Search the Community

Hi guys, Yes, it's true, the ZPUino project is really needing your help. Your help as users, because all we do is for the users benefit, and sometimes we just don't have the required free time to accomplish all we thing users need, but also because since we are not real users, we fail to see what real ones expect from the platform. Business as usual Anyway, A lot of improvements for ZPUino are being polished as I write. The one that will have more impact is an instruction cache. This instruction cache is now perfectly stabilized, and ready for mainstream. And you might ask: how come an instruction cache is so important and has that much impact ? Well, it's actually quite simple. ZPUino requires a constant feed of instructions, in order to attain its maximum performance. As of now we use internal FPGA block rams, and things go smooth because they are a 1-cycle read. BUT, if you want to use external memory (SRAM, SDRAM, DDR), the latencies are sooo high to fetch a single byte from it that ZPU ends up idling all the time. So, in order to properly use external memories, the instruction cache was implemented - it works perfectly with all three memory types stated above. So, with instruction cache, we can actually use external memory now - and this is a huge improvement. Note that external memory is used for *both* instruction and data, unlike Arduino, which imposes distinct limits on code and data. Just sum your code and data, and see if it fits (btw, upcoming IDE will do that for you). Second feature, which is aimed at internal memory devices, is a ZX Spectrum compatible graphical adaptor. It's so small that you can even use a Papilio One 250 to build applications and games. And this second feature is indeed where we want your help. We need help with documentation, and help with a new demo we are working on - all to be ran on a Papilio One 250 (you can use another board if you feel like). So, if you like coding, and want to help with code itself or documentation, drop us a note at zpuino@alvie.com. We will provide you everything you need to contribute. Right now, we have a game almost ready for testing, but we do want *you* to improve it before others can see it and enjoy. So, if you know "C++" (arduino-style) and wish to help, please contact us. You will of course be mentioned as a co-author, and eventually other benefits. We are also planning a full-color, full-resolution graphical adaptor for Papilio Pro. But let's go step by step Best, Alvie

Hi guys! I'm just wondering if there's any way to use the programmer on the Papilio to program other devices via JTAG? If there's any, how? I'd probably like to program some Xilinx CPLD, like the XC95144XL with it... I guess it should be possible somehow... Thank you for your answers. Richard, the crazy one.

Hi, the Papilio One 250k just turned up and we followed the instructions to get it to work. We downloaded the no java Windows Installer, ran it, plugged in the Papilio One, the red light illuminates and two new USB Serial ports were found, COM45 and COM46. We then downloaded the P1_QuickStart.pde and the bit file. Double clicking the Bit file started the Papilio Loader program but the Run button was greyed out. After quite a few minutes, the Papilio Loader program showing the error message below. I tried changing the COM port to COM7 and COM8 but still no go. Any help would be much appreciated.