Alternative to USB to JTAG cable for Spartan 3 kit

[bjerkely]

Hello guys,

I have a Spartan 3 Starter Kit which comes with parallel to JTAG programming cable; however i don't have a parallel port on my laptop. First, I thought a USB to JTAG cable would do my work but it costs 37$, plus shipping 77$ ; well the starter kit was 100$, I can't afford it.

How can i solve this problem?

Thanx in advance...

 

[banjo]

usb to jtag cable

Well, from my experience, I can tell you what will NOT work. Do not bother with the USB to parallel port adapters. I bought one claiming to fully emulate the parallel port. This was not true. Most software is trying to interface to the parallel port with direct reads and writes to the parallel port addresses. When using the USB to parallel port devices, these addresses to not exist.

Two solutions come to mind. First, is the USB to JTAG box. Second, is to just use an older PC with a parallel port. At work, I have run the Xilinx programming software, IMPACT, on machines back as far as WIN98. If the OS is before WIN2K, you may have to get an older version of IMPACT from Xilinx. However, it should work.

 

[hcet]

jtag cable usb

bjerkely,
you may try this one. I haven't yet.

**broken link removed**

There is also a FAQ:

**broken link removed**

ep20k