FPGA VAX update

[Tony Duell]

> >Hmm... There are plenty of books on making simple valve radios still 
> >being written and sold (I bought a couple last week). OH, it's a small 
> >market, but somebody other than myself must find it interesting.
> >  
> >
> I should not write postings multi-threaded :-( The argument actually 
> mixes up two ideas; the first is that an AM
> detector is too mediocre to most people nowadays who are accustomed to 
> FM stereo sound or even

COnsiderign the terrible row made by those infernal MP3 players in 
cellphones that I seem to hear everywhere now, I can't believe many of 
the younger generation care about sound quality at all.

> 5.1/6.1/7.1/whatever sound even with cheapest receivers. The second 
> point emphasizes on the "digitalization" issue:
> in the near future there won't be any analogue AM or FM 
> transmissions/transmitters any more; even SW band migrates

THis ia a great pity, and actually, given the number of cheap radios 
around, I wonder if it will ever happen. I can't believe the public will 
accept having to replace doxens of sets.

> Of course. Building some gadget from a kit is just part of learning the 
> usage of the tools. I did this in the very beginning,
> as almost every newbie, but after a while changed to own experiments.

I do still occasionally build kits. I do it if I want the end result, and 
by building the kit (a) I know it's been built properly and (b) I get a 
schematic. For example by bench PSU was built from a kit. Yes, I could 
design one, but actually, the kit was no more expensive than buying the 
bits separately.




> Unfortunately, many of the more interesting TTLs are now no longer 
> easily available (you find lots of octal
> drivers and registers,  but almost none of ALUs, multifunction chips, 
> RAMs - even the classical
> 7490,7491,7492,7493 combo of counters for any purpose is reduced to 
> 7490/7493 - noone
> needs to divide by 6 ('92) any more - you don't build digital clocks in 
> TTL) - you have to seek for
> them in specialized mail-order shops. This is no issue for us old farts 
> who play with such stuff for
> long time, but it is another hurdle for starters. A kit with all parts 
> is much easier to acquire - but then,

Waht somebody needs to do (and it can't be me for obvious reasons) is to 
select some CPLDs/FPGAs where the download protocol is documented (that 
is, you can progam the chip, given the binary file, without a proprietary 
programmer), and use the tools (that's why it can't be me) to make some 
useful logic functions -- things like an <n> bit universal shift 
register, <n> bit ALU, counters, even JK flip-flops, gates, etc. Make the 
binary files available for free download.

Anyone wanting to experiment with logic and not wanting to use the 
horrible CAD tools under an even worse OS, can then program up some chips 
with the appropriate files and use the resulting devices like the TTL of old.

-tony