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DE2-115 complete beginners question

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi 

I am completely new to FPGAs but I am lucky enough to have been given a DE2-115 

I know its a big learning curve but being retired I have plenty of time , but I cant even get started to try it out because 

unfortunately the box is missing the system disk so I went online to see what I can download for the board. 

 

I downloaded the user manual but was then stuck  

I can download the  

Control panel 

System Builder 

System CD 

but which one , on line I can find lots of versions especially of the system CD 

 

Eventualy on the Altera products, DE2-115 product page I clicked the resources tab and that gave me a narrower field to choose from 

 

just one Control Panel 

One Systembuilder 

but still to System CDs 

 

one is  

DE2-115 CD-ROM (Cypress USB) of which there are then 4 versions  

the other 

DE2-115 CD-ROM (NXP USB) 

 

Which one do I need ? or do I need both ? 

 

Regards 

Don
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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This is the official Terasic resource web page: 

 

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=165&no=502&partno=4 

 

You need the appropriate CD-ROM according to which USB device your board has. The manual should help you find this.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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I think you have to download from the Altera website: 

1) Quartus (web editon) free 

2) Modelsim Altera Starter edition (free) 

3) In the installation directory of Quartus youll' find the 'USB blaster' drivers.  

 

This is all you need to design a circuit and download it on the FPGA board. 

 

P.S. You also need the knoledge of a language such as VHDL or Verilog. This is not a must since you can also design using the schematic design (similar to Spice) but it becomes immediately very cumbersome as the design complexity increases.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi Thank you for your reply , however its a bit of a vicious circle  

 

you said to choose the CD rom according to which usb device my board has , and to determine this device from the user manual  

Unfortunately the manual is on the CD rom . so depending on which CD I decide to download I guess will give me a different answer as to which USB I have  

 

I have now written to Terasic support quoting the serial number of my board hoping they can give me an answer from that 

 

but thanks for the help 

 

Don 

 

 

 

--- Quote Start ---  

This is the official Terasic resource web page: 

 

http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?language=english&categoryno=165&no=502&partno=4 

 

You need the appropriate CD-ROM according to which USB device your board has. The manual should help you find this. 

--- Quote End ---  

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Thanks nplttr 

 

I will start downloading and installing them now  

 

Don
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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I wrote to Terasic in the end  

 

They tell me that my board ( from the serial number ) uses the NXP USB but that this will not work with windows 7 only XP 

They also said that the Cypress USB only works on windows 7 in 32 bit not 64 bit  

 

Don
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
1,777 Views

 

--- Quote Start ---  

 

They tell me that my board ( from the serial number ) uses the NXP USB but that this will not work with windows 7 only XP 

They also said that the Cypress USB only works on windows 7 in 32 bit not 64 bit  

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

I think you can ignore the advice about functionality under Windows for the moment. The board has a USB device attached to the FPGA that you can use for communication with your design. I've never bothered to use it. 

 

The board also has an on-board USB-Blaster, and that does work under Windows just fine. 

 

If Terasic has changed the USB controller, then they've likely changed the pin assignments on the board, but probably only in a few places. You'll want to make sure you download the schematic for the board revision you own, and determine the pin assignments from that. Do *not* simply use an example design you find on the web! (Including any from Terasic, without first reviewing it!) 

 

Cheers. 

Dave
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Thanks Dave  

 

Yes I found that the USB Blaster works fine and I doubt I will need any other usb connectivity for some time , as I  

have only been playing with FPGA's for about 8 hours ( got my DE2-115 yesterday)
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