[Coco] CoCo4! 50% done!

[billg999 at cs.uofs.edu]

> On 2/5/2014 4:19 PM, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>> On Feb 5, 2014 5:04 PM, "Mark Marlette" <mmarlette at frontiernet.net>
>>
>>> Lets keep it simple....Little to no profit margin, 100 board run, $200
>> target price which IMHO, is a GREAT deal. I personally do not think that
>> price is obtainable. The reason I say that is because basically you are
>> making a custom DE-1, some removes, some add ons. Just call it
>> equal....That is what Terasic is selling their device for and they are
>> in
>> the market, with contacts and volume. Look at at least twice that for a
>> good not going broke starting point.
>> Not to mention the dev boards like the DE1 are not a profit oriented
>> product for Terasic.  They only make them as a way to build interest in
>> their "real" products (the FPGAs themselves), that's why there is a
>> massive
>> educational discount.  They quite likely take a loss on the boards.
> Don't know about Terasic, but having spend some time in the MOT
> group that made the EVM/EVB development boards, I can say that
> we were very clearly a LOSS center, not a profit center. The profit
> on the silicon paid for the production and our salaries. The boards
> were sold for bare minimum price and the simple ones like the HC11EVBs
> were GIVEN away to schools, gratis.
> At the time, it was my understanding that this was true for most, if
> not all, semi manufacturers. "Lock 'em in with your cheap development
> boards and sell 'em a whale of a lot of chips!"
>
> Today the economics might be different.....but I doubt it. My FPGA
> development board was a great deal.............
>

I'm new to this whole FPGA things but I am getting ready to jump
in with both feet.  What would be the requirements for an FPGA
evaluation board capable of running COC3FPGA or even some of the
other old computer systems?  I stopped in to see the professor in
physics who teaches this stuff and he showed me a board they got
for $49.  I  have since found others in the sub $100 range. But I
don;t know how they compare to something like the DE-1 (like I
said, I'm new to this!)  So rather than trying to compare them
I thought it made more sense to just ask what features would be
required for a board to do this kind of stuff.

Not to mention the fact that they are always looking for projects
students can do using these boards.  :-)

bill