Mouser carries the NKK series of Rocker/Paddle switches and the prices
seem reasonable ($4 to $7). I haven't checked size or any other info.
An example: http://www.mouser.com/search/refine.aspx?Nttc3-M201201E
Richard
POP-11 (PDP-11/40 in an FPGA)
Started by ●August 16, 2007
Reply by ●August 24, 20072007-08-24
Reply by ●August 24, 20072007-08-24
On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 17:18 +0000, rtstofer wrote:
> Absolutely! I am getting jazzed about building this retro project.
Ok folks, as promised, here it is:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/LogiProbe
I quickly hacked a page of instructions how to use the beast,
something that I never got to when actually working with it... ;-)
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Regards,
Hellwig
> Absolutely! I am getting jazzed about building this retro project.
Ok folks, as promised, here it is:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/LogiProbe
I quickly hacked a page of instructions how to use the beast,
something that I never got to when actually working with it... ;-)
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Regards,
Hellwig
Reply by ●August 24, 20072007-08-24
Hi Richard ...
Sorry ... I'm a bit behind on the traffic.
Is there some way of removing all this HTML grunge that comes with the
yahoo posts ?
My understanding of what Dave was saying was that the drives these days
must use 3.3V I/O chips on the IDE bus. 3.3V logic is high enough to
overcome the 5V TTL logic threshold and provided the 3.3 V inputs are 5V
tolerant, there should be no problem connecting them to a 5V bus. I am
told that even printer ports these days often run at 3.3V.
I have noted the 100 ohm resistors on the B5-X300 IDE interface board
(not that I have one). I think Tony might even use them on the
peripheral interconnect board. so you can run that at 5V. The B5-X300 is
a Spartan 2E and the question was raised whether you could do the same
trick on the Spartan 3, and I suspect you can, because the Spartan 3
starter kit can interface to a 5V PS/2 keyboard, and I don't seem to
have blown my board up doing so. I'd imagine that the Spartan 3, like
most chips these days, have reversed bias clamp protection diodes on the
inputrs, so provided you don't put too much current through the diode,
you should be fine. (I'm not liable if it blows your chip up through !).
OK on the connector on the Spartan 3 starter board being female. I must
admit I had forgotten about that. I guess they needed to guard the pins
for shorts and a female connector provides more protection for that. You
can actually get male IDC ribbon connectors. I have a few. Obviously
what they did on the Apple project was to plug the CF to IDE adapter,
which had a male connector on it, directly into the Test Point Header.
Nobody picked me up on Brian Kernigan rather than Dennis Ritchie.
John.
rtstofer wrote:
> > When I queried Dave
> > Vanden Bout from Xess about this, he said, and I quote:
> >
> > "Most modern disks use 3.3V signals (actually LVTTL) on their IDE
> > interfaces, so there is no problem with the XSA board. You should
> > connect the IDE to CF adapters to use 3.3V."
>
> I have no idea what he said in that quote! There is more info at the
> XESS site. The BurchEd IDE interface board for the Spartan IIE was
> just a collection of resistors (100 ohms, I believe). It was
> compatible with a HD or CF running on 5V (this is legal).
> >
> > If you want to interface an IDE drive to the Digilent Spartan 3 starter
> > board, a friend suggested using the Digilent Test Point Header 1 board
> > which has a male and female 2 x 20 pin connector which I believe allows
> > you to jumper the appropriate signals to the IDE pins.
>
> No such luck! The board has a male end connector and a female end
> connector to allow it to be placed between the main board and other
> gadgets plus a header in the middle. It is wired straight through.
> __.
-- http://www.johnkent.com.au
http://members.optushome.com.au/jekent
Sorry ... I'm a bit behind on the traffic.
Is there some way of removing all this HTML grunge that comes with the
yahoo posts ?
My understanding of what Dave was saying was that the drives these days
must use 3.3V I/O chips on the IDE bus. 3.3V logic is high enough to
overcome the 5V TTL logic threshold and provided the 3.3 V inputs are 5V
tolerant, there should be no problem connecting them to a 5V bus. I am
told that even printer ports these days often run at 3.3V.
I have noted the 100 ohm resistors on the B5-X300 IDE interface board
(not that I have one). I think Tony might even use them on the
peripheral interconnect board. so you can run that at 5V. The B5-X300 is
a Spartan 2E and the question was raised whether you could do the same
trick on the Spartan 3, and I suspect you can, because the Spartan 3
starter kit can interface to a 5V PS/2 keyboard, and I don't seem to
have blown my board up doing so. I'd imagine that the Spartan 3, like
most chips these days, have reversed bias clamp protection diodes on the
inputrs, so provided you don't put too much current through the diode,
you should be fine. (I'm not liable if it blows your chip up through !).
