boards) someone helpfully informed me that it was flash ram based and therefore only good for something like 50k rewrites. Could someone give me suggestions for suitable hardware (i have a 2k USD max budget for this). I really just want to feed it input and check its output (input and output as numbers if possible). Thanks very much. David Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: comp.arch.fpga Subject: Re: Hardware suggestions for evolutionary experiments Date: 19 Nov 2000 23:45:26 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 63 Message-ID: <6uaeavd1ix.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <8v3f4p$gsk$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 974673926 1242 10.0.3.2 (19 Nov 2000 22:45:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Nov 2000 22:45:26 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch comp.arch.fpga:2769 longwayhome@my-deja.com writes: > I'm trying to get started in evolutionary hardware experiments as a > hobby. I'm finding it hard to get a handle on what hardware I ought to > buy to get started. Last time I thought I had found a suitable board > (one of the 300 dollar xess boards) someone helpfully informed me that > it was flash ram based and therefore only good for something like 50k > rewrites. You have been falsly (or at least incompletely) informed by that "someone". I will take the "300 dollar xess boards" to be their 84 pin chip boards, the XS95-108+, XS40-005XL+, XS40-005E+, XS40-010XL+, XS40-010E+ and XSP-010+ models (Range $159-239). Of these the XS95-108+ is based on an CPLD (XC9500 series), with is Flash-ROM based, and so subject to limited reprogramming. All other 5 models are based on FPGA (XC4000 or Spartan series) which are SRAM based and so have unlimited reprogrammability. Bigger problem for "evolutionary hardware" (whatever that is) may be that the XC4000 and Spartan series FPGAs only allow reconfiguring of the entire chip, not partial reconfigurability. > Could someone give me suggestions for suitable hardware (i have a 2k > USD max budget for this). That will even allow you to go for the 240 pin chip boards XSV-50 to XSV-800 ($699-1599) which use Virtex series FPGAs (also SRAM based) which are larger and partial-reconfigurable. > I really just want to feed it input and check > its output (input and output as numbers if possible). Here the small 84 pin boards have the problem, that they have no RS232 on them, you need to do PC parallel port programming (at least for input, they have one 7seg LED for output). The 240 pin boards have RS232 and 2 7seg LED on them. For all the boards try Xess-es catalogue: http://www.xess.com/ho04000.html Now if the Virtex boards just had an (36/72 bit) DRAM socket (or at least 18 bit SRAM) and an EIDE interface, they would be the ideal board for me. As it is I am going to have to do some self designed hardware, so I can just as good take an standard no IO hardware board as base of my stuff and save all the IO hardware I do not need. Loses the advantage of an "off the shelf" board. Bummer. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### From: longwayhome@my-deja.com Newsgroups: comp.arch.fpga Subject: Re: Hardware suggestions for evolutionary experiments Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 14:08:48 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 17 Message-ID: <8vbb9a$9vo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <8v3f4p$gsk$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6uaeavd1ix.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.13.79.185 X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Nov 20 14:08:48 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x70.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 195.13.79.185 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDlongwayhome Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-ulm.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!blackbush.xlink.net!feed.news.nacamar.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch comp.arch.fpga:2783 In article <6uaeavd1ix.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>, Neil Franklin wrote: > Bigger problem for "evolutionary hardware" (whatever that is) may be > that the XC4000 and Spartan series FPGAs only allow reconfiguring of > the entire chip, not partial reconfigurability. Thanks for your helpful reply. I had almost given up hope of getting one - I really appreciate it. Could you tell me why reconfiguring the entire chip is bad (is that just because its time consuming, and if so how time consuming is it) ? David Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### Message-ID: <3A194A83.7C5287B0@andraka.com> From: Ray Andraka Organization: Andraka Consulting Group, Inc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.arch.fpga Subject: Re: Hardware suggestions for evolutionary experiments References: <8v3f4p$gsk$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <6uaeavd1ix.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8vbb9a$9vo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 30 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 15:59:09 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.13.238.93 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.wwck1.ri.home.com 974735949 24.13.238.93 (Mon, 20 Nov 2000 07:59:09 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 07:59:09 PST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!HSNX.atgi.net!cyclone-sjo1.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.wwck1.ri.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch comp.arch.fpga:2774 it's not bad, and in fact avoids a whole host of difficult obstacles present in partial configuration, however it also means your circuit state has to be offloaded, the FPGA reprogrammed and restarted, and intialized to your previous state. longwayhome@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <6uaeavd1ix.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>, > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > Bigger problem for "evolutionary hardware" (whatever that is) may be > > that the XC4000 and Spartan series FPGAs only allow reconfiguring of > > the entire chip, not partial reconfigurability. > > Thanks for your helpful reply. I had almost given up hope of getting > one - I really appreciate it. Could you tell me why reconfiguring the > entire chip is bad (is that just because its time consuming, and if so > how time consuming is it) ? > > David > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. -- -Ray Andraka, P.E. President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc. 401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950 email ray@andraka.com http://www.andraka.com or http://www.fpga-guru.com