PLD610

I think I did my first EP610 design (Altera's original PLD family) back in

1989. Why do you want to know about what equates to a 400 year old man?

LOL I am about to stock up on 200 of these chips ... and would jump at the opportunity if they are ANYTHING like the 22v10 ...

Basically I need to stock up on these for my hobby work and I am being offered an unbelievable price on them.

Problem is ... I dont have any info on these PLD's

What can you tell me about it? How does it differ from the 22v10? How many inputs? How many outputs? Number of Minterms? Programmable output? Registered output?

Thanmks

You might look before you leap.

You could a buy brand new 3000a series device (much better than a 22V10) for $1.25 each at quantity 1.

Fully documented free software

-- Mike Treseler

You have not asked how to program them yet, which might be the most important question :) You will need to generate code, and also get the code into the chips.... ( which I believe are OTP )

-jg

Some of the classic parts had the clear window on ceramic parts. But they

*all* required the dedicated Altera programmer (or 3rd party programmer with appropriate adapter) and were not in-system programmable. We're talking 27 years ago.

There are better options.

I imagine you could get people to pay you to take inventory off their hands if they still have some lying around... they're worth *that* much!

I was going to get some information before I made the leap ... And we are not talking big money here ... something like $20 bucks for all 200 or so chips

But you raise a good point ... I need to be sure my device programmer can handle it (I have a BP MICRO and a TOP 2048) ... and that I would not need to invest in any new hardware or software (pal/pld assembler/ compiler)

Thanks again for the heads up

Thank you very much!

You're about to waste your money, IMNSHO. Especially if you don't already have a universal programmer that can handle them.

And waste time having to UV erase them.

They're sorta like a PAL between the PAL20xx and PAL22V10. But they're way inferior to something like an XC9500 series CPLD.

If they're free, they're too expensive. (If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.)

You can buy a brand-shiny-new Xilinx XC9536 in a PLCC for $3.30, quantity one from Digikey. That has 36 macrocells, and is way better than any of the old EPxxx parts. The XC9536XL part is 3.3V and costs even less. And they're supported with current development software, and are in-circuit programmable (no expensive "universal programmer" or UV erasing necessary).

I'm sure Altera must make some nice inexpensive CPLDs these days too.

I've got scads of old EPLDs from various vendors, some of which were quite nice parts *BACK THEN*, but I wouldn't dream of using any of them even for hobby work today. Life's too short to spend it fighting obsolete chips to save spending a dollar or two on a better, well- supported modern part.

Eric

I agree whole-heartedly - and believe me, I'm a miser when it comes to parts spending for my hobby. I have some samples of Xilinx 3042 FPGA's that I will never use. It's just not worth the effort of tracking down archaic software and installing DOS on a machine.

Believe me, I'm working with an old design at work right now that uses

3 Xilinx 4010E's and a UV eraseable PROM. I had forgotten what a serious PITA it is to have to wait 30 minutes to reprogram a device. (fortunately, we have spares, so I just cycle them through the eraser when we identify a change)

Then, there was the fun of trying to get a copy of ISE 4.2i - which wasn't easy even at a fortune 500 company that used it several years ago. I can't imagine trying to dig up the CD and a registration code as a hobbyist.

Get a modern part that is JTAG programmable. Make sure it's supported in either the ISE or the Quartus webpacks. The time you save is worth way more than the cost difference, and you will get a better part to boot. This is a golden age for hobbyists - as you can do an entire design essentially for free, save the cost of parts, as long as you use the economy versions - and today, the "economy" versions of most of these parts are incredibly powerful - enough that the company I work for has started seriously considering them for lower power applications in lieu of Virtex and Stratix parts.

Check digilent - they have modern CPLD's on a DIP board that you can directly mount in a 40 pin socket. These are perfect for prototyping - and at $20 a piece, they aren't horrible. Once your design is ready, you can get the bare part for under $3 or $4, and design a PCB. Much simpler, easier - and probably even cheaper in the long run.

Point taken. I wont invest in them ... especially after reading through my universal programmer and NOT seeing them listed.

Ok

I avoid CPLD's. seriously. I think they are OVERKILL for the stuff I do and put me wayyyyy above the details I like to fool around with when I am designing boards

I also hate messing with anything that I can NOT get in DIP form since I build the boards at home.

Maybe as my exposure and experience designing and building boards at home improves ... I may get to that point.

But for now I love simple PLD's ... 16R8' 22v10's for replacing 74xx parts. Nothing more.

If you want a little more 'smarts' but still in DIP, look at the ATF750CL from Atmel and the AnaChip PLDs

- these plug into a 22V10 socket, but have buried registers,

-jg