Re: Xilinx legacy situation

Tim Forcer wrote:
> Peter Alfke top-posted:
>>
>> Tim, you have to get over the idea of still
>> getting something from your old chip investment.
>> Xilinx FPGAs have become 100 times (!) cheaper,
>> have added functionality and better software
>> support since the days when you bought the
>> XC4013s.
>
> It's not the chip investment that's the *big* hangup, but the
> equipment investment.  The chips were chosen deliberately in
> pin-grid-array package so we could replace as and when we wanted
> - including when/if they got blown up by misuse.  Throw-away ICs
> we can live with - even at the price of PGA 4013s.  Throw-away
> experimental units is another ball game.

I suspect your best compromise may be to select the latest
and greatest - in Xilinx' case, this is currently Spartan-3
- and have a tiny daughter board built with FPGA, regulator
and protection/interface chips.

Of course you would still have to address the issue of
updating all the course material, as Jonathan discussed
a month or so ago.

And you would have to repeat the exercise every five years
or so.