CADR (was [rescue] Crays, etc._

[Joshua Boyd]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 09:51:02AM -0500, William Barnett-Lewis wrote:

> I wonder that too, but I don't have any experience using them. Is there 
> a good (and cheap/free) tutorial/beginner's kit out there somewhere? And 
> while I have a copy of the LMI lisp sources, I'm not sure about the 
> microcode and that would be the killer... But that core logic in FPGA 
> with a modern disk controller, vga compatible video, ethernet and 
> perhaps USB for the keyboard/mouse? Yeah, that could be a whole heck of 
> allot of fun...
> 
> Oh, for anyone interested, the file referenced above only has the 
> support (io, disk, video) schematics along with the ai lab paper 
> describing the machine. The actual cpu and bus schematics are in 
> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/cadr/CADR4_schematic.pdf

I believe that the Xilinx student kit has a good getting started guide
for their schematic capture program.  I'm guessing that if you have
designs for a system using 74 series logic, then schematic capture would
be the easiest way to get it into an FPGA (as opposed to figuring out
how to turn schematics into verilog code).

As to learning verilog, that is something which I still endever to do.
I'm using Icarus verilog on linux and solaris (and when I left home this
morning, it was finally compiling on Irix, after me putting it off for a
long time).  I have GTKWave for waveform viewing, but I haven't actually
gotten much use out of it yet.  I plan to use the Xilinx webpack for
synthesis.  I don't yet have a windows machine for it, nor have I gotten
it running in Wine.  I'm searching for a cheapish SunPCI card to run it
on, but so far haven't found one I like and may be swayed to going a
different route.  A lot of people seem to think that Altera is more
hobbiest friendly.  I don't know about that.  What I do know is that
Xilinx is what we use at work, and I can get a free Xilinx demo board
from work. 

For guides, I'm using an article in Embeded Systems Developer.  I forget
the title, but the article is available online.  I've also been refering
to http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~cs320/1995-fall/verilog-manual.html
There was also a brief intro in Linux Journal a few years ago.  See:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6001
and
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4428

As for learning verilog, I'm really mostly at the point of trying to get
examples to run with icarus.  A lot of the stuff I've seen assumes the
usage of programs like Mentor Graphic's ModelSim.

I think DaveM or Scott Newell probably know more than I do.  Not to
mention I seem to recall one of the Franciscos doing something with it.