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FPGA_USB Board, DipTrace, and Mono

FPGA_USB Board and DipTrace:

I have been using a program called DipTrace to do the schematics and board layout for the FPGA_USB board. After completing my first PCB layout with DipTrace I am very impressed with this program. Questions to the developers are answered very quickly. It has a very intuitive user interface and small learning curve. I had to create a few patterns for smt components that were not in the supplied libraries - the pattern editor is very easy to use. I highly recommend this software if you are looking for a powerful, yet low cost schematic entry/PCB design program. You can download a 30 day evaluation at http://www.diptrace.com

The FPGA_USB board design is now complete. I have ordered the parts for the prototype boards and will soon send the design files to the board house to have the PCBs made. I will post more details about the project soon.

Mono:

I have been doing a little work with Mono (http://www.mono-project.com) on both Windows and Linux. It is very impressive to be able to write a C# program with a GTK# GUI and have it run in Windows and Linux without having to recompile. I am considering recompiling SharpDSP to use Mono and then evaluating the performance of SharpDSP running in Linux. I am using Mono 1.1.8.3 with Suse 9.3

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