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DE1 User Manual
10
Chapter 3
DE1 Control Panel
The DE1 board comes with a Control Panel facility that allows a user to access various components
on the board through a USB connection from a host computer. This chapter first presents some
basic functions of the Control Panel, then describes its structure in block diagram form, and finally
describes its capabilities.
3.1
Control Panel Setup
To run the Control Panel application, it is first necessary to configure a corresponding circuit in the
Cyclone II FPGA. This is done by downloading the configuration file
DE1_USB_API.sof
into the
FPGA. The downloading procedure is described in Section 4.1.
In addition to the
DE1_USB_API.sof
file, it is necessary to execute on the host computer the
program DE1_control_panel.exe. Both of these files are available on the DE1 System CD-ROM
that accompanies the DE1 board, in the directory
DE1_control_panel
. Of course, these files may
already have been installed to some other location on your computer system.
To activate the Control Panel, perform the following steps:
1.
Connect the supplied USB cable to the USB Blaster port, connect the 9V power supply,
and turn the power switch ON
2.
Set the RUN/PROG switch to the RUN position
3.
Start the Quartus II software
4.
Select Tools > Programmer to reach the window in Figure 3.1. Click on Add File and in
the pop-up window that appears select the DE1_USB_API.sof file. Next, click on the
Program/Configure box which results in the image displayed in the figure. Now, click
Start to download the configuration file into the FPGA.
5.
Start the executable DE1_control_panel.exe on the host computer. The Control Panel user
interface shown in Figure 3.2 will appear.
6.
Open the USB port by clicking Open > Open USB Port 0. The DE1 Control Panel
application will list all the USB ports that connect to DE1 boards. The DE1 Control Panel
can control up to 4 DE1 boards using the USB links.
The Control Panel will occupy the
USB port until you close that port; you cannot use Quartus II to download a configuration
file into the FPGA until you close the USB port.