gmvhdl aka direct VHDL

[legacy]

What do you thing about the product DirectVHDL (for Windows and MacOSX) by green mountains ?

they said

description
DirectVHDL is an interactive VHDL simulator
built around a VHDL interpreter that
allows you to edit and simulate your VHDL design
without complicated setup or compilation procedures.
DirectVHDL simply loads and simulates in one step.

DirectVHDL includes the following:

• VHDL Workspace - an easy-to-use manager that serves as a starting point to launch the VHDL editor and simulator.
• VHDL Editor - an advanced editor providing syntax coloring and syntax-error detection. Perfect for beginners, this editor highlights syntax errors as you type!
• VHDL Simulator - allows you to simulate and debug your design with a graphical waveform viewer.
• VHDL Tutorial - provides an easy introduction to the VHDL language.

Limitations
• The group and reject keywords are not supported.
• Configurations are not completely supported.
• Libraries are not supported except the builtin IEEE libraries (std_logic_1164, numeric_bit, numeric_std, std_logic_textio, std_logic_arith, std_logic_signed, std_logic_unsigned).

[Bassman59]

What do you thing about the product DirectVHDL (for Windows and MacOSX) by green mountains ?

It seems woefully out of date (dated 2008!) and they have no apparent interest in maintaining it.

And the caveat "these products are no longer available" on this page doesn't bode well.

[legacy]

Paying 53 euro (through paypal) i got a copy of DirectVHDL-v1
I have installed the program and it has being reporting me that an "activation key" is required in order to work
so I will feedback as soon as they email me my activation key.


also i found that there is Xilinx iSim
Never heard before, I am using ISE v10.1 Project Navigator only, never tried iSim
but i can give it a try 

[hans]

Xilinx ships an integrated simulator tool inside ISE. Works pretty well.

You also have ModelSim, which you can easily acquire a student license. No questions asked. Valid for 6 months..

If I look at those screenshots, I see a textbox with basically 3 buttons (new/save/run) on it, and almost no further options.
How will I know the simulation is really good?
It seems like a bit of a toy TBH.

[Lukas]

You also have ModelSim, which you can easily acquire a student license. No questions asked. Valid for 6 months..

There's also the free Modelsim Altera Web Edition which simulates up to 10k lines of code. http://www.altera.com/products/software/quartus-ii/modelsim/qts-modelsim-index.html

[legacy]

i do not have iSim installed with Xilinx ISE v10.1
should i download and install separately ?

i am evaluating the opportunity to pick up a larger disk and to instill Altera Web Edition + their Modelsim

[legacy]

It seems like a bit of a toy TBH.

yes, i confirm it is a toy

today i got my license key which does NOT unblock any hidden features
the program is a toy, and the only good is that
it is able to make you to directly set stimulus to a very easy and didactical entity

i asked money back

[legacy]

To short this story: today i got the answer "no money back"
which ends with an offensive reply like "fu*k off"

good seller, good company

to summarize: why you should not buy from Green Mountains

- the seller has refused to provide an evaluation version of the product (license limited to n days in order to try the software)
- the seller has sent me a copy of the software which is not able to work until you get the license key
- as result I was not able to evaluate the program until i got the license key
- and once i got the license key i found that what i got paying for it is different from what i have read in the product description, in particular about these:

a) the VHDL Editor - IS NOT - an advanced editor, it provides syntax coloring but it does not provide and it does not assist you with the syntax-error detection (what is the sense of an editor which is not able to edit )
b) there are no VHDL tutorials in the installed folder, poor materials provided, just on example which is not working and of which the only reaction of the program is a long list of errors

- asking money back comes into offensive reply

what i think:

They called this "tool" ? 

[Scrts]

I am actually amazed why people buy some software only to try it, when there's a clear market standard, which probably everyone use and there's also free version of that software...

I think there's also free ModelSim Xilinx edition, since they gave up with ISim AFAIK.

