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CPLD development
zaku - Sep 4, 2023
  zaku Sep 4, 2023
Which CPLD development board do you use when developing?
Is it cheaper to build my own? Or do you have any recommendations?

 DamageX Sep 5, 2023
If they're old chips that can go in a socket, like for a retro hardware project, then you can just buy them loose and plug them into a programmer or wire up a JTAG dongle when the time comes. For SMT stuff that is newer (but not cutting edge) then the cheapest option is probably one of the many Chinese dev boards. A lot of the development software requires licensing so you'll want to look into that before deciding on a product line.

Altera (now Intel) had a free version of Quartus. Not sure if you can still download this from Intel. It supports stuff like MAX and Cyclone, etc.

 zaku Sep 6, 2023

DamageX said:

Thank you.
I will look for Quartus.
Is this the kind of development board made in China?


It says on the product description page of this one that it also supports max 3000a.
Am I correct in assuming that if I want to write to max 3000a, I just need to remove the epm240 and install the max 3000a chip?

 DamageX Sep 6, 2023
They are saying that the USB Blaster cable supports all those devices. But if you wanted to exchange chips on the board, they would have to have the same pin assignments. I don't know if a MAX 3000 chip has the same pinout as an EPM240.

 zaku Sep 7, 2023
Thank you.