Programming Xilinx PowerPC

Hello,

I have a Veritex-4 PCI board and I like to program the PowerPC on it. I 
don't have the EDK from Xilinx.  Here are my questions:



How can program the PowerPC without buying EDK?

As I know the compiler and linker is free (part of GNU) where can I get them 
for free?

How can I download the compiled program to PowerPC?

How can I get the output? For example if I write a hello world type of 
program, can I see the STDIO on screen?



Any help is much appreciated.



Best regards

"ma" <ma@nowhere.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:LcBvf.86365$PD2.51133@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Hello,
>
> I have a Veritex-4 PCI board and I like to program the PowerPC on it. I 
> don't have the EDK from Xilinx.  Here are my questions:
>
>
> How can program the PowerPC without buying EDK?
>
short answer: you can not
long answer: you can if write your own minimal replacement fo EDK

> As I know the compiler and linker is free (part of GNU) where can I get 
> them  for free?
>
ppc gcc can be obtained but it want help you much, see above

> How can I download the compiled program to PowerPC?
>
over JTAG or buy preloading BRAMs

> How can I get the output? For example if I write a hello world type of 
> program, can I see the STDIO on screen?
>
>
use EDK or add your peripherals and re-implemented all the funtionality 
provide by EDK

> Any help is much appreciated.
>

doing it wihtout EDK costs you WAY more than than obtaining EDK, it could be 
done, but the time needed for that just isnt worht doing it

sorry, but Xilinx REALLY REALLY doesnt want anyone to work on the Virtex PPC 
without using EDK, it is doable (without EDK) but it really isnt worht 
trying

Antti

Thanks.
Can I program it without using JTAG possibly over PCI bus? I am ready to 
write appropriate driver if I know where can I get the documentation for 
writing such driver.

Best regards

"Antti Lukats" <antti@openchip.org> wrote in message 
news:dpmq2m$c97$1@online.de...
> "ma" <ma@nowhere.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
> news:LcBvf.86365$PD2.51133@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a Veritex-4 PCI board and I like to program the PowerPC on it. I 
>> don't have the EDK from Xilinx.  Here are my questions:
>>
>>
>> How can program the PowerPC without buying EDK?
>>
> short answer: you can not
> long answer: you can if write your own minimal replacement fo EDK
>
>> As I know the compiler and linker is free (part of GNU) where can I get 
>> them  for free?
>>
> ppc gcc can be obtained but it want help you much, see above
>
>> How can I download the compiled program to PowerPC?
>>
> over JTAG or buy preloading BRAMs
>
>> How can I get the output? For example if I write a hello world type of 
>> program, can I see the STDIO on screen?
>>
>>
> use EDK or add your peripherals and re-implemented all the funtionality 
> provide by EDK
>
>> Any help is much appreciated.
>>
>
> doing it wihtout EDK costs you WAY more than than obtaining EDK, it could 
> be done, but the time needed for that just isnt worht doing it
>
> sorry, but Xilinx REALLY REALLY doesnt want anyone to work on the Virtex 
> PPC without using EDK, it is doable (without EDK) but it really isnt worht 
> trying
>
> Antti
>
> 

"ma" <ma@nowhere.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:X0Cvf.86397$PD2.74779@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Thanks.
> Can I program it without using JTAG possibly over PCI bus? I am ready to 
> write appropriate driver if I know where can I get the documentation for 
> writing such driver.

you can "load" the program by any means you wish - as logn as you have 
written your own bootstrap loader.
this can be of PCI bus also.

but that is not your problem, without EDK you wast WAY too much time and 
most likely end up with nothing anyway - there is nothing to 'program' as 
long as you dont have the proper system bus structure and peripheral IP 
cores in place, and even as it is possible to be done without using EDK, it 
doesnt make sense.


Antti

"ma" <ma@nowhere.com> writes:

> Where can I find information about writing a driver for downloading
> program to PowerPC

It depends. You have to get the code into memory somehow, either BRAM,
SDRAM, FLASH, etc. that you have on your board. How you do that
depends on the IO interface you have on your board, JTAG, USB, PCI,
RS-232, etc.

> redirecting its STDIO to a window in PC?

That also depends on the IO interface you have on your board. If you
have a serial-port you can print to the serial-port and get the output
to a window on your PC using kermit or whatever serial program you
prefer.

Petter

-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

That make sense.
My idea is that I buy EDK and then develop my driver to download and use the 
processor without JTAG by writing my own driver for PCI. My main aim is to 
learn in the cheapest way!
Where can I find information about writing a driver for downloading program 
to PowerPC and also redirecting its STDIO to a window in PC?

