Gadget Factory

VHDL

  • Learning VHDL With Robin Debreuil

    (And the answer, for five MILLION dollars….contestant one?) Here’s an excellent article we found over at Robin Debreuil’s blog concerning a number of VHDL concepts and implementation.  It’s a great read, and we thought it’d be cool to post here for any Papilio owners and/ or VHDL coders to take a look at!  Robin totally attacks…

  • Virtual 7-Segment Display Generator for the Papilio Arcade

      Here’s some more user-contributed code from reader Alex, this time on making a virtual 7-segment display on the Papilio Arcade in VHDL. The 7-segment display is outputted to VGA, and can be used to superimpose alphanumeric characters on top of any video already coming out on VGA.  The position, size, and color of the…

  • 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…

  • TV Output using a handfull of resistors on the Papilio FPGA board.

    NTSC/PAL TV and audio output using 14 resistors and a low pass audio filter. This design can be built in a couple minutes using parts from Radio Shack. Open Source VHDL code and EAGLE PCB design files are available.   For more details, source code, or to order a PCB for $8 visit the TV…

  • DAC (Digital to Analog) SPI MCP4921 VHDL project posted by Debreuil.

    Debreuil just posted a github project to control MCP4921 DAC chips with VHDL on the Papilio. There is no Wing for the MCP4921 DAC but there are templates to make Wings in the Papilio Playground or the soon to be available Prototype Wing could be used. Picture of the home brew pcb made with KiCad,…

  • User Project – CNC Printer Control

    Robin Debreuil is working on a sweet project that includes a custom Wing, VHDL code, and a hacked printer. He takes over control of the printer mechanism and controls it with his Papilio One. Seems like an excellent approach for getting high quality, precision CNC motors and slides. Go to a thrift store and pick…

  • Tutorial: Simulate AVR8 and Custom User Cores

    NOTE: Please note that the tutorial does not show that you must select “Gadget Factory Papilio Custom Board” under tools/board in the Arduino IDE for the simulation file to be generated. This screencast shows how to simulate a custom user core connected to the AVR8 Soft Processor. Simulation is the most efficient way to debug…

  • Tutorial: Custom User cores in the AVR8 Soft Processor.

    This screencast provides instructions for downloading and synthesizing a custom AVR8 soft processor for use with a version of the Arduino IDE that has been modified for use with the Papilio. Prerequisites: AVR8 Source Code Arduino IDE modified for the Papilio. Xilinx ISE free “Webpack” version. Custom User Core sketch. Related Simulate your custom AVR8…