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XESS Helps Sponsor the 2012 Open Hardware Summit
Since most of my company's products are now open, it seems appropriate to be assisting this conference. Check out the list of other sponsors here and show them some love.
View ArticleA Modest Proposal to Element14
Hi, Element14. First off, let me tell you how much I like Eagle. I bought version 4 back in 2001 for $1212. (Schematic editor, pcb layout and auto-router - woo hoo! Times were good.) Then in 2004, I...
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Maker Faire Project: The Reflex Circle
People at the 2012 NC Maker Faire were asking me if the documentation for my projects was online. (OK, one person asked, but that's enough to get me going.) So here's a description of my first project,...
View ArticleMy First FPGARelated.com Blog!
I wrote my first blog post for FPGARelated.com yesterday. It's about augmenting Notepad++ to speed-up VHDL coding. So go on over and check it out. I get paid a dime for every unique pageview, and I...
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It's the Same Size, Only Bigger!
Well, I finally finished testing the XuLA2 prototype a few days ago and released the PCB to manufacturing. When I layed-out the prototype, I butted the microSD socket right up against the FPGA in order...
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One from the Junkbox...
When I demoed a few projects at the recent Maker Faire NC, I also brought along a loose box of projects for people to paw through. (The little kids loved 'em. Nothing puts out an eye like an 0.1"...
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YAMSLBP
You've probably read quite a bit of commentary about Curiosity's landing on Mars last night. Well, here's "Yet Another Mars Science Lab Blog Post".First off, great job! NASA and JPL made an incredibly...
View ArticleMounting a BGA on a PCB Quickly and Cheaply.
Well, the XuLA2 PCBs arrived last week and now they are moving through assembly. But before I could start that, I had to build up one of the boards to make sure it worked. (I wouldn't want to assemble...
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2012 OHS Maker's Toolbox
I sponsored the 2011 Open Hardware Summit but didn't take the opportunity to put anything in their goodie bag that year. (Incidentally, does anything sound stupider than the term goodie bag?) When I...
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Accessing the XuLA2 MicroSD Card
When the XuLA2 was released, I still didn't have an easy-to-use controller module to interface the FPGA with the SD Flash card. But now I do and you can get it here.Here's a block diagram that shows...
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A Python Package for XESS FPGA Boards
I've been working on a Python version of the XSTOOLs software for a while now, but I finally got around to making it into a package. Distributing it as a ZIP file was becoming too much of a hassle. Now...
View Article"Phew! Just made it!"
I announced chapter 6 of "FPGAs?! Now What?" in March of 2012. Today, I'm "proud" to release chapter 7. I got it done in less than a year since the last one. Yay me!This chapter covers how to do a...
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Taking the "Ahg!" out of making parts in Eagle.
A Perl Library for Making Eagle PartsMaking footprints and schematic symbols are some of the more onerous parts of using Eagle. But most ICs are pretty similar: they're either DIPs, some type of leaded...
View ArticleThis Blog Has Moved!
I've moved this blog and all its posts over to http://www.xess.com/blog/. There won't be any more posts made over here.
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