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Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit: As USB device? Using JTAG terminal without Nios2?

Hi. Got this board. Two questions.

  1. Is it possible to use this board as prototype of some USB device without any solder rewiring?
  2. Is it possible to have, let's say, nios2-terminal.exe on computer side, computer connected to board by USB and have *something* but not Nios2 to communicate with nios2-terminal.exe? In any words, it's possible to use JTAG wire as RS232 port without using Nios2 CPU?
Reply to
sdf
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1: No. The USB port is only for programming. 2: No. Well, not really no, but you would need to replicate the way Altera/NIOS tunnels the serial port through JTAG, and I think it's highly unlikely that you will find documentation on that.

Sorry.

Reply to
ghelbig

I found that: USB FT245BL EPM3128ATC100 EP3C25F324NES I probably will need to do something with EPM3128 and use JTAG link.. if someone have the same intentions as me, it will be interesting to hear any suggestions.

Reply to
sdf

Reply to
Xilinx User

Nope. The Altera USB dongle is a FT245BL -> EPM3128ATC100. (The EPM does the FIFO to JTAG translation.)

The USB port the OP "found" is literally the Altera USB dongle without the plastic case.

G.

Reply to
ghelbig

I'm almost sure the answer is "so that a programming cable can be sold at $300".

For whatever reason both A and X decided to stop publishing simple programming designs like the old parallel port cables and charge ridiculous prices for the tools. I think it is down to $150 now and a clone is available for about $50.

-Alex.

Reply to
Alex Freed

Do you have any idea why the do that instead of using an FT2232C and skipping the EPM3128 entirely? The FT2232C has a fast synchronous serial mode designed precisely for jtag programming and similar situations. It costs a bit more than the FT245BL, but is a lot cheaper than an EPM3128 - and it has a second USB-UART port included.

Reply to
David Brown

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