TTL-FPGA

Markus | Updated Monday, June 14th 2021, 21:41

-- Building an FPGA from 74-series logic ICs. For fun and education.

Figure 1. TTL-FPGA

Technology is becoming more complex every day. Devices get smaller, integration gets higher. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly harder to understand how modern devices work.

In the 80s, you could open your PC and start probing signals on the mainboard to understand which instruction the CPU executed. These days, pretty much everything can be integrated into a single chip and everything is hidden away. One example of such a highly integrated component is the field programmable gate array (FPGA).

FPGAs essentially allow the designer to create large digital designs inside of an IC without having to create actual new silicon. As these designs are created by writing software-like source code, one might easily forget the fact that what is created is, indeed, a digital circuit. The immense overhead to provide this flexibility is easy to underestimate when working with these devices.

To aid students learning about FPGAs better understand the technology, this project aims to provide a platform to look at the inner workings of such a chip by breaking it out of the IC and bringing it onto a PCB where every signal can be traced and measured. Such projects are often done for central processing units (CPUs), but there isn't much when it comes to FPGAs.

Before I delve any deeper into my implementation, I want to highlight that this is only one of many ways to construct such an "FPGA." Also, this project does not accurately represent the circuits inside a commercial FPGA. Many things, especially the routing, had to be grossly simplified in order to be feasible. The basic concepts, however, should still hold true.

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Tags: fpga hardware


A True Random Access Memory

Markus | Saturday, August 17th 2019, 18:38

-- What if random access memories were actually true to their name?

Figure 1. Why do they even call it random?

In this post I will analyze the feasibility of using a memory which randomly performs either a read or write operation instead of giving the user the ability to choose between the two. Spoiler: It sucks!

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Tags: architecture nonsense


Personal Projects Advent Calendar 2018

Markus | Thursday, December 27th 2018, 00:00

-- 27 Days of Projects

Figure 1. Thank you for 2018!
2018 is coming to an end, and so it's time to tend to things that didn't get done over the year. For me, I've been wanting to talk about many of my old projects for quite a while now, but never got around to it.

So this December (or tbh, many were shot during November), I pulled together and made videos for 25 of my projects. They date from very recent (November 2018) back to my school days (2007), so there's quite some variation to the style and type of project. I hope that you will enjoy (at least some of) them.

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Tags: avr fpga hardware linux software video


FlySky FS-i6 as PC Joystick

Markus | Updated Friday, October 18th 2019, 17:44

-- Let's pretend FlightGear is a model airplane simulator

Figure 1. FlightGear controlled using the FlySky FS-i6

In this post, I will explain how to use the FlySky FS-i6 RC remote control as a game controller / joystick on Linux. This post covers how to connect the FS-iA6B receiver to a computer and how to compile the driver and support software.

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Tags: linux rc software


Brother LW-35 Typewriter Modernization Vlog 4

Markus | Sunday, May 20th 2018, 00:00

-- Part 4: Printer

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This part of the Brother LW-35 modernization series describes the progress on the re-implementation of the printer controller on an AVR.

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Tags: hardware lw35 software video


Brother LW-35 Typewriter Modernization Vlog 3

Markus | Sunday, May 13th 2018, 00:00

-- Part 3: Printer preparation

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In this video, I take a look at the original circuit used to drive the printer assembly.

Tags: hardware lw35 video


Brother LW-35 Typewriter Modernization Vlog 2

Markus | Sunday, May 6th 2018, 00:00

-- Part 2: Keyboard

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This video shows how I read the keyboard of the Brother LW-35 typewriter using an AVR microcontroller.

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Tags: hardware lw35 software video


Brother LW-35 Typewriter Modernization Vlog 1

Markus | Sunday, April 29th 2018, 17:11

-- Part 1: LCD

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In the first video of this series, I show how I got the LCD of the Brother LW-35 Typewriter working with an Orange Pi PC Linux SBC.

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Tags: fpga hardware linux lw35 software video


USB VFD (HCS-12SS59T)

Markus | Updated Saturday, March 24th 2018, 18:05

-- A basic general purpose USB enabled display

Figure 1. The USB VFD board

When ordering at Pollin Electronic, there is this unwritten rule of at least throwing in one probably useless item, one that you might never even get to work (or that is broken in the first place). In my last order, this was a Samsung HCS-12SS59T vacuum fluorescent display[1]. I absolutely love this kind of display and they were cheap at only EUR 1.75 a piece. So why not?

In this post, I will showcase the project that this display became.

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Tags: avr hardware video


Lattice MachXO2 Based FPGA Development Board

Markus | Updated Monday, November 27th 2017, 18:37

-- Tiny and cheap, but versatile

Figure 1. A rendered 3D-image of the Tiny-XO2 board

Introduction

The Tiny-XO2 is a small, versatile and cost-effective development platform for Lattice MachXO2 field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It is built around a MachXO2-1200HC FPGA which features 1280 LUTs, 64 kbits of EBR SRAM and one PLL besides various other features[1]. The development board extends the functionality by providing a USB-to-serial converter and a crystal to allow quick and easy prototyping. All I/O pins are available on the .1 inch headers and labelled directly on the board. Figure 2 provides an overview of all the board's functions.

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Tags: fpga hardware

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