Gadget Factory

Knowledge Base

  • Translating Verilog to VHDL for Galaxian

    A little while back, we received some user contributed code from reader and Papilio user Alex, for converting Verilog code to VHDL.  The article illustrates the conversion for the game Galaxian.  If you’re learning VHDL, or are interested in Verilog to VHDL conversion, Alex’s article lays it  out nicely for you with examples from Katsumi Degawa’s Galaxian FPGA project. With…

  • VHDL Communication With A PS/ 2 Keyboard

    Thanks to reader Hamster, who submitted this peachy Wiki page!  Hamster has written some VHDL code for communicating with a PS/ 2 keyboard that can be found on the wiki!  Useful stuff: “It has lots of features: It does full start bit, stopbit and parity check … deglitches the signals, by requiring a state change of longer than…

  • How To: Designing An FPGA Based Graphics Controller For HD

    By way of EE Times, here’s a lengthy, if not highly informative nitty-gritty on designing an HD FPGA graphics controller.           “Using faster memories and embedded hardware blocks let us to design more complex and more powerful designs – designs which just a year or so ago would have been hard to implement without using…

  • News: EagleUp For Viewing Hardware Designs In Google SketchUp

    [screencast url=”http://www.screencast.com/t/uwejMD0WoJ6″ width=”600″ height=”300″]   Here’s an interesting article we found on Hackaday about a software solution called EagleUp, which can open your PCB designs in SketchUp and will give you a 3-d rendering of your hardware. “This is a wonderful way to make sure that your enclosure designs are going to work without needing to wait for…

  • What makes FPGA’s special from the perspective of a newcomer.

    The Random Thinker blog has a nice post that articulates what is so exciting about FPGA’s for the hobbyist. To summarize: Arduino inspired boards like the Papilio make it easy and affordable for hobbyists to get started with FPGA’s. An Arduino compatible processor can be extended with custom “Hardware” bits to do whizzy things. VGA…

  • ZPUino VGA and VGALiquidCrystal libraries on the Papilio.

    Alvaro has released a VGALiquidCrystal library for the ZPUino that lets you take a sketch written for the HD44780 LCD and transform it into VGA output! Watch the video to see it in action on the Papilio:     Also released is a VGA library that lets you draw lines, rectangles, images, and much more.…

  • Video by AtomSoft showing some tools to modify VGA cores.

    Here is a video that AtomSoft made showing off some of the software tools he is writing to modify Kevin Lindsey’s VGA core.   Reposted from AtomSoft blog.  

  • New pin mapping chart for AVR8.

    AtomSoft put together this nice pin map for the Arduino/AVR8 locations. Thanks to AtomSoft for the nice chart and thanks to Kevin Lindsey for the chart template. AVR8 Documentation All Pin Mapping Downloads