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The Logic Engine consists of the Logic Engine Board and a set of software tools providing an interface to the board. This manual describes the use of the software tools. A description of the Logic Engine Board can be found in the Logic Engine Board Technical Reference Manual.
The Logic Engine Tool Set consists of four software tools, a library of routines which allow for the development of custom tools and an environment in which to run them. We have found this set of tools to be extremely useful in our senior level digital design course. Some of these tools were designed with the course explicitly in mind, while others were designed as general purpose tools. Below is a brief description of each tool:
LE Panel: The LE Panel tool is used to display information from the LE board on the PC screen and to send information from the PC keyboard to the LE board. It is in effect a virtual display which serves the same purpose as the lights, switches, and push buttons on the LE board, but which offers a more powerful interface. Signals wired to the lights, switches and push buttons of the LE board can be grouped and displayed in a number of formats. Signals wired from the switches and push buttons can be controlled from the PC.
LE Asmb: The LE Asmb Tool is a microcode development system. It consists of a text editor, microcode assembler, downloader, and debugger, all in a unified environment. Features include:
ED PLD: The ED PLD Tool is a PLD fuse map editor for use with the PLD burner on the Logic Engine Board. ED PLD also has the capability to read, burn, verify, and test PLDs. ED PLD supports only the PLD20G10 at this time.
LE Term: LE Term is a simple terminal emulator for use with designs that require serial I/O.
LE PI: The LE PI is a library of routines for use with the Microsoft C complier. With this library, users can develop specialized tools for use with their designs.
All the tools, with the exception of the LE PI, were written to run in the DESQview environment. They will not run unless DESQview is installed and running. The DESQview environment offers three major features utilized by the Logic Engine tool set: the ability to switch between applications, a standard way of dealing with windows and fields, and the ability to multitask.
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