Posted December 8, 2011 by Chris

This article will look at how to build the same functionality that the Masochist’s Video Card (built only with 7400 logic IC’s) had, however this time we will use the DE0 Nano development board to complete the task, instead of wrist-breaking, pain-staking, masochist-loving wire-wrapping.

Posted May 5, 2011 by Chris

Learn how to create a video VGA controller that uses a resistor DAC to create 512 unique VGA colors. The tutorial uses an Altera CPLD and VHDL code to create all the video signals. The theory, hardware schematics and software are all explained and available for viewing/download.

Posted February 4, 2011 by Chris

NTSC video is a standard that has been around almost as long as black and white TVs. It’s a true analog standard, but we can use digital FPGA signals to create NTSC. This tutorial shows you how to output simple NTSC video to your TV.

Posted April 17, 2008 by Chris

Keyboards are all around us yet the information for interfacing with them is somewhat a mystery. This tutorial shows you (with a working example) how to interface a keyboard with the Altera UP1/UP2 board.

Posted April 10, 2008 by Chris

This tutorial covers how to make a character generating rom using the CPLD/FPGA based UP2 board. Those old famous arcade games all used character roms, now you can make one too!

Posted March 27, 2008 by Chris

Once again we’ll take a look at how to generate VGA timing signals. This time with a different approach using the VHDL programming language with the Altera UP2 board. This method is far more flexible and reliable so it is definitely worth a look.

Posted March 6, 2008 by Chris

FPGA/CPLD devices don’t inherintly have or require clocks so timing can become an issue when you want to talk with a processor or instruction based machines. If we add a clock input like the UP2 has onboard, we can now control timing precisely. This tutorial does just that.

Posted March 4, 2008 by Chris

The two main programming languages for fpga/cpld devices in the world today are Verilog & VHDL. Both are concurrent programming languages (similar to Ada) and both are used globally. The difference between them is merely syntax, formation but not funcationality. This tutorial provides an intro to VHDL using the altera UP1/UP2 board.

Posted February 26, 2008 by Chris

Verilog is the other half of the CPLD/FPGA world in terms of programming languages. With its similarities to C & Java it is a prime choice for many developers. This tutorial uses the CPLD Development Board from last week’s tutorial for a ‘Learn By Example’ approach for understanding Verilog.

Posted February 21, 2008 by Chris

With the low price tag of only $99, Altera’s UP2 Development Board is a great platform for beginners in the world of CPLD/FPGA devices. It has several peripherals like Leds, PS/2, VGA, 7-Seg Displays & more. This tutorial shows you how to create & load a simple 4-Bit Full Adder onto the UP2 board.