Judy - On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 12:24:52PM -0700, Judy Tuan via sudo-discuss wrote: Thanks for jumping in and suggesting something concrete! I bet that's what we need. Right. I'm not sure how much clock-time any of this will take, but I have a pretty clear plan for about three lessons, and the TTL protoboard step is the first. When David and I went through it, it took some extra time because we were still scrounging for parts. We probably took two hours, and I left him with an extra-credit homework puzzle. I think we have the parts. I do more traveling now that I'm retired. I plan to be out-of-town for that whole week, roughly Apr 27 - May 4. In general I can be available almost any day/time of the week. So, how about Thursday May 7? Moving the time away from the high-commotion Tue and Wed evenings seems like a good plan, assuming the interested people can make it. - Larry

May 7 sounds good. Any preliminary reading or concepts we should look into? ~Arik -------- Original Message -------- On Wednesday, 04/15/26 at 13:38 Judy Tuan via sudo-discuss <sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org> wrote:

Hello Larry! I am excited for class on May 7, thank you so much for putting it together! Reading about the pico2-ice, lots of capability - https://pico2-ice.tinyvision.ai/index.html. Advance question is that it's interesting that this one doesn't have a JTAG so it's all serial/FTDI to configure the FPGA? - I will check out the tools to see if there is a neat workflow with a VM or homebrew which would give a few more options. Thanks! -Angela On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 5:01 PM Larry Doolittle via sudo-discuss < sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org&gt; wrote:

FPGA gathering planned this Thursday, May 7. We didn’t settle on a time I think, if I’m mistaken please let me know; otherwise I propose 19:00 (7 PM). Also, I have another very interested and well suited party who would join. ~Arik -------- Original Message -------- On Thursday, 04/16/26 at 10:05 Larry Doolittle via sudo-discuss &lt;sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org&gt; wrote: Angela - On Thu, Apr 16, 2026 at 12:16:48AM -0700, Angela wrote: Everything goes through the rp2350, and yes it uses the SPI programming port of the iCE40 chip. No additional hardware is needed. The usual way is to run micropython on the rp2350 (flash once, the usual Pi-Pico way), and then all the actions (like programming a bitfile) use short (10-line) python programs. Encapsulation of some form is often a good thing. I personally use chroot. Once you're within that environment, the toolchain setup (at least in Debian/Ubuntu) is apt-get install -y make python3 yosys nextpnr-ice40 fpga-icestorm micropython-mpremote The bitfile-build step should then be hassle-free. Getting mpremote to talk over USB could have some complications. In my chroot case, I resort to doing that step natively. - Larry _______________________________________________ sudo-discuss mailing list -- sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org To unsubscribe send an email to sudo-discuss-leave(a)sudoroom.org More options at https://sudoroom.org/lists/postorius/lists/sudo-discuss.sudoroom.org/

See yall tonight for the "dry run" of the FPGA class 7pm-9pm! We will refine and repeat this class later (and the enthusiastic early adopters can be the TAs!) so don't worry if you're interested but cannot make it tonight. Larry, I'll find out soon, but in case you see this soon, what materials will we need for tonight? Will we have it all at sudoroom? Should I bring my new cool (er, hot?) soldering iron? Thanks!!! ~judyyyyyy On Tue, May 5, 2026 at 14:58 Larry Doolittle via sudo-discuss < sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org&gt; wrote:

Jake - On Thu, May 14, 2026 at 02:10:25PM -0700, Jake Watters wrote: Thanks! I guess the level of chaos was on-brand for sudo room. :-) That's part of it. Even more basic, that logic (which is informally used in English and daily life) has a formal mathematical definition. Then, that mathematical definition can be translated to hardware 1s and 0s (high and low voltages). _You_ (dear reader) can physically wire the devices to make that hardware do what you want. Meh. Sort of. Gates in the FPGA are more general than just NAND. The analogy is there. We can stagger the exercises, and get some people started on the actual FPGA next time. I think many of the folks who made it to the room last Thursday could use more time with the TTL chips. I also know several interested people couldn't make it that time. Attached is a draft hand-out that might help some. Arik suggested to me on Tuesday that the NAND discussion could use a gentler introduction. Yes, I have three of the pico2-ice boards. https://pico2-ice.tinyvision.ai/ Well, two of are loaned out to Maddy and David. And two still need a Pmod connector soldered on. We need to pick a day when people (and those boards) can make it. I have some travel coming up, as is normal for me. I could be there next Tuesday or maybe Sunday. Next chance would be Thursday May 28. Debian Trixie: apt-get install -y make python3 yosys nextpnr-ice40 fpga-icestorm micropython-mpremote That should also work on recent Ubuntu, but I haven't confirmed. I hope Arch and other Linux distros have equivalent packages by now. I guess I should write up some kind of flier -- at least a first draft -- to cover the next steps, right? Actually writing Verilog to do something interesting would take time and creativity. Better would be to find an existing project and adapt it to this hardware. I bet this would be a good start: https://www.fpga4fun.com/VGA.html I've adapted the Music Box material on that site; the VGA shouldn't be any harder. Our board has a 24 MHz clock, and his has a 25 MHz clock. As he says, that's probably just fine. Our FPGA is significantly slower than his (less likely to "make timing" at high clock rates), but at 24 MHz it's probably OK. - Larry