FPGA and LEGO Mindstroms

It sounds neat, but to be fair, FPGA bots have been pretty easy to build
for a while -- look up the BotBall "XBC" controller.

Cheers,
- Joe

ok, I'm quite new to the robots scene. I regret about this statement ;-)
Do you have some links to FPGA/Mindstorms projects.

My intention was to get a Mindstorms interface for my Java processor
to give students a chance to learn some Java real-time programming.

Cheers,
Martin

Hi

That sounds like fun!

I remember seeing that FPGA XBC controller some years ago, and wondered
"How can I design and build such an FPGA?", because the cost to buy such
a controller is prohibitive.

And recently I have been surfing the Web looking for info on FPGAs.

www.fpga4fun.com

There are some cheap little Altera & Xilinx programming hardware around:

www.knjn.com

If someone can throw some leads my way about designing such an FPGA for
a robot that would be great, as I bought an old game Boy Colour that I
would like to hack, similar to the XBC. Or building a stand-alone FPGA
robot system.

It would be cool to build something like that for a digital design
course at technical college.

Cheers

:-]

Dale



Martin Schoeberl wrote:

Hi again

This looks very interesting, I took a quick peek. And will check it out
later in detail.

However, were you aware that a Java Virtual Machine has been available
for the RCX for several years?

Alternative operating systems have been around for years.

There are books available on the subject. And resources on the WWW.

Also, it is possible to program efficiently in C. Once again books are
available.

Can also be programmed in Visual BASIC, Forth, etc...

Why waste a perfectly good 16-bit processor, the Hitachi H8?

Doesn't make sense to me to re-invent the wheel, when there have been
alternatives for years.

I am not knocking the FPGA development, in fact it looks cool, I just
was curious if you were aware of many alternatives to the native RCX
programming system that make use of the 16-bit Hitachi CPU?

Cheers

:-]

Dale Stewart



Martin Schoeberl wrote:

RCX for several years?

Yes, I know. I've played with it and also used it to compare
it with JOP. And JOP is way faster ;-)
http://www.jopdesign.com/perf.jsp


You're right the RCX / Hitachi is a nice HW. However, FPGAs
are more fun. You can add your custom HW inside just
with programming.


curious if you were aware of many alternatives to the

Agree, but for me building the electronic myself is more fun.

Cheers,
Martin

Hi

I took a look at the prices to buy the boards. To land it in Australia
with shipping and duties would probably be around AUD $600 or more!

That's enough to buy 2 new Lego Mindstorms NXT, with change to buy the
soon-to be released books on hacking the NXT, including using a new
implementation of Java. $200 US.

Or I could maybe get 3 sets of Mindstorms 1.0 to 2.0.

Or around 10 RCX bricks! ebay $54.99 US

To me it just doen't make sense to buy all the boards manufactured would
be ludicrous. :-[

However, maybe using a cheaper FPGA board from elsewhere and prototyping
using a breadboard or designing and rolling your own through-hole or
larger SMDs could be feasible.

Any ideas?

Cheers

:-]

Dale Stewart







Martin Schoeberl wrote:

shipping and duties would probably be around AUD $600

not cheap, right.


a breadboard or designing and rolling your own

The interface board is open-source. So you can build it yourself.
And there exists an open-source FPGA board that fits to the LEGO
interface at:
http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/acxbrd/overview
That one is a little harder to solder, but it's possible.

Cheers,
Martin

Hi Martin

Thanks for the extra information. I am sure it will prove useful and fun
when others and myself eventually start using FPGAs. It is great you
have shared this open-source information and given people the
opportunity to build this type of hardware and learn more about
programming, computer architecture, and FPFAs.

Also, if I study computer science at university, it will definitely be
an advantage to learn about java programming (the fun way) and FPGAs and
processors.

Cheers

:-]

Dale

You should see how cheaply you can get the XBC -- it's about $300, IIRC,
plus maybe $50 for a GameBoy (which I'm sure you can get locally).

Note that I haven't actually used the XBC, but I've been impressed by
what I've seen of it.

Best,
- Joe

Thanks Joe

Yes the XBC is a great piece of technology. I drooled over it, but it is
out of my budget. I picked up a gameBoy Colour and two games for AUD $25
a while ago for some other project.

A problem has been to find a programmer for the replacement ROM.

Anyways I have just picked up  a Digilent Starter's board for USD $74 on
eBay today.

My aim is to eventually be able to build something similar to the XBC,
or a stand-alone controller, as from what I believe the Xilinx chip on
the demo board I am purchasing can have a range of microcontroller and
microprocessor cores.

For example, there is the PicoBlaze Xilinx 8-bit core and there is a
free C-compiler, and an Assembler that could be used with that.

When I get to that stage, I might release it as open-source, or maybe
write a book - that would be a fun topic.

First I have to learn how to build simple logic components like a NAND
gate, as the XBC is way out of my league at this stage!!!

Cheers

:-]

Dale

Joe Strout wrote:

stand-alone controller, as from what I believe the

microcontroller and microprocessor cores.

C-compiler, and an Assembler that could be used with

You could also use the Java processor JOP [1] on this board. Then you
can do your programming in Java. A JOP version for the Xilinx
Starter Kit is available.

BTW. that was the initial intention: get a LEGO interface for
JOP to demonstrate JOP's real-time capabilities on a robot.

cheers,
Martin

[1] http://www.jopdesign.com/