[legacy]

i haven't bought "to try it"   
i have bought because i have trusted its features as they have been described 
Modelsim and such a stuff are not iterative VHDL editor, they are simulators
that means much more power when you are already skilled
but it also means much more issues when you are a beginner

btw thank you for the support, i will go to ModelSim to end this story 

[legacy]

also i have download co'nix (cooperative unix for windows)
in order to have a gentoo box inside Windows XP

and inside this cooperative gentoo/linux virtual machine
i have emerged

- icarus for verilog
- gnat, ADA gcc compiler, it is required by ghdl
- ghdl for vhdl
- gtkwave, it's a wave viewer (plus gtk and X11, off course)

on the Windows XP side i am using mobaXterm (home free edition)
+ X11 support for XP (it's included in the mobaXterm package)

i have fetched "geany" (it is a scriptable IDE, usually used for C/C++ project)
modifying it in order to have scripts to handle the whole

i have a "my_make_project_for_geany script"
which generates a Makefile used by geany to compile vhdl to obj/app (ghdl)
in order to simulate -> the tool produces the wave result

it is not iterative, it is not as friendly as expected with directVHDL, but it works!!!

so i am ~ ready to edit and simulate a vhdl code
and i have to arrange the same for icarus in order to simulate verilog code


bloody fight 

[hans]

I am actually amazed why people buy some software only to try it, when there's a clear market standard, which probably everyone use and there's also free version of that software...

I think there's also free ModelSim Xilinx edition, since they gave up with ISim AFAIK.

I always look at free versions of most software first. If there aren't any for a particular platform, then probably that platform is not to be used by hobbyists and low entry market.
If there is and but it doesn't cut it, well bummer. Maybe there are workarounds..

As for iSim and ModelSim; I agree ModelSim is better, but I have had a small period with no VHDL tools installed. So when installing Xilinx ISE, I clicked "install all" and was happily surprised that it had a sim integrated.
Not much of a deal to use Modelsim next to it though.

Saying ModelSim is only useful for advanced people is bullshit. I have used ModelSim since I was as student because we had an awfully outdated program "VisualHDL for VHDL" (dating back to 2005) at college, which had a habit of crashing during saving and only running well on XP.

VHDL was never popular at our college for that reason (V-H-D-Hell) I think, so in that regard I was "all alone" in figuring it out.

If you have just a little clue what you're doing (or should be doing) with a simulator, it's not hard. Load your file, edit your code, start waveform session, select signals to debug, and run the simulation for X seconds. Repeat till your happy.

[legacy]

Load your file, edit your code, start waveform session, select signals to debug, and run the simulation for X seconds. Repeat till your happy.

that is what i can do now with ghdl + gtkwave
but, when you edit (VHD-HELL) code you have to recompile the whole
(geany, the IDE, is invoking ghdl -e/-a file.vhd, which invokes GNAT)
then reload the wave with gtkwave

edit:
working in progress for icarus (verilog) … i can't say/confirm that geany is useful, too

[miguelvp]

Sorry for the bad experience, like I replied to you on another thread, for the $49 they wanted you could get this:

http://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/arrow-development-tools/bemicrocv

Or if you just want to simulate without hardware then just install Quartus II web edition (free) and simulate all day long.
It even has templates for VHDL (and verilog, and system verilog, even AHDL) if you right click on the editor.
time constrains analysis, signal tap, etc, etc, etc.

You can also change the Editor to Sigasi and others.
If you prefer a different simulator it allows you to use them, like the full fledged modelsim and other EDA software.

I haven't tried Xilinx toolchain yet. But I'm impressed with what you can do with the free Altera toolchain.

[legacy]

I got two development boards (spartan s3e-500)
i am fine about hardware

i did a lot of experiments with verilog
and also i have written a lot of dummies devices for a SoC plus a tone of C drivers
(i am skilled about C and assembly, i am a beginner about HDL
in particular i know something about verilog but i don't know vhdl very well)

i have never developed anything serious in hdl, especially from scratches !
i have only fixed/modified/adapt other guys' work

so i bought good books (1) and i aimed for a didactical tool that
could help me to speed up the learning curve

edit:
(1) FPGA Prototyping Using VHDL Examples Xilinx Spartan-3
by Pong P. Chu

[legacy]

i do not have iSim installed with Xilinx ISE v10.1

i decided to upgrade to v13, it's in downloading now !
i bought an external larger usb-disk, i will install there
(for linux, this time i want to try ISE for linux)

[Bassman59]

also i found that there is Xilinx iSim
Never heard before, I am using ISE v10.1 Project Navigator only, never tried iSim

The version of ISim in ISE 10.x is woeful. Download ISE 14.7 (the latest and last-ever version), the simulation support is very much improved.