OK on the connector on the Spartan 3 starter board being female. I must
admit I had forgotten about that. I guess they needed to guard the pins
for shorts and a female connector provides more protection for that. You
can actually get male IDC ribbon connectors. I have a few. Obviously
what they did on the Apple project was to plug the CF to IDE adapter,
which had a male connector on it, directly into the Test Point Header.
Nobody picked me up on Brian Kernigan rather than Dennis Ritchie.
John.
rtstofer wrote:
> > When I queried Dave
> > Vanden Bout from Xess about this, he said, and I quote:
> >
> > "Most modern disks use 3.3V signals (actually LVTTL) on their IDE
> > interfaces, so there is no problem with the XSA board. You should
> > connect the IDE to CF adapters to use 3.3V."
>
> I have no idea what he said in that quote! There is more info at the
> XESS site. The BurchEd IDE interface board for the Spartan IIE was
> just a collection of resistors (100 ohms, I believe). It was
> compatible with a HD or CF running on 5V (this is legal).
> >
> > If you want to interface an IDE drive to the Digilent Spartan 3 starter
> > board, a friend suggested using the Digilent Test Point Header 1 board
> > which has a male and female 2 x 20 pin connector which I believe allows
> > you to jumper the appropriate signals to the IDE pins.
>
> No such luck! The board has a male end connector and a female end
> connector to allow it to be placed between the main board and other
> gadgets plus a header in the middle. It is wired straight through.
> __.
-- http://www.johnkent.com.au
http://members.optushome.com.au/jekent
Reply by ●August 24, 20072007-08-24
--- In f..., Hellwig Geisse
wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 17:18 +0000, rtstofer wrote:
>
> > Absolutely! I am getting jazzed about building this retro project.
>
> Ok folks, as promised, here it is:
>
> http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/LogiProbe
>
> I quickly hacked a page of instructions how to use the beast,
> something that I never got to when actually working with it... ;-)
>
> If you have questions, feel free to ask.
>
> Regards,
> Hellwig
>
Very nice! Thanks for posting it.
I'm going to start a new thread re: free tools. I didn't know that
there were free simulators and graphic wave viewers.
Richard
wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 17:18 +0000, rtstofer wrote:
>
> > Absolutely! I am getting jazzed about building this retro project.
>
> Ok folks, as promised, here it is:
>
> http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/LogiProbe
>
> I quickly hacked a page of instructions how to use the beast,
> something that I never got to when actually working with it... ;-)
>
> If you have questions, feel free to ask.
>
> Regards,
> Hellwig
>
Very nice! Thanks for posting it.
I'm going to start a new thread re: free tools. I didn't know that
there were free simulators and graphic wave viewers.
Richard
Reply by ●August 24, 20072007-08-24
> I have noted the 100 ohm resistors on the B5-X300 IDE
interface board
> (not that I have one). I think Tony might even use them on the
> peripheral interconnect board. so you can run that at 5V. The
B5-X300 is
> a Spartan 2E and the question was raised whether you could do the same
> trick on the Spartan 3, and I suspect you can, because the Spartan 3
> starter kit can interface to a 5V PS/2 keyboard, and I don't seem to
> have blown my board up doing so. I'd imagine that the Spartan 3, like
> most chips these days, have reversed bias clamp protection diodes on
the
> inputrs, so provided you don't put too much current through the diode,
> you should be fine. (I'm not liable if it blows your chip up through !).
Agreed. However, the Xilinx documentation for the Spartan 2E (only)
describes using the series resistors and claims the IO lines are 5V
tolerant when the resistors are used. There is no similar statement
for either the Spartan 2 or the Spartan 3 devices.
I don't doubt that resistors work because the Starter Board uses them
for the keyboard input. The keyboard voltage can be jumper selected
to be either 3.3V or 5V.
Where I get concerned is when there are MANY pins with series
resistors dumping current through the diodes. I don't know if the
heating will be a factor. Increasing the value of the resistors to
reduce current does nothing to improve the signal.
The problem is: I don't know and Xilinx isn't telling.
I would probably build a small PCB to connect between the A2 port and
the IDE cable. This would allow me to unscramble signal lines and
change the orientation/gender of the cable<->board connection.
Given that I build such a board, do I populate it with resistors or
level translators? Since the difference in cost is negligible, I'll
choose the translators. At the moment, I am considering the TI
74LVT16245A device: http://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74lvt16245a but there
are others.
