EP2C5/EP2C8 Mini Board

[bifferos]

I've had this board for a while but only recently decided I should try to learn a bit about FPGAs.

I found some information here:
http://land-boards.com/blwiki/index.php?title=Cyclone_II_EP2C5_Mini_Dev_Board

It seems this board is used as the basis for some kind of retro gaming emulation


I had to jump through a number of hoops to program the board.

First problem was I had to go back to Quartus v13.0 to find compatibility with the chip.  At least it's available on the intel website for now.
Second problem was the software back then was 32-bit only so I needed to install compatibility libs on my Linux Mint desktop.
Third problem was the requirement for libpng12 which is no longer shipped with/for Linux Mint.

Initially I solved these problems by using a virtual machine running Linux Mint 18.3, which was the last version with libpng12.
Recently I removed the need for VM by just copying libpng12 from Linux Mint, and hacking it into my Linux Mint 21 install with a soft link.  It has to be the 'real' libpng12 unfortunately, a soft link to version 16 doesn't work.  I've obviously no idea how much longer these hacks are going to work for Linux Mint going forward.

So after a few evenings I got my led blink example running, and am now going through FPGA tutorials, most of which are based on more fancy boards with LED displays etc, but I don't think that matters too much.

The Quartus software seems to come up with a lot of reasons to not work.  For instance the failure of 'start' button on the programmer to be enabled just because something in the project wasn't quite right.  And there seems little feedback on what's going wrong.  I have no idea what I'd do without Chat GPT giving hints, even if it seems to have no clue about specific versions of Quartus and persistently muddles up the features in each, somehow we were able to figure things out between us.

It seems you need to compile the project explicitly before certain things work properly (I think the pin planner), and auto-saving presumably wasn't a thing around the time Quartus was created.  Also it seems to want to save things like the programmer info file in odd default places.  It just lacks the kind of polish you'd have with modern programming IDEs but I'll probably get used to that.

The land-boards github has some programming examples e.g.
https://github.com/land-boards/EP2C5-Cyclone-II-Mini-Board/tree/master/Blink1/db

There are many binary files there.  Is that normal for an FPGA project stored in SCM?  I'm not advanced enough to understand what they all do but if there's a different dev kit that avoids the need for binary files, I'm going to be more comfortable with that.

So in summary I'm looking for opinions, should I switch to something else, or carry on with this board?  Next step will be some custom boards connected to the headers.

Thanks!

[ebclr]

If you used windows none of this problems appeared, just install Quartus 13 the driver and ready to go

[bifferos]

If you used windows none of this problems appeared, just install Quartus 13 the driver and ready to go

I don't have Windows, so your suggestion is not useful.

[ebclr]

Quartus has a pin planing, since the 1st release

[c64]

If you used windows none of this problems appeared, just install Quartus 13 the driver and ready to go

I don't have Windows, so your suggestion is not useful.

I agree with ebclr . It works on Windows with no issues at all.
You could install Windows on VM. You were using VM anyway.

[mfro]

...
Second problem was the software back then was 32-bit only
...

Not true. Quartus 13.0 is 64bit capable. Just start it with the --64bit command line switch.

That software stems from an era when you were supposed to study the manual first instead of asking an AI.

[bifferos]

I agree with ebclr . It works on Windows with no issues at all.
You could install Windows on VM. You were using VM anyway.

I now have it working outside of a VM.  So paying for a Windows license just so I can use it inside a VM would be daft.

[bifferos]

...
Second problem was the software back then was 32-bit only
...

Not true. Quartus 13.0 is 64bit capable. Just start it with the --64bit command line switch.

That software stems from an era when you were supposed to study the manual first instead of asking an AI.

Oh come off it.  This is the first piece of software I've come across where for whatever reason the developers were unable to run 'uname -m' and switch the binary automatically but instead put it behind an option.  It's not something I'd expect to go looking for.

[bingo600]

I'm using that board w. Quartus 13.0 SP1 i think.
I have it running in a Vbox VM with Mint 17.3 64bit as "Base OS"  (along w. ISE 14.7)

I had to do a few mods after install , and it's working flawless.
I had to use the Manual & Google.

You're a lucky guy .. You can just ask your AI for the mods to do .... 


Ps:
I had issues using the el-cheapo USB-Blaster clones from a VM, it worked fine on native HW, but not in the VM.
I had to switch to a "real clone" w. the ftdi+cpld to get it to work from the VM.

/Bingo

[bifferos]

Hello Bingo,

I'm using that board w. Quartus 13.0 SP1 i think.

I started off by watching this video:
But he was using version 11 which doesn't seem to be available anymore.  The latest version with support for the Cyclone II is 13.0.  13.1, available from the same page, doesn't have support.  You have to choose the correct download from the drop-down, unfortunately it's easy to get the wrong one (which of course I tried first wanting the 'latest' 13).

I have it running in a Vbox VM with Mint 17.3 64bit as "Base OS"  (along w. ISE 14.7)

OK, so now you know you can 'upgrade' to 18.3 if you want to   I was investigating how to streamline the install of libpng 12 into the latest Mint but couldn't find an easy way.  The ISO has some kind of squashfs FS file, I'm sure there's a way of pulling out the .deb but I took the easy route, installed it into a VM, and copied the lib out of the VM,  then used it on my host and it seemed to work.

If there's interest I could probably make this easier and stick some script on github, or even upload the binary I'm using (assuming anyone would trust it).

I had to do a few mods after install , and it's working flawless.
I had to use the Manual & Google.

Hmmm... no mods here.  Any idea what I'm going to find lacking?

[bingo600]

ISTR that Quartus actually installed quite nicely.
But i had to "fight a bit" in order to get modelsim to run.

Xilix ISE14.7 - Was a bit more challenging ... Especially to get PACE working.


I'm not going to upgrade the OS ...
It's a "locked down .. no Inet access" , dedicated VM just for these old toolchains.
I made it because i was tired of adapting them on every "Main OS" upgrade, now i just copy (register) the VM on the new OS release.
And it immediately works.


/Bingo