[Bassman59]

I think there's also free ModelSim Xilinx edition, since they gave up with ISim AFAIK.

No, you have that backwards. They stopped providing the free ModelSim XE when ISE 11.x was released (a few years ago) and instead they provide ISim, which is actually not that bad at all.

If you want free ModelSim, it's included with MicroSemi's Libero, Altera's Quartus, and Lattice's tools.

[legacy]

Thank you! I got ISE 13.1, that is bigger than ISE 10.1, it seems 9Gbyte, too much for me!
I installed it into an external hard drive (just in order to evaluate it, i do not like having program running in usb external drive)
cause i have enough space to accommodate it to the internal drive
(i also have Labview, NI multisim and many more applications installed, plus linux in the second partition)

Also i got ModelSim PE Student Edition by Mentor
it seems a funny simulator, i have been toying with if for 2 hours around easy examples and my old vhdl code
and i am happy with it, it is easy to use, intuitive, and it uses only 300Mbyte

About the license … well it requires a fixed node license, which means you have to register your student license
from the machine you want the program installed to, and you can't change the machine without repeating the license validation

not too bad, but this way it may be better if installed inside a virtual machine (Virtual Box, for example)


I have to evaluate ISE 13.1, do you think i'd better update to ISE 14 ?
How big is it when installed ? It may be i can install it for linux,
removing old stuff i should have 20Gbyte free in the ext3 partition

The next month it may be i will buy a bigger internal hard drive, something like 500Gbyte instead of the actual 120Gbyte
of which Windows XP has the 50%, the other 50% is for linux, and .. 60Gb today are not enough for such a stuff.

[Bassman59]

Thank you! I got ISE 13.1, that is bigger than ISE 10.1, it seems 9Gbyte, too much for me!

I think that 13.x included both ISE and Vivado; for 14.x they got smart and made the two separate downloads. I'm sure that if you check the Xilinx download page it'll tell you the size of the thing you need.

About the license … well it requires a fixed node license, which means you have to register your student license
from the machine you want the program installed to, and you can't change the machine without repeating the license validation

Pretty much all EDA software is like that. Whatever. It's not a big deal.

I have to evaluate ISE 13.1, do you think i'd better update to ISE 14 ?

The simulator is improved in 14. Not much else is, I think, but anyways 14.7 is the absolute end of the line for ISE so you might as well use it.

How big is it when installed ? It may be i can install it for linux, removing old stuff i should have 20Gbyte free in the ext3 partition

It's huge, like 15 GB, but then again, my machine has a 1.5 TB main drive so I don't really care.

[legacy]

i got a laptop 2 years ago and it come with a preloaded hard drive of 120Gbyte, the 500Gbyte is considered an upgrade
btw, i will follow your suggestion: 20Gbyte have been removed on the linux partition and ISE v14.7 is in downloading



anyone has a comment about the Mentor Graphics Modelsim PE Student Edition ?

[legacy]

As far as you can read from their web site
ModelSim PE Student Edition is intended for use by hobbits 
in pursuit of their home (educational) projects

that's happening with me:
i'd like to learn VHDL & Verilog by examples
simulating things before putting bitstream on the tiny target
(in order to toy with cheap Logic Analyzer)

About the performances …
it seems the PE Student Edition has a capacity of 10K lines of executable code
if your project is under this limit the performance is about 30% of PE-full-version
while exceeding capacity will reduce the performance to about 1% of PE-full-version
that means 100 times slower than PE
but who cares about a project larger than 10K lines ?
a project bigger than 10K line is ouf of the "hobby" definition

also - i think - you can split a project into modules
and put modules "one at once" in the simulator
am i right ?

[miguelvp]

As far as you can read from their web site
ModelSim PE Student Edition is intended for use by hobbits 
in pursuit of their home (educational) projects

Nice freudian slip 

Yes, we are all hobbits here, myself included!