[chbot] FPGAs again

[Charles Manning]

Folks

I believe the last discussion on FPGAs was silenced by the Feb earthquakes.

Any interest in waking this up again?

I've been scratching around again and I think there are two options that look 
quite good. All are based on the Altera Cyclone parts and provide the ability 
to investigate logic design as well as programming soft processors etc.

One is the De0-nano USD79 (USD59 for students).
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=593

The other is the BE-Micro borad we looked at (and liked) before USD49.
http://www.arrownac.com/offers/altera-corporation/bemicro/index.html

Then there is the BeMicroSDK: Big brother to BEMicro with more RAM and an 
ethernet port. $79


The DE0-nano has a lot more accessible IO making it easier to fiddle with at 
the hobby level. It has 32Mbytes of RAM - enough to do some significant 
software. It also has onboard ADCs and 3-axis accelerometer

The BEMicro has less assessable IO and has far less software capability (only 
5122k or RAM). While you can still learn the same basic stuff on it, there 
are less features.

Apart from specific features, either part is going to use the same tools etc.

The choice is really between:
* Cheapest: $49
* Pay a bit more but get much more toys (DE0-nano): $39.

My inclination is towards the DE0-nano for the extra peripherals, ease of 
wiring in more stuff and enough RAM to even run Linux.

I intend to order one of these next week and if you want one, tell me and we 
can get cheaper shipping.


-- Charles