Gadget Factory

Papilio

  • Hamster posts an FPGA based Eternity II solver. Is there still a $2M bounty for solving this puzzle?

    FPGA hacker extraordinaire, aka Hamster, just posted VHDL code for an Eternity II solver via the Papilio forums. More details and full code can be found at his wiki, and if you are like me you have never heard of the Eternity II puzzle before. Wikipedia has our back with an in depth article on…

  • Acrylic Enclosures For Papilio Pro Now Back In Stock!

    Hello, hackers! Just wanted to drop you all a quick note that the acrylic enclosures for the Papilio Pro are now back in stock at the store. There has been a hefty demand for these, and the design (by Os1r1s) is absolutely stunning. If you’re going to hack around with your PPro, we recommend that…

  • How to initialize a sine/cosine lookup table with a couple lines of VHDL.

    Papilio user Alex posted this gem in the Papilio Forum. He came across an excellent article over at Jim Wu’s FPGA blog with some super easy ways to initialize memory. Whether you are defining a sin, cosine, sawtooth, or any manner of lookup table its super easy to do it mathematically using this example code.…

  • Want to use your Papilio as an official download cable?

    If you need to use your Papilio with the Xilinx tools; such as EDK, chipscope, or Impact there is an exciting new tool to make this happen. For many years Xilinx has been closed up when it comes to any information about how to make a board compatible with the Xilinx tools. They finally released…

  • VHDL examples for the SPI ADC Analog Wing

    Papilio enthusiasts Hamster and Offroad put together some nice examples of interfacing with the SPI ADC chip used in the Analog Wing, LogicStart MegaWing, and the RetroCade MegaWing. Hamster’s example is up on his Hamsterworks Wiki and provides a great writeup with diagram’s, background info, and datasheet links. Full VHDL code is available but you…

  • New release of ZAP IDE and Papilio Schematic Library

    Well, as promised we have a new release of the ZAP IDE and Papilio Schematic Library. This new release integrates the Papilio Schematic Library into the ZAP IDE for an integrated design environment that lets you draw circuits to run on your Papilio FPGA.   Download the latest version of the ZAP IDE with the…

  • Join us in the forum and help shape the next generation Papilio board!

    Hey everyone! We’ve learned a lot from the Papilio One and the Papilio Pro, its time to take those lessons and apply them to a next generation Papilio board. I mentioned a new board earlier, similar to the never released Papilio Logic, and many of you privately provided some great feedback. My head is swimming…

  • DiskVacuum project reads and explores Compucolor II disks.

    Jim Battle shows us his amazing project to read old floppy disks from a Compucolor II disk drive. Once a disk is read Jim has a shell, written in Python, that lets him explore the files and contents of the files interactively, impressive! Jim intends to make his system work with other old floppy disk…