JTAG programmer for Spartan-3 Starter Board (XC3S200)

[StefikMichal]

Hello everyone!

Some time ago, i bought almost unused Spartan-3 Starter Kit Board with an XC3S200 on ebay. It's an old board, but I've used it during some lessons while I was at uni and I want to do some beginner projects with it. The only problem is that I don't have a compatible programmer. It came with some kind of old JTAG adapter with one side and something like parallel port (DB25) on the other side. At uni, we've used very similar programmer, it was marked as "JTAG-USB With SPI 1.8 to 5.5 V Rev. B" probably from Digilent and with JTAG adapter at the one side and the USB on the other side. We also used Xilinx ISE and Adept. As far as I know, I can program this board only using JTAG header.

My question is - do you know about some compatible programmer for this board/FPGA? Digilent HS2/HS3 cost around 60 - 80 € and I don't think that it's worth it. Would be possible to use something from ebay/aliexpress like "Platform cable USB JTAG"? These devices are cheaper, but don't know, which one I have to choose, or if it's even worth to bother with it.

Thanks in advance.

[lichen8867]

search the key words: xilinx + CH552G .you can find the chip solution for this case.

[bingo600]

Or if possible use a PI-Pico  (Xilinx xvc mode)  .. untested by me

https://gist.github.com/tinwhisker/7d2d47c7644f82f92c65a3c39c110574

https://www.hackster.io/news/dhiru-kholia-s-project-turns-a-raspberry-pi-pico-into-a-xilinx-virtual-cable-xvc-for-fpga-dev-work-25a58d9a99a9
https://www.adiuvoengineering.com/post/microzed-chronicles-jtag-using-a-raspberry-pi-pico
https://github.com/kholia/xvc-pico

But be carefull of Xilinx JTAG voltage levels.
Isn't the Spartan3 below 3v3 ??

I think Xilinx has an app-note for programming a Spartan3 with 3v3 level

[langwadt]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/custom-jtag-debugger-for-xilinx-fpgas-based-on-ft22x-chips/