dppeeper

DISCLAIMER

Any use of this project is under your own responsibility.

Please, do not come to me asking for hand-holding using or building this: my time is limited.

Introduction

This is a tool to interface your computer with the DuPAL V3 ("dupico") board and visually analyze the behaviour of a PLD IC.

It takes a description of the PLD to interface with in TOML format and shows the current state of the pins on a graphical interface.

Command line

usage: dppeeper [-h] [-v] [--version] -d definition file [--skip_note] [--check_hiz]
                [--skip_hiz pin_to_skip [pin_to_skip ...]]
                {sim,dupico} ...

A tool for interactive analysis of PLDs

positional arguments:
  {sim,dupico}          supported subcommands
    sim                 Read data from a recorded file
    dupico              Read data the dupico board

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -d definition file, --definition definition file
                        Path to the file containing the definition of the IC to be read
  --skip_note           If present, skip printing adapter notes and associated delays

  --check_hiz           Check if output pins are Hi-Z or not.
  --skip_hiz pin_to_skip [pin_to_skip ...]
                        List of output pins for which the Hi-Z check is skipped

This tool supports two commands:

• sim: currently not implemented, but will be used to simulate the connection to a board using a dump of the states of a PLD
• dupico: connects directly to the dupico to analyze a PLD

PLD definition format

The PLD definitions must be provided in TOML format and are structured as follows:

Files sections

Root Section

• name: A string containing the name for this PLD

Pinout section [pinout]

• pins_per_side: array of integers that define both the number of sides for the IC (length of the array, 1, 2 or 4 are supported), and the number of pins per side
• ZIF_map: array of integers, with one entry for each pin of the IC, describing how the pins are mapped to the ZIF42 of the dupico. If a pin is mapped to 21, it corresponds to a GND, to 42, it corresponds to a generic power supply.
• clk_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can be used as clock inputs.
• in_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can be used as inputs.
• io_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can be used as i/o pins.
• o_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD are used as output pins.
• f_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can act as an internal feedback. This information is not used by dppeeper.
• hiz_o_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD that are normally outputs or i/o, but that can go Hi-Z and must be checked.
• q_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can act as a registered output.
• oe_l_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can act a active-low output enables
• oe_h_pins: array of integers that indicates which pins of the PLD can act a active-high output enables

Adapter section [adapter]

This section contains configuration for adapters plugged in the ZIF socket, that may use additional pins to toggle some functionality.

• hi_pins: array of integers that will specify a list of pins to keep pulled high when the adapter gets powered up, and keep in this state all the time until power down
• notes: Human readable string with notes regarding the adapter. Might be used to print messages to the user in the future.

Requirements section [requirements]

To future proof for future hardware revisions, this section specifies which version of the adapter is necessary to read the defined IC. For now, only one field is supported.

• hardware: integer specifying the model number that the dpdumper will check before trying to read anything. Currently it's 3.