From rk219 at msstate.edu  Sun Aug 26 10:34:36 2007
From: rk219 at msstate.edu (Rooban Venkatesh Kulandaivelu Govindarajulu Thirumalai)
Date: Sun Aug 26 13:12:14 2007
Subject: [ece3724] ECE3724,Micro PreLab 1
Message-ID: <7524486b0708260834y2adf76b9q7d98c2e0b02884e3@mail.gmail.com>

Hi All,
          Please make sure you complete Prelab for lab1 before you enter
your lab session.The prelab includes installation of 'Altera Max plus' so
make sure you have installed the software and  setup the license file (open
max plus select options->license setup->browse and select license.dat which
was sent to you through e-mail) . If you have any problems during
installation make sure you turn up early say 10min.
The prelab for the labs are available in the lab manual under prelab
section.(Prelab for lab 1  -
http://www.ece.msstate.edu/courses/ece3724/main/labs/labman_sum2007.pdf ,
Page 10)

Also please make sure you review chapter 2 of your lecture slides, (
http://www.ece.msstate.edu/courses/ece3724/main/lectures/chap2_microintro.pdf)
you will be working on this in the lab.


Rooban Venkatesh
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.ece.msstate.edu/pipermail/ece3724/attachments/20070826/fc6dbaef/attachment-0001.html
From ewt16 at msstate.edu  Tue Aug 28 21:34:57 2007
From: ewt16 at msstate.edu (ewt16@msstate.edu)
Date: Wed Aug 29 08:08:25 2007
Subject: [ece3724] MAXPLUS, Xilinx, and You
Message-ID: <1188354897.46d4db5138c8e@webmail.msstate.edu>

Mico Students (who haven't been to lab yet),

During today's lab sections, we've become aware of a number of complications
with the Altera MAXPLUS and Xilinx tools. Here are a few things to take note of
that should speed up the entire laboratory process:

1. If you have Altera MAXPLUS installed: Make sure your license works! It seems
that some licenses that Altera has sent out do not contain the proper
permissions required to compile the schematics/VHDL associated with Lab 1.
Their system has been pretty messed up as of late and a lot of inconsistencies
have cropped up. If the license file Altera emailed you looks something like
"9120438hsdfas-asdf282348.dat", it probably will not work. If this is the case,
please try to get a copy of Xilinx ISE 9.1 or better.

2. Xilinx, updating and waiting: If you are using an older version of Xilinx ISE
(8.x or so), you will need to upgrade to the latest version. Your first
inclination might be to use their auto-update software. This will not work! For
compatibility reasons, when you update this way, only patches for that version
are applied. ***It will not update to the latest 9.x version of the ISE***. You
will need to download the latest ISE from Xilinx's website, or from the ECE
site (use your ECE login/password for access):
http://www.ece.msstate.edu/courses/ece3724/main/labs/private

The Xilinx software is almost 2 gigs, so please: ***don't wait until lab to try
to download this file!***

3. Using Xilinx: Most of you should be familiar with the Xilinx package
(woefully so, I'm sure!). However, if you are not familiar with the
incongruities, er, methodology of the software, there is a walk-through for
this lab using the Xilinx software. It can be found under the supplementary
files section for Lab 1:
http://www.ece.msstate.edu/courses/ece3724/main/labs/all_files/nsc_xilinx_ise.pdf

4. Read Only Files: Some archive management tools will make the lab files
Read-Only when extracting them. Make sure that this option is disabled for all
the lab files by selecting all the lab files, right clicking, going to
properties, and unchecking the "Ready Only" option if it is activated.

This should help some of you out if you're bashing your heads against the wall
trying to get this software to work before tomorrow! I mean, you guys are doing
your Prelab's before the lab day, right? ;)

--Eric Tramel
Mico I TA: 12:30 - 3:30 Tues
           12:00 - 3:00 Weds
           3:30  - 6:30 Thurs
email: eric.tramel@gmail.com
       ewt16@msstate.edu