Cyclone and ByteBlasterMV?

Or if someone was knowledgeable about what's inside a ByteBlaster II, that would be helpful. Because at $150, I don't want to imagine what the margin on these is. The ByteBlaster/MV are models of simplicity, I hope Altera keeps the spirit.

This guy has got the schematics on his website. It is labelled Byteblaster MV, but it is the Byteblaster II though (as you can see by the name of the file). The schematics are indeed quite ... simple

I've built the thing, and it seems to work.

spirit.

Thanks Eric. I downloaded the file and got it converted to ASCII format by someone with Protel, so I can read it into Pulsonix. It's definitely a lot different from the MV - uses three '244 chips and a transistor. I'll be making a PCB for it and putting the design on my web site. If anyone else wants the ASCII Protel file I can make it available.

Leon

Eric, what programming format did you use?

That schematic looks nothing like the insides of the ByteBlaster II cable I had (I've just shipped it off to a client and am awaiting a new one).

Nial

Byteblaster

the

What chip(s) did it use? If I know the logic family, I can probably work the rest of it out for myself.

Leon

devices.

thresholds,

pinch. I

own clone

The ByteBlasteMV works quite well with the Cyclone. I'm using it in the JTAG mode.

Martin

--

---------------------------------------------- JOP - a Java Processor core for FPGAs:

My local FAE told that the original BBII uses transistors for it's logic due to the 1.5V io requirement, but if you use 3.3V IO, it's perfectly possible to use som 74's to do it. I've done mine with 126 (to avoid the transistor used as a inverter in the schematic above mentioned) and it works just fine.

Bye, Ricardo

Thanks, I'll try it. I suppose it could depend on how the I/O banks are configured.

Leon

Byteblaster

the

Could You please send us a copy of the converted BBII schematics in a readable form (*.Bit, *.PDF, *.gif, ...) or make them available on the net? Think a specialized format is not good for publishing ...

-Thanks.-

with best regards,

Peter Seng

############################# SENG digitale Systeme GmbH Im Bruckwasen 35 D 73037 Göppingen Germany tel +7161-75245 fax +7161-72965 eMail snipped-for-privacy@seng.de net

by

lot

else

net?

I output it from Pulsonix as a PS file and converted it to a PDF:

It really needs the colours changing on the imported schematic to remove the black areas, but you should be able to follow it.

I'm not sure if it really is compatible with the BBII, I'll try my BBMV clone on the Cyclone first and see how I get on.

Leon

The drawback is that BBMV can't program EPCS devices....

the

Leon,

From memory it was a sea of transistors on both sides with an 8 pin SOIC on one side.

Nial.

Thanks, Nial. I think someone else mentioned something like that.

Leon