[Coco] Re: CoCo gcc project

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/3/03 9:26:41 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
jdaggett at gate.net writes:

> Digikey has the MC68882 for $52 and the Xilinx Spartan II with 150,000 
gates 
> is  $28. The software to put in the FPGA is free and the software to 
program the 
> FPGA 
>  is free. PCB costs for either approach is about the same. Other support 
ICs 
> will add some more cost, maybe another $5. 
>  
>  One advantage the FPGA has is that it is configurable to specific needs. 
It 
> can be 
>  as small as we want or as large as we want. It can be configured to work 
> directly with the 6809.

Another advantage of FPGAs is that, as the 68882 becomes more obsolete and 
hard to get, you can keep moving your FPGA design into more recent versions of 
Xilinx or competitor's chips.  The language used to represent the logic 
functions is independent of the chip architecture, so should transfer easily.

Of course we need a volunteer with access to the special ROM burner used to 
program FPGAs.  5 years ago  that could have been me but not now.

--Mike K.