Two days before I got my CPLD (complex programmable logic device). Here are some snap shots of my CPLD XC9536.

The main problem is that there is not much support for programming these CPLD xc9536 using free software. There are tools available for programming this cpld. But all of them are for Windows platform.

But there is a small hope. The xilinx website is giving a software named ISE WebPACK Design Software. It’s linux version us available for download.

I have to start hacking the CPLD soon. I have designed the PCB for the JTAG Parallel Cable programmer using PCB.

I would like to say special thanks to Omkar Kulkarni for helping me a lot. He has written a very good tutorial for programming this xc9536 CPlD. check this link   http://elecrom.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/getting-started-with-xilinx-xc9536/

Here are some links that might be useful.

• Programmer circuit  http://www.xilinx.com/itp/xilinx4/data/docs/pac/appendixb.html
• http://ad7gd.net/xc9536/
• http://www.piclist.com/images/www/hobby_elec/e_cpld2_2.htm
• http://freeandeasy.sourceforge.net/pcb.php
• http://www.xilinx.com/itp/data/alliance/hug/hug.htm
• http://www.fpga4fun.com/index.html

Wanna get some cool training on Free software topics like How to do free software projects, Tutorials to use GIT , RPM Packing ? Then come to the online IRC summer training from Linux User Group of Durgapur (http://dgplug.org)

Entry is free. Just log on to the IRC of DGPLUG

#dgplug on irc.freenode.net

You can find more details on

http://wiki.dgplug.org/index.php/SummerTraining

All these training of this year are done by Shakthi Kannan (mbuf).

Time Table of these training are in the Summer Training page.

Just go through the class logs of the classes conducted last year and find out how effective it is.

Try to come for the IRC chat according to the time table given. I am sure it will help a lot.

Special thanks to dgplug for conducting these kind of online classes.

In a pursuit of fabricating pcb’s, I have won. I had designed pcb’s boards using PCB. But when I tried to fabricate the pcb in my home, I used to fail. the problem was with the Acrobat Reader  . When I take the print out on the paper for layout transfer to the board, a size change occurs to the layout. This size change make the layout completely useless. Actually it was the wrong option selected in Acrobat Reader that made the size change.Now it is OK.

This is development board designed by me for the ATmega8 microcontroller. It is a miniature ARDUINO.  You can burn your bootloader and then use with Arduino IDE or you can simply upload your hex file using DAPA programmer circuit. If anyone needs its schematic file please post an comment or I will soon upload it when I am free.

Anyway this is an open hardware project. I will try to upload the details soon. If you are in a hurry, please comment so that I can upload the details fast.

Here is the PCB layout files http://jeffrey.co.in/files/mini-AVR.pcb

These are the two snap shots of my board

PCB is one of the free softwares for designing PCB‘s. But one of the major disadvantage is that, it lacks documentation. Here is a tutorial by DJ Delorie. This tutorial explains about designing a PCB using ordinary and SMD components. But still some parts are under construction. You can read the tutorial from this link

http://www.delorie.com/pcb/docs/gs/gs.htm

I am a B-Tech student in University of Calicut, Kerala, India.  The lab syllabus of final year electronics engineering contains “Experiments Using Matlab” which are a set of three experiments to be done using Matlab.  In our college we are using Matlab.  Since proprietary softwares like Matlab are not recommended in universities (see this Why schools should exclusively use free software),  it is goodto use free software Octave.  As I am a free software enthusiast,  I love using octave instead of Matlab.

If I ask the lab staff to use Octave in the college lab, they will ask me “Will all programs work in  Octave?”. Actually they are not happy to accept Octave because it is not mentioned in syllabus. Is it compulsory that students should learn only what is in the syllabus? The other true fact is that, at the end of semester there will be a lab exam. The teachers coming from other college won’t be familiar with Octave. So when they see Octave, they will surely ask to install Matlab.

One of the method to bring free software in B-Tech course (not only in  B-Tech, but also in other courses) is to have a syllabus review. Thereby all will start using free software. If the syllabus changes there should be reference materials for these free software tools. The first thing everyone does if he/she doesn’t know about something is that he/she will Google it. So I thought of contributing once again to free software by writing some tutorials for Octave that can be helpful for implementing free software like Octave in universities.

These all led me to write this tutorial. This tutorial is about installing Octave and also contains some examples using Octave. I have tried to write the tutorial in a simple and lucid way. Hope this tutorial can guide university to use octave in their labs instead of Matlab.

The tutorial here explains the simple example code that can be used for  teaching Octave. This tutorial is specifically designed for University of  Calicut in India. But I hope the syllabus will be almost same in other  universities also.

**The tutorial is in my Wiki page. You can visit the tutorial from the link below

Experiments using Octave for B-Tech course{.wikilink1}**