Richard
> (not that I have one). I think Tony might even use them on the
> peripheral interconnect board. so you can run that at 5V. The
B5-X300 is
> a Spartan 2E and the question was raised whether you could do the same
> trick on the Spartan 3, and I suspect you can, because the Spartan 3
> starter kit can interface to a 5V PS/2 keyboard, and I don't seem to
> have blown my board up doing so. I'd imagine that the Spartan 3, like
> most chips these days, have reversed bias clamp protection diodes on
the
> inputrs, so provided you don't put too much current through the diode,
> you should be fine. (I'm not liable if it blows your chip up through !).
Agreed. However, the Xilinx documentation for the Spartan 2E (only)
describes using the series resistors and claims the IO lines are 5V
tolerant when the resistors are used. There is no similar statement
for either the Spartan 2 or the Spartan 3 devices.
I don't doubt that resistors work because the Starter Board uses them
for the keyboard input. The keyboard voltage can be jumper selected
to be either 3.3V or 5V.
Where I get concerned is when there are MANY pins with series
resistors dumping current through the diodes. I don't know if the
heating will be a factor. Increasing the value of the resistors to
reduce current does nothing to improve the signal.
The problem is: I don't know and Xilinx isn't telling.
I would probably build a small PCB to connect between the A2 port and
the IDE cable. This would allow me to unscramble signal lines and
change the orientation/gender of the cable<->board connection.
Given that I build such a board, do I populate it with resistors or
level translators? Since the difference in cost is negligible, I'll
choose the translators. At the moment, I am considering the TI
74LVT16245A device: http://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74lvt16245a but there
are others.
Richard
Reply by ●September 7, 20072007-09-07
> the question was raised whether you could do the same
trick
[series resistors for 5V tolerance]
> on the Spartan 3, and I suspect you can, [...] I'd imagine that the
> Spartan 3, like most chips these days, have reversed bias clamp
> protection diodes on the inputrs
It's not something that one has to suspect or imagine; a Google search
for "Xilinx Spartan-3 5V" reveals that it is documented in Xilinx
Answer Record 19146:
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?iLanguageID=1&iCountryID=1&getPagePath146
Eric
[series resistors for 5V tolerance]
> on the Spartan 3, and I suspect you can, [...] I'd imagine that the
> Spartan 3, like most chips these days, have reversed bias clamp
> protection diodes on the inputrs
It's not something that one has to suspect or imagine; a Google search
for "Xilinx Spartan-3 5V" reveals that it is documented in Xilinx
Answer Record 19146:
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?iLanguageID=1&iCountryID=1&getPagePath146
Eric
Reply by ●September 7, 20072007-09-07
On Sat, 2007-08-25 at 13:52 +0000, rtstofer wrote:
> Re: the built-in logic analyzer. I was looking at GTKWave and it
> accepts VCD files for input. It assumes they come from a simulator
> but I figure that if I can create a compatible file from the logic
> analyzer dump, GTKWave won't know the difference.
>
> Then I ran across la2vcd, a conversion program from a logic analyzer
> dump file to VCD.
I once wrote such a program as part of a project in which
I created my own hardware description language (named SHLD,
"simple hardware description language") and a simulator for
it. I wanted to display its output nicely and so wrote a
converter from the output of my simulator to VCD format.
You can grab the whole project from here:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/shdl
The converter can be found in subdirectory vcd.
> In the sump.org Logic Analyzer, he uses the buffer memory in different
> widths/depths. For the Spartan 3 1M gate version, we have 432k bits
> of BlockRam. Assuming no other use for this, it could hold 3456
> samples of 128 bit width or 13,824 samples of 32 bit width, etc. The
> console application sends commands to the LA to select things like
> trigger condition, width/depth, etc. Maybe it is worth the effort to
> port that LA to an embedded module.
Most projects implemented in Spartan 3 will have good use for
the block RAM within the projects themselves. So I don't think
it's a good idea to reserve all of the RAM for the analyzer.
Hellwig
> Re: the built-in logic analyzer. I was looking at GTKWave and it
> accepts VCD files for input. It assumes they come from a simulator
> but I figure that if I can create a compatible file from the logic
> analyzer dump, GTKWave won't know the difference.
>
> Then I ran across la2vcd, a conversion program from a logic analyzer
> dump file to VCD.
I once wrote such a program as part of a project in which
I created my own hardware description language (named SHLD,
"simple hardware description language") and a simulator for
it. I wanted to display its output nicely and so wrote a
converter from the output of my simulator to VCD format.
You can grab the whole project from here:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/shdl
The converter can be found in subdirectory vcd.
> In the sump.org Logic Analyzer, he uses the buffer memory in different
> widths/depths. For the Spartan 3 1M gate version, we have 432k bits
> of BlockRam. Assuming no other use for this, it could hold 3456
> samples of 128 bit width or 13,824 samples of 32 bit width, etc. The
> console application sends commands to the LA to select things like
> trigger condition, width/depth, etc. Maybe it is worth the effort to
> port that LA to an embedded module.
