GPIO pins problem in Cyclone III kit

[Altera_Forum]

Dear Guys 

 I bought an altera cyclone III Fpga kit and it has 8 GPIO(General Purpose I\O) pins only :( and we need more GPIO pins  So, Does anyone know how i can get more GPIO pins???  and thank you in advace

[Altera_Forum]

Which kit?

[Altera_Forum]

it is called 

 Nios II Embedded Evaluation Kit (NEEK), Cyclone III Edition

[Altera_Forum]

As far as I'm aware of, the only GP I/Os of the 3C25 starter board are provided through the HSMC connector, which is interfacing the LCD Multimedia daughtercard in NEEK. So I wonder, which 8 signals you are counting as GPIO with this kit? According to the block diagram, there are none. But may be I missed something?

[Altera_Forum]

the demo board has some keys and LEDs , this components' pins may be used as input or output pins.  

if you need more pins, you can design a daughter PCB with 180 pins HSMC connector. connect them, then the daughter PCB will extends the GPIO pins number.

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  As far as I'm aware of, the only GP I/Os of the 3C25 starter board are provided through the HSMC connector, which is interfacing the LCD Multimedia daughtercard in NEEK. So I wonder, which 8 signals you are counting as GPIO with this kit? According to the block diagram, there are none. But may be I missed something?  --- Quote End ---     it actually has a debug connector (10 pins) on the LCD Multimedia HSMC board , 2 of them are Vcc and Gnd, so the remaining is 8 pins only :(   @ johnboat Thank you for your help, but i don't know how to use the HSMC bus, it is connected to the LCD Multimedia HSMC board physically

[Altera_Forum]

john is suggesting that you disconnect the LCD daughter board from the C3 board and design a new daugher board with the GPIOs you need. 

 The HSMC pin out is described by an Altera spec and the Cyclone III starter kit's documentation. http://www.altera.com/literature/ds/hsmc_spec.pdf  There a couple of boards that may suit you, though. http://www.bitec-dsp.com/hsmc_proto.html http://www.nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk/products.htm    

[Altera_Forum]

@rbugalho and johnboat  

thank you for your help

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  it actually has a debug connector (10 pins) on the LCD Multimedia HSMC board  --- Quote End ---   I don't see any. There's a 10-pin-JTAG connector. It's only purpose is to reprogram the MAX II logic device, if neccessary.