[Coco] Howto for Altera DE1?

[Mark McDougall]

Stephen Adolph wrote:

> The easiest first step is to nominate a platform and stick with it.

There are a couple of problems with your proposal:

1. FPGA development platforms come and go. One day the board will be 
discontinued and then what? You end up supporting multiple platforms anyway.

2. By choosing one platform you're also greatly reducing the chance that 
someone other than Gary will be willing/able to contribute to the 
development. This is more significant than you may realise. It's a pretty 
big job, especially as Gary introduces more features - this project will 
only really take off if there are a team of developers working on it.

3. If you're looking for a shiny box that will sit on your desk and replace 
your Coco3, then you're sadly out of luck for the time being. I think even 
Gary would admit that the current implementation isn't really all that 
compatible with a lot of Coco software (unless my information is very 
out-of-date). People forking out for an FPGA platform just to play with this 
should be aware of that fact, and I would imagine aren't too fussed with a 
perspex cover and a few manual steps to learn.

Really, until you have a platform that is purpose-built for Coco3FPGA, I 
don't see anything but advantages for multiple platforms. By all means, 
designate a "preferred" or "standard" platform, and document that until the 
cows come home, but leave it open to anyone else who wants to play around 
and port it to something else.

In any case, it's up to the "community" to decide what platform they buy - 
so what's to stop them all getting together and buying a DE1 and documenting 
that???

The more I type in this email the less problem I see. I almost forget what 
I'm arguing against...

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"