Most projects implemented in Spartan 3 will have good use for
the block RAM within the projects themselves. So I don't think
it's a good idea to reserve all of the RAM for the analyzer.
Hellwig
Reply by ●September 7, 20072007-09-07
On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 17:18 +0000, rtstofer wrote:
> --- In f..., Hellwig Geisse wrote:
> > If anyone is interested, I will make the code available.
>
> Absolutely! I am getting jazzed about building this retro project.
Ok folks, as promised, here it is:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/LogiProbe
I quickly hacked a page of instructions how to use the beast,
something that I never got to when actually working with it... ;-)
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Regards,
Hellwig
> --- In f..., Hellwig Geisse wrote:
> > If anyone is interested, I will make the code available.
>
> Absolutely! I am getting jazzed about building this retro project.
Ok folks, as promised, here it is:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/LogiProbe
I quickly hacked a page of instructions how to use the beast,
something that I never got to when actually working with it... ;-)
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Regards,
Hellwig
Reply by ●September 7, 20072007-09-07
On Sat, 2007-08-25 at 13:52 +0000, rtstofer wrote:
> Re: the built-in logic analyzer. I was looking at GTKWave and it
> accepts VCD files for input. It assumes they come from a simulator
> but I figure that if I can create a compatible file from the logic
> analyzer dump, GTKWave won't know the difference.
>
> Then I ran across la2vcd, a conversion program from a logic analyzer
> dump file to VCD.
I once wrote such a program as part of a project in which
I created my own hardware description language (named SHLD,
"simple hardware description language") and a simulator for
it. I wanted to display its output nicely and so wrote a
converter from the output of my simulator to VCD format.
You can grab the whole project from here:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/shdl
The converter can be found in subdirectory vcd.
> In the sump.org Logic Analyzer, he uses the buffer memory in different
> widths/depths. For the Spartan 3 1M gate version, we have 432k bits
> of BlockRam. Assuming no other use for this, it could hold 3456
> samples of 128 bit width or 13,824 samples of 32 bit width, etc. The
> console application sends commands to the LA to select things like
> trigger condition, width/depth, etc. Maybe it is worth the effort to
> port that LA to an embedded module.
Most projects implemented in Spartan 3 will have good use for
the block RAM within the projects themselves. So I don't think
it's a good idea to reserve all of the RAM for the analyzer.
Hellwig
> Re: the built-in logic analyzer. I was looking at GTKWave and it
> accepts VCD files for input. It assumes they come from a simulator
> but I figure that if I can create a compatible file from the logic
> analyzer dump, GTKWave won't know the difference.
>
> Then I ran across la2vcd, a conversion program from a logic analyzer
> dump file to VCD.
I once wrote such a program as part of a project in which
I created my own hardware description language (named SHLD,
"simple hardware description language") and a simulator for
it. I wanted to display its output nicely and so wrote a
converter from the output of my simulator to VCD format.
You can grab the whole project from here:
http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg53/shdl
The converter can be found in subdirectory vcd.
> In the sump.org Logic Analyzer, he uses the buffer memory in different
> widths/depths. For the Spartan 3 1M gate version, we have 432k bits
> of BlockRam. Assuming no other use for this, it could hold 3456
> samples of 128 bit width or 13,824 samples of 32 bit width, etc. The
> console application sends commands to the LA to select things like
> trigger condition, width/depth, etc. Maybe it is worth the effort to
> port that LA to an embedded module.
Most projects implemented in Spartan 3 will have good use for
the block RAM within the projects themselves. So I don't think
it's a good idea to reserve all of the RAM for the analyzer.
Hellwig
Reply by ●September 7, 20072007-09-07
> It's not something that one has to suspect or
imagine; a Google search
> for "Xilinx Spartan-3 5V" reveals that it is documented in Xilinx
> Answer Record 19146:
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?iLanguageID=1&iCountryID=1&getPagePath146
>
> Eric
>
Thanks for the link, I had been searching Xilinx for that answer but
it was quite a while back.
I have decided for my current project to implement CF drives which
operate fine at 3.3V. For the POP-11 project I may do the same.
There is something satisfying about totally silent computers.
Richard
> for "Xilinx Spartan-3 5V" reveals that it is documented in Xilinx
> Answer Record 19146:
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?iLanguageID=1&iCountryID=1&getPagePath146
>
> Eric
>
Thanks for the link, I had been searching Xilinx for that answer but
it was quite a while back.
I have decided for my current project to implement CF drives which
operate fine at 3.3V. For the POP-11 project I may do the same.
There is something satisfying about totally silent computers.
Richard
