[chbot] FPGAs again ... Info so far

[WHW]

At 02:57 p.m. 26/07/2011, you wrote:
>Hello All
>
>Prompted by various bits of feedback, herewith a roll-up of all the
>information I have been able to glean so far.
>
>#disclaimer. There might be some errors...
>
>Board
>
>The board of interest is the Terasic DE0-Nano which has an Altera Cyclone Iv
>with 22k "logic elements". 32Mbytes of SDRAM, easy to access 3V3 level IO
>pins etc etc.
>
>http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=593
>
>It is hard to compare effective gate size between architectures, but it is
>worth noting that a 32-bit Nios2 CPU uses approx 700 LEs. ie a small 32-bit
>CPU takes up approx 2.5% of the logic.
>
>It costs USD79 + shipping (USD10-15) = total of around USD90. For genuine
>students there might be a $20 discount, but I'm not prepared to try cheat
>them.
>
>Tools
>
>Free Web Edition versions of tools are available for both Windows and Linux.
>Not 100% sure what level of support there is for Linux, but scratching around
>on the forums show people using Ubuntu, Suse and RedHat.
>
>The tools include the ability to generate FPGA logic images as well as an IDE
>to develop/debug Nios software.
>
>Soft CPUs
>
>The free tools include unhindered use of the Nios2/e (limited 
>stripped version
>of the Nios2 32-bit CPU. This version lacks caches and MMU so will not run
>Linux on the target. It will run ucLinux and various RTOSs though.
>
>The free tools include restricted versions of the more capable Nios2 CPUs
>which do have MMUs anc caches and should be Linux capable. The CPU must
>however be run either tethered to the development host or otherwise only runs
>for a fixed period before halting.
>
>The NIOS is interesting in that it is really easy to add up to 256 custom
>instructions. That means interesting manipulations which might take many
>instructions on a general purpose CPU can be potentially encoded as a single
>instruction.
>
>Other soft CPUs are available from opencores.org and elsewhere and include
>OR1K, LEON (SPARC) and others.
>
>Ordering
>
>I intend to put in an order at the end of the week.
>
>So far boards will be ordered for:
>
>Myself
>Timothy
>Richard
>Volker Kuhlmann
>Paul Davey
>
>Delivery should be less than 1 week.
>
>If you want to be added/removed from this list, please contact me on or off
>the list.
>
>Regards
>
>Charles

What about GST that might have to be paid if Customs query the value 
on entry to NZ?  That is assuming you are getting one big parcel.

Looks like you have orders for 7 @ USD90.00 each = USD630.00 = approx 
NZD720.00.

Customs don't bother collecting GST (15%) under $50.00.