[Fpga-synth] Growing pains

[Scott Gravenhorst]

"The making of synthesizers in FPGAs." wrote:
>Howdy again everyone...
>
>...I guess I'm picking up where I was a couple weeks back.
>
>I've got the s3e devkit here. I downloaded Webpack 10.1. I've 
>been reading like a madman...the Verilog text I've been reading 
>is making sense, and I'd like to get into working through some of 
>the problems and examples in the book. 
>
>I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed with the Xilinx 
>offerings, and trying to find the exact things (mainly 
>documentation) I need from them is a little hit or miss. 
>
>The FPGA synth webpage has been very helpful, but the links back 
>to Xilinx are out of date... 
>
>The kit came with EDK 9.2i, but I downloaded 10.1 instead, and 
>have run it through the package upgrade tool to verify that I've 
>got all the latest pieces. But it looks like the documentation 
>I've got with it matches 9.2i, not 10.1. Is there a "quick start" 
>guide for the s3e kit under 10.1? If so, I'm having trouble 
>finding it. 
>
>Are there other s3e tutorials I should work through? I see the 
>ones in the Wiki, and as soon as I'm a little more stable, I'll 
>work through them. 
>
>I've got a quick start guide that's part of the help system in 
>10.1, but it runs me through a tutorial for the xc3s200 part. On 
>my Win XP desktop, when I run the simulation step, it throws an 
>error that it "can't compile generated C code." Xilinx have a 
>support item regarding this, recommending that some registry keys 
>get deleted so that cmd.exe will start up with the correct path. 
>I clobbered the keys, but still have the problem. Has anyone else 
>seen this? Any pointers? 

Hmm.  I know you have to add an environment variable, but I don't remember
needing to change the registry for 10.1.  I've just recently reinstalled XP
Pro on this machine and 10.1 went right in.  I've never seen a "Can't
compile" error like that. 

>So I've hijacked the girlfriend's Vista laptop and installed 
>Webpack there too, also running through the upgrade process. The 
>tutorial runs, but of cource it won't program my board because 
>the devices don't match. I'm wary to hack my way through the 
>mismatch because I don't want to mess up the pin configuration 
>steps. 
>
>I get the feeling that all of the info I'm looking for is 
>probably in one single place, but I'm having tracking it down. 
>
>Byron Jacquot

Wish I could be of more help, I'm not brave enough for Vista...

-- ScottG
________________________________________________________________________
-- Scott Gravenhorst
-- FPGA MIDI Synthesizer Information: home1.gte.net/res0658s/FPGA_synth/
-- FatMan: home1.gte.net/res0658s/fatman/
-- NonFatMan: home1.gte.net/res0658s/electronics/
-- When the going gets tough, the tough use the command line.