EECE259 Project Ideas

A few project ideas are given below. You will have to work out the details.

You are encouraged to think of your own unique project!

Status Report on Tested Hardware Features

The following features of your DE1 are enabled. Testing status is below.

VGA 320x240 pixels, 16bit colour (tested; DE1 colours limited to ~12 bits)
VGA 40x30 characters, printed white (tested)
JTAG serial port to Terminal window in Altera Monitor Program (tested)
All LEDs, 7SEG, switches, KEYs (tested)
Audio in/out (tested)
PS2 mouse/kb port (mouse and kb tested)
General-purpose I/O connectors (not tested)
RS232 serial port (not tested)

DE2-specific extras

extra LEDs, switches (tested)
extra 7SEG (not tested)
LCD 16x2 display (not tested)

Unavailable features

SD-card interface
4MB Flash memory
DE2: IrDA infrared port
DE2: Video in
DE2: Ethernet
DE2: Host/Device USB

Accessory boards (check with instructor for all boards):

1.3Mpixel digicam details
ADC and DAC chip details
stepper motor driver details
infrared keyboard receiver (includes keyboard) details
LED array (21 x 8 LEDs) details
traffic light controller details
Note: the SLS accessories above use the e-gasket adapter

Standalone Project Suggestions

Stopwatch (note: should be full-featured)
Reaction timer
Sound effects generator
Mastermind game
LED or 7SEG-display video game
Music jukebox (note: more features than your assignment!)
Morse code assistant
Voice mailbox
Mimic the user interface for a VCR, microwave oven
Vending machine (hopefully, it gives change!)

Projects requiring other hardware (eg, VGA screen, or two DE1 boards, ...)

Note: for VGA output, please buy a VGA cable ($5-$10) from your favourite computer store to connect DE1 to the lab monitors
VGA action game: Tron, Snake/Caterpillar, Pong, Breakout, Space Invaders, Joust, Defender, ...
VGA strategy game: tetris, tic-tac-toe, sudoku (DE2), connect-4, checkers, othello, ...
VGA Etch-a-Sketch / Pixel Paint
RS232 port: talk to modem or computer to read data
Chat intercom (two DE boards with headphone and mics, connect boards via GPIO)
Instant messaging chat (two DE boards connected via RS232, typing in JTAG Terminal)
PS2 port: mouse or keyboard
Joystick
Sensors (eg, light, temperature, pressure)
Actuators (eg, valves, motors, ...)

Hardware notes

You can connect things to the VGA, PS2, RS232, GPIO0 and GPIO1 connectors.

The GPIO connectors use commonly-found ribbon cables for ATA/IDE hard disks and CDROMs. WARNING: some ATA/IDE ribbon cables have plugged one hole in their connectors. These prevents you from plugging the cable backwards in your computer. DO NOT USE one of these "plugged" cables or you will damage your DE1. Instead, get a different cable.

VGA is currently limited to 320x240 pixels in graphics mode. Each pixel is assigned a 16-bit colour: 5 bits control the intensity of red and blue, while 6 bits control green (see makeColour() in 259library.c). In theory, there are 65536 possible colours. However, in practise, the DE1 board cannot display all of these shades of red, green, or blue (I think only the most-significant 4 bits will change the colour). The VGA subsystem for DE2 operates similarly to the DE1. However, it can display more colours because it is different at the hardware level (it uses a DAC rather than a resistor ladder for VGA output)..

RS232 is configured as 38400 baud, 8-N-1 (untested)

Note be careful playing with hardware. You can easily cause electrical damage to your DE1 board and render it useless. If you are going to drive any motors, consider using optocouplers.

Note your DE1 actually has the capability of 640 x 480 resolution for the VGA output (or even higher for DE2). However, that resolution isn't enabled for this course because of limitations with the current Altera libraries. (You can access higher resolutions only if you design the logic gates yourself in VHDL or Verilog!)