[Fpga-synth] $39 spartan 3a eval board from avnet

[Eric Brombaugh]

Dave Manley wrote:
> Product brief:
> http://www.em.avnet.com/ctf_shared/evk/df2df2usa/xlx_s3a_evl-pb062308F.pdf
> 
> Avnet's page:
> http://tinyurl.com/5sgtzw

Those are pretty cool aren't they? A few of us on the list have them 
already and they seem to work pretty well. There are some glitches with 
the Avnet download software and XP SP3, but other than that it's been 
smooth.

Apparently there's a move afoot to get Avnet to open-source the download 
protocol. That will help get around the SP3 issue, as well as clear the 
way for a Linux driver too.

Everything I've heard so far is that Avnet is absolutely swamped with 
orders for these things. For some reason, they didn't anticipate a high 
demand for a $39 board that can do as much as these can. :P I've got no 
idea of what the actual BOM cost is for them, but using list prices for 
reasonable quantities they can't be making any money on them. I believe 
that most of the parts are being subsidized by the mfgs out of their 
promotional budgets though, but that raises the question of how long 
they'll pour money into this. My advice - if you want one of these, get 
your orders in soon!

Eric