Building a 4bit / 8bit computer in CPLD

Something we’ve been working towards is building a homebrew CPU from scratch in CPLD. If you’ve seen any of our “Getting Started with CPLDs” guide, you might have noticed that we’re working towards completing the ALU before we can start adding proper CPU features to it. This article is less about the CPLD side of … Read more

Getting Started with CPLDs – Part 4

In this guide, we’re going to build up from the previous guide and add a button to our LED. Hopefully by now you’ve had a play with the Quartus II software and had a look through some of the logic elements in the library so I wont be explaining everything in minute detail. You should … Read more

Getting started with CLPDs – Part 3

Before we get stuck in to the build, we need to take a look at resistor values. An LED will suck as much current from the CPLD chip as it can but what if your CPLD can only supply so much? The most likely result will be a dead pin on the chip. We don’t … Read more

Getting Started With CPLDs – Part 2

Ok so you’ve got your Quartus II software installed and you’re ready to start programming. I should note at this point that I will only be covering the schematic entry method of programming your CPLD. I will not be covering Verilog or VHDL in this guide. Let’s start by running Quartus II and taking a … Read more

Getting Started with CPLDs – Part 1

Here at the Hackshed, we’ve recently purchased a CPLD board based around the Altera Max II EPM240 chip. The board we ordered is a cheap LC Tech product from Ali Express. On reflection, perhaps we should have ordered a better board from a well known company as our board came with no documentation of any … Read more