Best regards and thanks for your kind help.

"Antti Lukats" <antti@openchip.org> wrote in message 
news:dpmqni$db0$1@online.de...
> "ma" <ma@nowhere.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
> news:X0Cvf.86397$PD2.74779@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> Thanks.
>> Can I program it without using JTAG possibly over PCI bus? I am ready to 
>> write appropriate driver if I know where can I get the documentation for 
>> writing such driver.
>
> you can "load" the program by any means you wish - as logn as you have 
> written your own bootstrap loader.
> this can be of PCI bus also.
>
> but that is not your problem, without EDK you wast WAY too much time and 
> most likely end up with nothing anyway - there is nothing to 'program' as 
> long as you dont have the proper system bus structure and peripheral IP 
> cores in place, and even as it is possible to be done without using EDK, 
> it doesnt make sense.
>
>
> Antti
>
>
> 

Thanks
I think I understood what I should do to download the program into PowerPC 
at least in theory :)
But I couldn't understand what how can use PCI bus for getting STDIO out of 
board? assume that I have the following code in my PowerPC program:

main()
{
    printf("hello world\n");
}

what is the path from PowerPC to a window on PC? assuming I know how to 
communicate between FPGA board and PC.

Best regards



"Petter Gustad" <newsmailcomp6@gustad.com> wrote in message 
news:87wthd0x8m.fsf@parish.home.gustad.com...
> "ma" <ma@nowhere.com> writes:
>
>> Where can I find information about writing a driver for downloading
>> program to PowerPC
>
> It depends. You have to get the code into memory somehow, either BRAM,
> SDRAM, FLASH, etc. that you have on your board. How you do that
> depends on the IO interface you have on your board, JTAG, USB, PCI,
> RS-232, etc.
>
>> redirecting its STDIO to a window in PC?
>
> That also depends on the IO interface you have on your board. If you
> have a serial-port you can print to the serial-port and get the output
> to a window on your PC using kermit or whatever serial program you
> prefer.
>
> Petter
>
> -- 
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail? 

On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 00:06:09 GMT, "ma" <ma@nowhere.com> wrote:

>Thanks
>I think I understood what I should do to download the program into PowerPC 
>at least in theory :)
>But I couldn't understand what how can use PCI bus for getting STDIO out of 
>board? assume that I have the following code in my PowerPC program:
>
>main()
>{
>    printf("hello world\n");
>}
>
>what is the path from PowerPC to a window on PC? assuming I know how to 
>communicate between FPGA board and PC.

Telling you the path is the easy part. You need to (re-)implement the
printf library function and instead of writing to a file (number 1
IIRC) you write the data to a memory buffer and generate an interrupt
to the PCI bus. Your driver running on the PC, having received the
interrupt, would read the data from the same buffer. It is no
different than a network card receiving a packet from the network
actually. How would you write a device driver which dumps all the
packets to screen ? It's the same only the data doesn't come from the
wire but from your printf implementation. You can structure your pc
device driver/hardware communication stack similarly.

On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 21:22:51 GMT, "ma" <ma@nowhere.com> wrote in
comp.dsp:

> Hello,
> 
> I have a Veritex-4 PCI board and I like to program the PowerPC on it. I 
> don't have the EDK from Xilinx.  Here are my questions:
> 
> 
> 
> How can program the PowerPC without buying EDK?
> 
> As I know the compiler and linker is free (part of GNU) where can I get them 
> for free?
> 
> How can I download the compiled program to PowerPC?
> 
> How can I get the output? For example if I write a hello world type of 
> program, can I see the STDIO on screen?
> 
> 
> 
> Any help is much appreciated.
> 
> 
> 
> Best regards

Your program is not just programming the PowerPC core(s).  The
processors are hard core, but they have no connection at all to the
outside world.  You have to configure the FPGA to provide some
internally memory, and for a program of any size, to act as a memory
controller to more memory off the chip.

Virtix provides IP for all of this, and all of this must be done
before the PowerPC can even fetch its first instruction.

-- 
Jack Klein
Home: http://JK-Technology.Com
FAQs for
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alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~ajo/docs/FAQ-acllc.html

>> How can I download the compiled program to PowerPC?
>>
>over JTAG or buy preloading BRAMs

Are they cheaper than the EDK?

Are they available through the Xilinx online store?

:)  (good one)

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