Category Dev Tools

Tools and software of interest to electronics hobbyists.

Rigol DS1074Z Oscilloscope Review

Watch this video on YouTube Here’s my long-overdue review of the Rigol DS1074Z four-channel oscilloscope, which I purchased a couple of months ago. At around $550, the DS1074Z occupies a unique place in today’s oscilloscope market between the $300 entry-level scopes,…

Quartus message tabs

Xilinx vs. Altera Tools For Hobbyists

I used to believe that Altera’s FPGA tools were much more hobbyist-friendly than the comparable Xilinx tools, and I frequently bashed the Xilinx tools whenever the topic came up. But after giving them a head-to-head comparison recently, I think I may have…

Understanding Verilog Warnings

Those of you who’ve followed the blog for a while know about my many frustrations with Verilog. Because it feels sort of a like a procedural programming language, but very definitely isn’t one, I keep expecting to be far more…

UrJTAG command window

JTAG, EXTEST, and hair loss

Oof. See that window to the left? That’s the result of 10 hours of debugging effort on bring-up for my custom Tiny CPU board. What you see is UrJTAG connected to the JTAG interface of the Max II CPLD, and successfully…

KiCad and Eagle logos

Eagle vs. KiCad

I spent a little time evaluating Eagle and KiCad, two well-regarded pcb design tools for hobbyists, to see which one would best meet my needs for Tiny CPU’s board design. As a complete beginner who’s never made any kind of…

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