Analog Devices DSPsHi,

I'm in the same position: I work for a small company with an open-source mentality that balks
at paying thousands of bucks for the VisualDSP toolset. So when we wanted to make a product
with a DSP, I chose the ADSP-2181, used the old command-line assembler that came with the
EZ-KIT, and made my own debugger that connected through the DSP's IDMA port.

The 2181 is a pretty useless DSP by today's standards, but I managed to make it do everything I
wanted with cycles to spare, and my code should be portable to the 2189 once Analog stop
selling the 2181, which I expect to happen any time now.

I only wish I could do the same for the SHARC. The BeastRider development kit seems to be the
only alternative to Analog's own, and it seems to have a nice Unix weenie air to it. I don't
know if they still make it, but last time I contacted Mr. BeastRider, he had some left to sell.
I'm trying to persuade the boss to buy me one. :-)

Steve Conner
http://www.scopeboy.com/

At 04:23 AM 6/9/2006, Steve Conner wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm in the same position: I work for a small company with an 
>open-source mentality that balks at paying thousands of bucks for 
>the VisualDSP toolset. So when we wanted to make a product with a 
>DSP, I chose the ADSP-2181, used the old command-line assembler that 
>came with the EZ-KIT, and made my own debugger that connected 
>through the DSP's IDMA port.
>
>The 2181 is a pretty useless DSP by today's standards, but I managed 
>to make it do everything I wanted with cycles to spare, and my code 
>should be portable to the 2189 once Analog stop selling the 2181, 
>which I expect to happen any time now.
>
>I only wish I could do the same for the SHARC. The BeastRider 
>development kit seems to be the only alternative to Analog's own, 
>and it seems to have a nice Unix weenie air to it. I don't know if 
>they still make it, but last time I contacted Mr. BeastRider, he had 
>some left to sell. I'm trying to persuade the boss to buy me one. :-)
>
>Steve Conner
><http://www.scopeboy.com/>http://www.scopeboy.com/

We still make a credit card sized 218x - AC97 board and we include 
the GCC based tools (Ver 5.1). I don't think I would start a new 
design with the 218x. If you are using this part, design for the 100 
pin footprint. This would be 2186, 2185, 2189 etc. They are less 
expensive and more flexible.

Al Clark
Danville Signal Processing, Inc.
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