Re: Larkin should like The Unix Haters Handbook

On Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:18:39 GMT, Jan Panteltje
<pNaonStpealmtje@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:10:08 -0700) it happened John Larkin
<jjSNIPlarkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<j25l255khji913t0l2um62g6qpb49f1i9q@xxxxxxx>:

I was sort of hoping that by now we would have gigabit serial, possibly optical,
links.....

PCI express is gigabit serial. So is gb Ethernet. And both are wicked
complex.

John

Yes, I know, I get mail from the FPGA companies advertising ever faster serial links..

Maybe I did get the setup wrong, I was under the impression you wanted to connect
some embedded stuff with a FPGA in it to a PC with PCIe?

Does there not exist a PCIe card with a super fast serial link (perhaps optical)
that you can plug in? And then have the FPGA do the other end of the link?
You could then make your own protocol too.

Consider the simplest possible computer interface, one that lets you
read the level of a single TTL input.

CAMAC: Takes one SN7438

VME: Two chips, an MSI address comparator and a 7438.

ISA: ditto, maybe less. Actually, you could do it with one gate. And a
single-line Basic program will print things like "The bit is HIGH", no
drivers required.

PCI, USB, PCIe: simply not feasible to design the hardware from
scratch (well, maybe PCI into an FPGA... maybe) and then you still
need drivers.

Ditto programming in general. The days when a kid could hack a working
interface into a PC, or write a simple starter program, are long gone.
So the ones who do program start way up the abstraction stack and
don't see clear to the bottom.

Every PC should have a general-purpose 16-bit parallel interface
connector and a simple way to access it.


John

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Configure FPGA via PCIe
    ... low end would not adopt PCIe. ... just as easily add any sort of chip to facilitate booting the FPGA. ... PCI interface to boot the FPGA. ... for PCI and someone would have thought of using it for configuration at ...
    (comp.arch.fpga)
  • Re: PCI FPGA Dev Board Suggestions
    ... wanting PCI66 and we have considered doing ... the wrong interface with the PCIE. ... manufacturers as usually they are trying to demo PCI inside a FPGA. ... system (essentially outsourcing the PCI tasks to a PCI bridge chip). ...
    (comp.arch.fpga)
  • Re: Configure FPGA via PCIe
    ... cannot be done with PCIe. ... an FPGA configuration; PRGM, CCLK, DONE, INIT. ... This is a bit lofty for a configuration interface. ...
    (comp.arch.fpga)
  • Re: What should I use for highspeed/low latency communication beteen PC and FPGA?
    ... I have a FPGA project and it needs to interface with my PC. ... does using SATA not imply that PCI is also used? ...
    (comp.arch.fpga)
  • Re: Configure FPGA via PCIe
    ... use the Device Bus to configure the FPGA via SelectMAP. ... cannot be done with PCIe. ... This is a bit lofty for a configuration interface. ...
    (comp.arch.fpga)