[sdiy] New cheap FPGA development system

[James Patchell]

Ahhh....but there is method to my madness...and these investments have paid 
off many times...

Over the years, I have pulled off many miracles (or what looked like 
miracles :-) from skills I have learned at home doing Synth Projects.  I 
have gotten many raises that have more than paid for what I shelled out.

Most recently...On the motion controller project...I had a very difficult 
problem to solve...and then all of the sudden...I realized...an NCO 
(numerically controlled oscillator) would solve my problem...wrote a little 
verilog module for an NCO, connected into the thing...and all of the 
problems disappeared and the thing was slicker than dear guts on a door 
knob...the customer was very pleased...the noise that the stepper motors 
were making completely disappeared...and they run nearly silently...

NCO's are something I have been experimenting a lot with for a DIY digital 
synth...a very good case where paying to play paid off in my work....

but hey...that is just me....

At 01:45 AM 5/27/2006 -0400, harrybissell wrote:
>Dear twin~brother~separated~at~birth...
>
>you are doing it backwards...
>
>you should learn at work [and be paid for] the skills you
>need for s-diy...
>
>:^)
>
>H^) harry
>
>James Patchell wrote:
> >
> > I don't look at it as throwing away $500...of course...I do this
> > professionally...I have used my SDIY hobby, over the last 30 some odd years
> > to learn the skills that I use in my profession.  The microblaze is a very
> > powerful uP.  It is going to be the future of a lot of DIY synth projects
> > for me...as well as using FPGA's.  I just wish I had more time to work on
> > these things at the moment...(I am doing a microblaze project right
> > now...but it is for a motion controller...not music :-( .....
> >
> > At 06:05 PM 5/26/2006 -0700, Eric Brombaugh wrote:
> > >Sarah wrote:
> > >>One advantage of using their EDK tools is that by using the 
> Microblaze OPB
> > >>bus you get easy access to a lot of free soft peripherals including 
> an easy
> > >>to use low gate count delta sigma DAC (or ADC). I haven't tried using the
> > >>DAC for audio use yet  only for programmable reference voltages but I 
> think
> > >>it could be quite successfully used.
> > >>Developing systems with these OPB peripherals is very straight 
> forward and
> > >>adding your own peripherals onto the OPB bus is quite easy - EDK 
> allows you
> > >>to add OPB master/slave user logic using configurable FIFOs or DMA.
> > >>I think it is the ease of development into the FPGA that makes the
> > >>Microblaze attractive over ARMs AMBA bus (other processors like PICs 
> are not
> > >>in the same performance league).
> > >>
> > >That's good info. I'm not opposed to the EDK in general and I'm not
> > >suggesting that Microblaze is comparable to a $3.00 PIC. There are a lot
> > >of nice peripherals and the tools seem quite polished. No doubt you can do
> > >wonderful things with it. It's just that I've got a lot of other things
> > >I'd rather spend $500 of my DIY budget on. On the other hand, if I could
> > >justify it for a paying job I wouldn't hesitate.
> > >
> > >Eric
> >
> >          -Jim
> > ***************************************************************
> > Come to the 2006 Pacific Southwest Synth DIY meet
> > June 10, 2006 at the Goleta Library....
> >
> > Details:
> > http://www.oldcrows.net/~patchell/synthdiymeet.html
> > ***************************************************************
> > http://www.oldcrows.net/~patchell
> > http://www.noniandjim.com/
> > ***************************************************************

         -Jim
***************************************************************
Come to the 2006 Pacific Southwest Synth DIY meet
June 10, 2006 at the Goleta Library....

Details:
http://www.oldcrows.net/~patchell/synthdiymeet.html
***************************************************************
http://www.oldcrows.net/~patchell
http://www.noniandjim.com/
***************************************************************