Ever need to play with an FPGA, however don’t have the {hardware}? Now, in case you have a type of ever-abundant Pi Picos, you’ll be able to get started taking part in with Verilog with out getting an FPGA board. The FakePGA mission by way of [tvlad1234], in keeping with the Verilator toolkit, gives you a method to assemble Verilog into C++ for the RP2040. FakePGA even integrates RP2040 GPIOs in order that they paintings as virtual pins for the simulated GPIOs, making it an important step up from computer-aided FPGA code simulation
[tvlad1234] supplies directions for surroundings this up with Linux – Home windows, regardless that untested, may just theoretically run this thru WSL. Most clock pace is 5KHz – no longer a lot, however means higher than no longer having any {hardware} to check with. The entirety you’d need is within the GitHub repo – setup directions, Verilog code necessities, and a couple of configuration caveats to bear in mind.
We duvet numerous tasks the place FPGAs are used to emulate {hardware} of more than a few sorts, from ISA playing cards to a complete Recreation Boy. CPU emulation on FPGAs is mainly the norm — it’s simply one thing simple to do with the type of energy that an FPGA supplies. Having emulation in the other way is atypical, regardless that, we’ve observed FPGAs being emulated with FPGAs, so most likely it used to be inevitable finally. In fact, in case you have neither a Pico nor an FPGA, there’s all the time browser primarily based emulators.
We thank [Randy Glenn] for sharing this with us!
